Paintstormstudio.com

Let me start with appreciation how this can be a very good software.
And possibly my main in the future. But right now, it's still lacking.

There is a Goldilocks zone between SAI and CLIP where you get all of functionality, performance, small footprint. And Paintstorm is almost within the zone... almost. While SAI excel in performance and its extremely tiny footprint, it lacks functionality. CLIP on the other hand have superb functionality but horribly bloated and cluttered.

(The two examples are what actually works for me in production flow. Open canvas, Krita, Gimp, and other stuffs are joke. Sure there are people using that but if you start tinker with it too much, it breaks. Which is never a case for SAI.)

Now let's get down to what I want to see in Paintstorm.
(I rather use the bloated CLIP right now because of performance issue. I can only list few things I already tested. I am happy to pay 60 usd for something that got all 3 of the core necessities above. Feature-rich, Fast, Small)

UI

• Remove interface animation / transition
  Or option to disable it, there is no practical use whatsoever and rather distracting.
• A better way to define min / max value of brush
  Not ONE-SLIDER-FIT-ALL. Numeric input is a big help.
• Top menu bar mouse action
  Click once and hover to open other menu like normal Windows explorer or PS and not having to click again to change menu.
• Top menu context visual
  Gradient background... and that corner... really? I don't know that is appealing to the demographic.
• Sharper UI text
  Windows Clear-type text, sub-pixel contrast or whatever that's sharper than it is now.
• Grid snap on custom UI panel
  Who wouldn't love that?

System

• Portable feature
  Option to have all settings file contained within installed folder (with exception to cache). CLIP spray both core files, user preference files all over the system disk. Please don't be like them. SAI1 can be stored on USB drive and carry around, ready to deploy with as low as 2 system files manually replace (in %appdata%).
• Human-readable settings file
  This is not necessary as long as I know what files do exactly what.

Function

• Swap color with transparent
  Available in SAI and CLIP. To use current brush temporary as eraser that works with paint, mask, selection brush.
  I didn't see eraser mode... scratch that.
• Plug-ins for non-essential features
  Not hard-coded something in but put it in optional download and ability to enable / disable them to optimize performance.
• Double-tap shortcut
  Those fancy shortcut like detailed simulation or 3d software please :)
• Layer management
  Someone already suggested this.
• Panel resize snapping
  Someone already suggested this.

Performance

• ** A way to cure periodically frame-drop / stutter
  Probably only my machine. I see no unusual spike in resource consumption.
• Clean download
  An optional version that comes with no brush preset, gradient preset, tool preset or anything that user can create on their own. It's tedious to remove what I will never use to organize my workspace.

Considering how slow SAI2 development is (Like 5 years already?), The unorthodox nature of CLIP, and those open-source people acting like their software are so awesome... I rather put my hope in Paintstorm. Right now the only thing I have trouble with is the stuttering that shows up every 30 seconds or so. I want to get it out of the way so I can test everything smoothly. The 30 launches trial will probably run out even before I know what the problem is, so... is there a key for review purpose or something like that??

edit: update a few items

Thank you for suggestions. I've saved several new.
What about main thing - performance, the next release will be with new GPU engine. Also, UI will be changed too (now without start animation )

support wrote:Thank you for suggestions. I've saved several new.
What about main thing - performance, the next release will be with new GPU engine. Also, UI will be changed too (now without start animation )

Great news !!! You ROCK !!

Sounds perfect You guys do a good job, until now every update has made paintstorm more awesome and i can't wait to see what the future brings us. Performance is an important thing to finish now because it will make photoshop useless or not so necessary anymore.