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Synthetik
Studio Artist
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Reviewed by Tim Arends
Studio
Artist is advertised as the first commercial software that knows how to
draw and paint. Take an ordinary image and generate a work of
impressionist art. The
developer of the program, Synthetik Software, calls this “Intelligent-
Assisted Drawing.” Synthetik says the program is “Based on music
synthesis, cognitive neuroscience and visual perception.”
Sounds impressive, but how does it work?
Very
well, I must say. Studio Artist examines a source image or QuickTime
movie, then re-renders it in the style you choose, automatically or
interactively. Studio Artist looks at the original image, then
lays down before your eyes a series of brush strokes that recapture the
essence of the image but give it the look of a painting.
It is
quite fascinating to see Studio Artist paint away at a blank canvas,
filling it in stroke by stroke based on your source photograph, as you
gradually watch the image appear. In this sense, studio artist paints
much like a real person.
In another sense, however, it paints
quite differently from a person. A human tends to concentrate on
one area of a painting at a time, while studio artist paints away at
the entire canvas randomly until the image is filled in (unless you,
the operator, using a mouse or a pressure sensitive pen and tablet,
direct studio artist's strokes.) In this sense, then, there is no
doubt, when you watch studio artist "paint," that you are watching a
machine at work, although a machine that produces highly human-like
compositions.
Unique Software
Keep
in mind that this is not just a filter or a kind of Photoshop plug-in.
Studio Artist actually “paints” an image stroke by stroke; it does not
simply apply some algorithm to the image itself. (Studio artist does
have a mode, called "image operations" that works much more like
traditional filters, but that still offers some unique and stunning
effects that are hard to create In any other software.)
If you
don’t want Studio Artist to paint the whole image, or you want to
decide where the brush strokes will go, you can use your mouse or a
pressure-sensitive pen to trace over the rough outlines of the image.
Studio Artist will fill in the brush strokes where you trace. This
hybrid drawing process combines the speed of the
computer with the judgment of the operator for a doubly-efficient
drawing process.
No matter what your level of skill, Studio
Artist can help assist you in the creative process. If you have little
or no drawing skills Studio Artist can do the drawing and painting for
you. If you like to do all the drawing and painting yourself, you can
use Studio Artist’s paints and drawing tools much as with painting
software like Procreate Painter.
You can interact as much or
as little as you like with Studio Artist. It includes Smart filters
that change depending on image visual attributes, nonlinear
morphological processes, an intelligent image compressor that
automatically dodges and burns for you, and smart interpolators that
autofill empty canvas space by extrapolating existing detail. Okay, I
don’t understand what it means either, but it works!
Options Galore
This is a
big program. There are tons of options here. Unlike other paint
programs with a small number of editable parameters, Studio Artist’s
Paint Synthesizer module has hundreds of editable controls—over 200
standard controls plus over 800 factory presets— so you will never run
out of new looks. What’s more, these controls can be mixed and matched
for thousands of different combinations. In other words, this is one
program you will never finish exploring. As if all this were not
enough, you can download new presets from the Synthetik Software
website or automatically make your own with the Paint Evolution Module.
You
can simulate natural art materials or create your own, totally new
ones— new brush textures, paints and cool effects that evolve under
your control. You can either play with the settings yourself or let the
Paint Evolution module automatically generate new paints for you. This
allows you to morph two complete paint patches, or presets, to randomly
generate, or “evolve,” new patches. This means that the effects you can
create with this program are virtually unlimited.
Studio Artist
allows ample opportunity for the happy accidents that a good computer
graphics program provides.
But Wait, There's More!
Studio
Artist is a “hybrid” program in another way: in addition to combining
the skill of the operator with the speed of the machine, the program
combines the “real world” look of oil, chalk, watercolor or wet paints
that raster (sometimes called “bitmap”) provides with the editability
of vector paths.
If you've ever scaled a bitmap image, such as a
GIF or JPEG file, and gotten the dreaded “jaggies,” or puzzled over
complex scanning calculations in trying to decide on the best
resolution at which to scan an image, you can appreciate vector
artwork. You can scale vector art, such as most clip art, to billboard
size, knowing it will print out just as smoothly as when it was
postage-stamp size.
Drawings and paintings created in Studio
Artist can be edited after the fact using Bezier curves. This gives the
artwork "resolution independence." Paintings can be designed at low
resolution and then re-rendered at higher resolution with added detail.
The
program also offers real-time morphing. What this means is that you can
warp and transform images using a pressure sensitive pen or mouse, and
the transformation effects occur as you drag, rather than your having
to watch a progress bar as the computer completes its work. Plus, you
can create amazing patterns out of your images with interactive
kaleidoscope and symmetry effects.
All image processing
operations have built in compositing, which means that each image
operation is really several effects in one. Iterative or repetitive
operations can also be defined.
As if all this were not enough,
Studio Artist also offers intelligent-assisted auto-rotoscoping and
video effects. Rotoscoping means to generate a hand-painted and/or
processed video sequence.
You've probably seen on TV those stylized
videos that are moving yet look like they were hand-painted. Studio
Artist can achieve this effect by painting or rotoscoping QuickTime
video frame by frame. You simply record a series of paint or image
processing operations on one frame, and then have Studio Artist
automatically generate a hand-painted and/or processed video sequence
on all subsequent frames. The result can then be output as QuickTime
movies. Output movie resolution can be independent of input movie
resolution, which allows low-res footage to be transformed into high
quality (albeit highly stylized) output.
The
best thing about this software? It is MAC ONLY! In fact, many Windows graphic
artists have switched to Mac just so they can use this software.
Studio Artist and Web Marketers
What
can the Mac Web marketer use this program for? How about full-sized
ebook covers? Forget those skimpy little box shots that some people
consider to be a "cover." Why not use the first page of your e-book for
a full-page sized graphic image? The software can also be used for the
cover of real, physical books. Or CD-ROM labels, or web graphics, etc.
etc.
One of the best features of Studio Artist is that it can use
a lower-resolution source image to turn out a high-resolution finished
product. This is because Studio Artist creates a finished image by
laying down brush strokes essentially from scratch. Therefore, the
final artwork can be any resolution you desire. Of course, this does
not work well for text, and you will want to add any text you require
in a separate program.
Outside
of the area of Web marketing, the software's rotoscoping feature can be
put to great use in the creation of music videos. The effects it
produces can truly be a feast for the eyes. In fact, one could create a
nice career using the software for the music industry. The
creation of CD album covers also come immediately to mind. In the area
of rotoscoping, why not use Studio Artist to create promotional
videos for YouTube and other online video sites? Many sites pay you
based on the number of views your videos get. This is an area in which
the technique is not at all overused; in fact, it is a market just
waiting to be tapped.
A Few Caveats
Keep in mind that there is a bit of a learning curve with this program. There are so many options, in fact, that the
interface becomes a bit overwhelming.
Although the interface is not
bad, a bit better organization might help. It is hard to remember what
all the options are, much less what they do. And remembering later how
you got a certain effect can be a nightmare. But perhaps this is simply
a reflection of how powerful the program is.
The best way to learn the software is just to play with it. Fortunately, if you enjoy art, playing with this program is fun!
The
program comes with over three hours of training movies (I wish all
software did). Plus, there is an active community of Studio Artist
users who post on message boards and share their artwork on Synthetik’s
website.
Of course, some
care must be taken in using this program. Since it relies on source
images, the user must be careful in choosing the images used as the
source. “Derivative works” based on copyrighted images are considered
to be a violation of copyright. Therefore, it is a very good idea to
use the program on royalty-free images or photographs you take
yourself. You don’t want to receive a nasty letter from someone who
recognizes his or her photograph in your “painting.”
In addition, the use of Studio Artist does not guarantee good
art. Some truly awful work can be created with this program. The key to
whether the art is good or bad lies with the taste and artistic
sensibility of the operator—and of course, to a degree, in the eye of
the beholder. In any event, artists of all skill levels can use
Intelligent-Assisted drawing to aid in repetitive or complex drawing
tasks.
But is it Art?
But is it really art? This is the question that will inevitably come up whenever a computer is involved.
I
should warn you that some people are openly hostile towards work done
on the computer. They think it is a form of "cheating" or "not really
art." They may even think it is unfair to artists who "do it the hard
way."
Well let's think about this. Most people think of
photography, such as that done by Ansel Adams, as being in the category
of "art." The camera has been around longer than the computer, and
therefore has had more time to gain acceptance as an artistic medium.
So what if you use studio artist only on photographs that you take yourself?
Some people will still not consider this to be art! Some will still be hostile towards it!
The
key to solving this dilemma is to remember that there are two major
categories of art, "fine art" and commercial art. "Fine art" is that
which hangs in galleries and commercial art is that which adorns the
Web, book covers, CD jackets, posters, magazines and so on.
Most
people take no offense at "computer generated" art when it is found on
their book or CD covers. They do not see it as trying to "pass itself
off" as being handpainted. Therefore, no problem!
If you
understand this quirk of human psychology you'll have no trouble using
Studio Artist to create salable material in the vast and potentially
lucrative realm of commercial art, including in the realm of Web
marketing.
But isn't it still true that "the computer does all
the work" and it therefore takes no talent to create art using a
program like Studio Artist?"
Not at all, for the reasons
explained above. It still takes the sensitivities and artistic vision
of the operator to produce work in Studio Artist that is truly
worthwhile. Without the artistic eye of a talented operator,
significant, compelling or just plain pleasing artistic compositions
will never be produced. Studio Artist is just a tool; the artist him or
herself will never be replaced.
The
bottom line? Studio Artist is a superb program that will
quickly have you churning out new works of art with a digital pen. Just
forget galleries, and use Studio Artist in new and imaginative ways in
the vast commercial art arena and in Web marketing...and have fun doing
so!
All art samples on this page were done by Tim Arends using Studio Artist
System Requirements: System Requirements: Power Mac or Intel Mac, 32 Mb RAM, OS 8.6 or Higher, QuickTime 6.0 or Higher
Synthetik Software, Inc. 30 Sheridan Street San Francisco, CA 94103 www.synthetik.com.
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