Krita 4 released: digital painting program

Mike Turcotte-McCusker
Mar 30, 2018
Updated • Mar 31, 2018
Linux
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Krita is a well known digital painting program, available for Windows Mac and Linux, but is primarily known for its Linux side.

On March 22, Krita 4.0 was released, which features some pretty big (and in my opinion, overdue) changes.

Installation

Most major distributions carry Krita in their repositories, so installing it for your preferred system shouldn’t be too hard; no need to get too detailed on this part, although I will give some info from the Krita website, for Gentoo users:

“There is an overlay for Gentoo with the latest version of Krita, maintained by a volunteer in the Krita community: "layman -a bloody && emerge --sync && emerge krita"

Also, Krita is available as an AppImage, and also as a Flatpak, so again, installation should be no issue.

Krita 4 Features

One of the main features in this new release, is support for SVG filetype vector images. Previously, Krita had been using ODG files, which are not very widely compatible, and made using Krita a bit of a pain if you had intention of working with Inkscape as well.

On top of that, Krita 4.0 boasts a number of new features such as:

  • UX Improvements
  • New text tool
  • Python Scripting
  • Colourize Mask Tool
  • Background Saving
  • New Palette with significant better functionality
  • Brush Editor Improvements & Live Preview
  • Multithreaded Brushes
  • Pixel Grid
  • Isometric Grids

My experience

I found Krita 4 to be pretty awesome to work with actually, in conjunction with a new drawing tablet I got as a gift from a friend of mine.

Part of the issue with why I haven’t used Krita in the past, is the lack of proper SVG support, and so bringing that forward now with version 4.0, I’ve enjoyed messing around a fair bit, and may actually consider Krita a contender for my art needs.

It might just be placebo, but I did seem to notice Krita booting up faster, and overall functioning faster than I recall in the past, so that was positive to note as well.

The addition of background saving, was also absolutely critical, as Krita had a very annoying system before that left it unusable while it autosaved. This was long overdue, and I am extremely happy it’s been changed.

Now you: What are your thoughts on the new features? Will this entice you to use Krita more? Let us know in the comments!

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Krita 4 released: digital painting program
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Krita 4 released: digital painting program
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Krita is a well known digital painting program, available for Windows Mac and Linux, but is primarily known for its Linux side. On March 22, Krita 4.0 was released, which features some pretty big (and in my opinion, overdue) changes.
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Comments

  1. guangshan said on April 27, 2020 at 12:01 pm
    Reply

    This software is a wonder to be able to create drawings and get the most out of your drawing tablet ( I have a XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro https://www.xp-pen.com/product/479.html display grapics tablet for digital painting work ). It seems perfectly designed to take advantage of the functions of your tablet and touch pen, since the program responds perfectly to the pressure, angle and speed of the pencil and adapts perfectly to your style as a draftsman.

    One of the things that most caught my attention when they told me about Krita was the possibility of using it to simulate the textures and mixing modes of the different tools that it incorporates, such as the brush, the oil brush, markers, watercolors, airbrush, rake, graphite pencil, colored pencils, wax pencils, and other infinity of real-world drawing and art materials that are masterfully simulated by Krita. The variety of effects you can achieve is truly impressive.

    It is amazing that a program like this is free, taking into account that even Photoshop, which is quite expensive, offers you so much versatility when it comes to creating strokes with your drawing tablet.

  2. Anonymous said on March 31, 2018 at 8:31 pm
    Reply

    Seems like Kiki’s breasts got major upgrade

  3. Stephen Dowdy said on March 30, 2018 at 9:08 pm
    Reply

    Title: Krita 4 released: digital paining program

    Krita: We’ll torture you through awful artwork!? (just kidding)

    Typo, obviously “paining” -> “painting” ;)

  4. dmacleo said on March 30, 2018 at 8:05 pm
    Reply

    LOL maybe want to fix title?

    Krita 4 released: digital paining program

    I know img manipulation is a pain but stilll…….

  5. chesscanoe said on March 30, 2018 at 7:34 pm
    Reply

    I have been using Krita on Windows 10 x64 for quite a while, and it is still free for Windows Desktop (x64 only). More info at
    https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/

    1. chesscanoe said on April 10, 2019 at 6:16 am
      Reply

      Krita 4.1.7 under Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17763.437] is a challenging program to play with, and it now is quite stable for function I have played with. For me it is harder to learn than GIMP, but Krita is amazing for its unique functions.

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