Ever felt the need to use your creativity and express your inner artist? There are a myriad of options for art related programs on the net, and I have reviewed a few of them. But there is always room for one more in the world of freeware. So for this week’s Freeware Frenzy, I will be taking a look at Artweaver v0.4.6. Though it is prior to an official 1.0 release, Artweaver is more then ready to tackle most of the challenges you can throw its way.

During the install, you need to decide to associate various picture file types with Artweaver, if any. The list includes .bmp, .tga, .pcx, .tiff, .jpeg, .gif and .png. None are checked by default, something I always appreciate. Otherwise the installation is fairly standard.

While there is no wizard to guide new users through the tools, the help file is very thorough, with screenshots to point things out. Anyone who is an old hat with image editors will find the workspace very familiar. Your ‘paper’ is in the center, surrounded by all of the various toolboxes for drawing tools, options, colors and layers.

Working first with the various drawing tools, I was amazed by the weight of the options and tweaks I could use. There are no fewer than 21 different tools, from acrylics and charcoal, to oils and pencils. Once you choose a basic tool, you can choose more exactly in the next drop down box. Thus you can use a detailed oils brush 30 or dull large chalk. You next choose size and even tip shape, adding angles and a cover method (buildup, smear, cover, clone, etc). Finally you can tweak color variability and impasto. What is impasto you ask? A quick Google explained it as a painting technique of thick paint and visible brush strokes similar to a Van Gogh painting.

Your standard color wheel sits on the right, awaiting your choice. Spin the wheel to play with colors, or add a specific RGB value if you really know your color shades. There is also a ‘color set’ for a basic rainbow of color if you do not need exact shades. Up in the Preview panel you can zoom in all the way to 1600% for extreme details. The final toolbox combines a history of the tools used and actions taken if you need to make any changes as you work. You’ll also see layers if you need to work with those. Note that text is considered a new layer from your background art.

Your main toolbar at the top takes a cue from the new Office 2007 and changes depending on the tool you are currently using. For example you’ll see size and opacity for brushes, tolerance for the ‘magic’ wand and shapes for the gradient tool.

Let’s dig a bit deeper into what Artweaver can do. The image menu contains all kinds of adjustments for brightness, color balance, curves, grayscale and inverting colors among other things. You can also change paper color and image sizes here. You will also find dozens of tweaks in the filter menu. This hides all of your ‘effects’ to add that ‘Wow!” factor to the creation. Everything from sharpening or adding noise to texture, distortions (waves, ripples and fisheye) and blurs are housed in there. Of course an art program has plenty of view options, such as a grid for precise measurements, zooming and working with pixels instead of standard measurements.

So to conclude, I was surprised at the depth of the options you can work with in Artweaver. While it probably is not robust enough to sway Paint Shop users, anyone needing a freeware artistic fix should take a look at Artweaver. http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version