Tablet World.pdf

Autodesk Sketchbook Express REVIEWS
WINDOWS 8
Autodesk Sketchbook Express
Sketchbook Express is an easy-to-use drawing tool for Windows 8,
which lends itself well to touchscreen computing
● Price Free ● comPany aUToDeSK ● WeBSiTe autodesk.com
VERDICT
Sketchbook Express
is fun to use, but it
lacks a zoom feature,
Add a straight-line
tool and the option
to save favourite
colours, and we’d be
happy
OVERALL SCORE
REQUIREMENTS
Windows 8
Touchscreen computing lends itself very well to graphics use and this drawing
app is one of the simplest to use, having only a limited toolset.
The Windows 8 flavour of Autodesk Sketchbook Express may not come with
any instructions, but is simple enough to work out how to use. Autodesk has kept
the number of tools to a minimum, allowing you to experiment – start drawing
freehand, click on the colour wheel to change to another shade and you’re off.
Dragging your mouse across a narrower shade selection lets you be more precise
about the shade you want, but you can’t save your favourites to return to later.
Clicking on the red arrow in the tool palette cancels the last stroke, and multiple
undos are supported. Helpfully, you can reinstate deleted etchings, too.
Autodesk Sketchbook Express’s standard blank canvas can be changed for
vertically or horizontally symmetrical ones. Pens can be swapped by clicking on
the paintbrush icon and choosing a pencil, airbrush or eraser. Line weights are
adjusted via a circular brush size icon in this Windows 8 app; click and hold the
mouse button, then drag to make your brush larger or smaller. You can’t create
brush strokes of less than five pixels across, though, and there’s no zoom if you’re
using a non-touchscreen computer.
It’s rather tricky to draw accurately using a mouse and trackpad alone –
we installed a Wacom graphics tablet to use Autodesk Sketchbook Express.
Even so, most of our drawings came out looking rather wonky. We would have
appreciated functions such as a straight-line tool, a grid view and the ability
to save an object and then move it elsewhere onscreen while we worked on
another area of our drawing.
There are no options in Sketchbook Express to import existing graphics or to
use shapes included within the app. Text isn’t supported either, so you’ll need to
save the image and open it in Word or another graphics app if you want to add a
caption, for example. Images can be saved as either PNGs or Jpegs.
“Most of
our drawings
came out
looking rather
wonky”
TABLETWORLD 83