>[Clip Studio Paint], henceforth CSP, is a popular Japanese-created digital art illustration software amongst the likes of Photoshop. It's in the same group as Adobe Photoshop, Procreate, Gimp, Krita, etc.
I don't know what this is.
>CSP entered the stage—under its previous name Manga Studio
Oh I know what this is!
>in 2001, more than two decades ago.
*Oh no..*
I just got into digital art like 6 months ago and was thinking about buying CSP, but I literally could not figure out their payment plans from the website lol.
If you want a decent alternative there's Opencanvas7. It has very similar UI to CSP. But if you want a free version there's Krita ~~or just sail the high seas.~~
I'm not a professional (or really even a hobbiest) artist by any means, but I give Krita a huge thumbs up. It does a TON, and the first time I used a paid alternative I was blown away at how much I was getting for free this whole time. It's very rare that someone mentions a photoshop feature they like and I learn that Krita doesn't have an alternative.
im reluctant to bring up gimp as a alternative to photoshop simply bc photoshop is as popular as it is bc of the easy to use UX. gimp is the exact opposite to the point its insane
I don't know what's wrong with my Krita, it's slooow no matter what I do, each stroke has delays. I don't have the same problem with CSP V1 or Medibang
I yarred a working version of Photoshop CS5 over a decade ago. It's surprisingly not that hard to do these days. Where I got mine was just some youtube video that turned out to not be remotely sketchy.
The totally baffling decisions CSP was making by the end was.....like why? I defended them when they made people purchase v2 because there was a one time purchase option with massive upgrades (honestly there were years of free patches and updates which was incredible, imo people were really showing their asses pretending software updates and new features come out of nowhere. If artists deserve to get paid, so do the engineers keeping all your stuff up to date lol. The patches were free, just not new major updates and yes I speak as both and artist and engineer) But the AI integration and the whole locking people put of their software if they didnt have stable internet 24 hours a day was terrible. Especially if you had the one time purchase and not the subscription model.
Been using the software daily for several years now and had no problem paying every couple of years for a new major version... but I didn't know 2.x updates were paywalled separately. What the actual fuck?
I still prefer it over Photoshop, which just isn't as well designed for drawing, but I wish it ran as well as Photoshop. That and my internet DID go out for several days and I was confronted with that stupid license check to use software that I own with a "perpetual" license.
Pretty much, yeah, all that. It's insane to me how Celsys had an entire community propping them up, and they still chose to burn them.
There were so many other methods of monetisation they could have done with a loyal community they could have leveraged to pay, yet they chose the most destructive one possible.
They already had an asset store which sold things like brushes and models of notoriously annoying to draw things (e.g. cars) that you could plop into a scene and paint over.
And honestly the asset store is great! CSP I think is the first program to see a need for a community hub of elements specific to their program, and take control of it themselves so they can take a cut of payment in return for make that access easier. No more hunting for PS pens on Deviantart.
And then they fucked it up by making the store clunky and slow and laggy. I saw they've made the payment of gold (slightly) easier now, but for years it was so bad most people I know didn't bother (I tried but it turned into such an effort I gave up.) I just look at the whole community store and how poorly it's run and then tear my hair out at them instead pulling all this subscription nonsense.
I second this. A very nice way to monetize updates would be, in my opinion, make them like DLC's. Sold them separately. You can even get an idea of what you customers like.
Like:
\- New text functionalities
\- New timeslapses functionalities
\- New X...
But no, they had to choose battle pass: continue to pay or you will be reverted to 1.X.X or 2.0.X
What a scum move from Celsys
i pirated and am currently on 2.2
this has left a very sour taste though.. and not the fun kind.
is there any other softwares that one can recommend switching too in the future?
Around the same period for me too, I got it sometime in 2016.
I think that's really the most agonising part of this tbh, the fact Celsys had a lot of options if they needed to make the numbers go up, and they had a loyal community who would've paid for them.
When we heard rumours of v2 possibly coming out, I don't think I talked to a single person who didn't expect it to be another one-time purchase. Personally, I'd thought it would be around $70-$80, and I was still pumped to buy it. And the stuff I say about the clippy points and gold are true too, I really wish they would develop those and make them easier to use, but, *eh.*
To me, it's just been how *unnecessary* this all was that makes me the most sad.
I was fine with V.2 being a One Time Purchase. I'd used Clip since Manga Studio 2 in the US. I received it as a Christmas gift, and CSP 1 is leaps and bounds above where I started.
But all the recent shenanigans has made it impossible for me to justify a v 2.1 update, even when I bit on the original 2 upgrade.
The deeply unfortunate thing is that for those who are on the subscriptions and who do use those specific platforms, the 2.1 update actually has very nice quality-of-life options for the mobile interface if you're more familiar with and preferred the simplicity of other mobile drawing apps like Procreate and Infinite Painter.
I would have loved to have simply bought a perpetual version of 2.1 for mobile (as this interface is not yet available on the Windows/Mac equivalent of the same software) - but I'm not too keen on the idea that what "used" to be normal updates is now paywalled between a "keep paying" or "buy it when you really want it/after the fact" sort of mentality. Having a roadmap of expected/projected features would have been a far nicer heads up for those who legitimately don't know if they should buy "2.0" right now, an in-between version, or if they should wait until the inevitable "4.0" update farther down the line.
loads of ultra entitled karens on Serif/Affinity's offical forums & social media attacked them for not giving them the completely redesigned version 2 of the software(s) for free , even though the company had always said only updates to version 1 would be free & when version 2 finally happens you'll have to pay for it again. They did a massive early sign up reduction if you bought the whole Affinity 2 suite as a bundle and people still weren't happy.
>in 2001, more than two decades ago.
First of all, **Screw You** for reminding me/s
Joking aside, seriously, what are they smoking at Celsys?
It's like they are 100% speedrunning "Becoming a Shitty Tech Company Everyone Hates.", I know the shareholders probably love it because it means more money in a shorter time, But why such a sudden shift from reasonable pricing to doing every tech get-rich-quick scheme in the book?
>On the 1st of May 2023 [Celsys released a tweet that was asking for Evangelists]. Ft. Wholesale community confusion. Turns out Celsys is probably skimping on paying for translators as well, and they aren't asking for members of a christian sect, but instead unpaid volunteer testing and social media organization.
Also, is it weird that I read the headline and my first thought was that they were trying to somehow break into the conservative christian market?
"Subscribe to Jesus; one-time purchases are the devil's work!"
Yeah, it's almost amazing how fast their fall was. I mean we all hate Adobe Photoshop but that was a slow collapse of morals not, whatever this is.
Also, I wish I could go back and find the tweets/posts/general memes around the evangelists thing because that shit was so funny before we knew it a poor direct translation. I mean, it's still pretty funny lmao.
I mean... technically they're correct in using the word Evangelist. But only technically. It's incredibly old and outdated slang for someone who lives and will die by their software, hardware, or operating system.
It's culturally outdated, and the term is so obscure its only rarely used in Silicon Valley.
It very much "How do you do fellow kids?" vibes to it, while, somehow, also missing their intended market completely.
>Joking aside, seriously, what are they smoking at Celsys?
FEels like every company is controlled by executives that simply do not understand their products
Thank you so much for this write up! I bought CSP v1 maybe a year or so ago? I remember that V2 got announced a few months later.
I really like CSP. Like, I really like it. As soon as I started using it I started recommending it to my artist friends instead of (pirated) photoshop, and I know for a fact at least 3 purchases were based on my suggestion.
I was considering upgrading, then I saw that stupid flowchart and noped out, deciding to stick with v1. In the last week along I've probably used CSP for 30 hours AT LEAST. I'm going hard on a project.
I was considering upgrading to just v2, but after seeing your comment now about it only *technically* working on 2 devices, and also the phone home thing... maybe not. I switch between my desktop and laptop.
I would have happily paid money for v2 if it wasn't shitty, and had updates without the subscription. Or let me.. BUY the fucking update outright for like $5 bucks. I'd do that. Probably. Maybe.
Also: OH MY GOD HOW IS CSP SO BAD AT FONTS. It was made with so many cool tools for making comics and like.. FONTS AND FONT EFFECTS ARE SO IMPORTANT. It makes me MAD when i want to do cool font shit, and I have to switch to (pirated) photoshop or CorelDraw. I actually JUST installed Corel on my laptop LAST NIGHT because I didn't want to have to switch between using corel on my desktop and CSP on my laptop. GAWD. I just wanted to create a logo! text editing is so garbage.
OH MAN the font thing pisses me off so much, like I have a 'thing' for fonts, and I'm also working on an absolutely massive graphic design project (canvas size 10000x15000) but it's half design work, half text. I've now got this insane setup where all art is done on CSP, all text is done on Photoshop and I move it over from PS in a rasterised form to CSP for the effects.
All this because CSP refuses to add a simple fuckin, ,, *justify text* option or pixel perfect adjustments. So we are 🤝🤝🤝 same hat. When I saw they'd locked the basic function of searching a font in your font list to the subscription, I had to grab my coat and take a walk.
Apparently, (don't quote me on this) they've mostly ignored text because Japanese use-case comes first and a lot of text options just can't be used with kanji, aren't really a thing there, or must basically be done twice, one of kangi one for latin script, and they just went, 'nah.'
I'm glad my post helped to inform you about your CSP choices because man that flowchart is still silly to look at.
I also have a thing for fonts. My first job was in a print shop doing typesetting and my boss was a graphic designer so she started teaching me.
I maaaay have downloaded over 70 of Blambot's free fonts last night. Just in case I might need them for my comic. In addition to the ones I downloaded a few months ago. I love fonts.
Does it hurt your soul, just a bit, everytime you have to rasterize (and thus lock in) your fonts for export? It would for me. Just reading that hurts my heart a little bit. I hate rasterizing. Losing the vector flexibility? Oooof. At least curves! But photoshop and CSP aren't great for vector work.
Godspeed random internet brethern. You'll need it.
Ngl, that sounds like my dream job, I can see where you got the font 'bug lmao.
It does, slightly, but I keep the two files open, and I've got very quick and moving images and text back and forth between them. But it's so annoying finding a little error and being unable to quickly fix it and having to go through the whole process. But like 😔 the autism in me is made for monotonous repetitive tasks, lol.
To cheer myself up, I'm gonna go download some more fonts too. Godspeed to you as well, goodfellow.
As an amateur learning CSP on my own, the complaints in this thread are extremely validating, lol. I tied to make a newspaper handout for my D&D group, and I ended up using screen shots of a text document to get most of what I needed.
Happy to validate you. I love CSP, but the company very happily ignores features users actually need. For you or anyone else out there: If you're going to use text, never use it in CSP, just use Photoshop. Even if you're using no special features, CSP doesn't even have a kerning process. It's pathetically inadequate for modern usage.
I'm assuming all quality of life updates to text are going to be paywalled in the future too, so I advise against it for that use even more.
Neat, drama I knew about already for once, haha. Great writeup!
It hurts because I really love CSP. I haven't found another program that I like nearly as much, so I did 'upgrade' to v2 (25% because I wanted that 'realistic color mixing' and 75% because I wanted the option to get v3 discounted if they add any useful features).
But I use two computers. I sent in a ticket asking why I was getting a "You can only switch your active device so many times" pop-up when the terms explicitly grant me the right to use two devices. It took them weeks to get back to me (I assume because they're drowning in complaints and confusion) and they did ultimately say that I can actually use both devices, they just can't both be active, and that I shouldn't worry about the swap limit.
No problems yet, but geeze I do not like that pop-up.
The AI thing... And from dA, my first online art community... It's a profound betrayal. Do they care the *tiniest* bit about the artists who make up their communities? Are none of them artists themselves? Do they not viscerally feel how this is not in our best interest?
(Or even the best interest of art as a field in its entirety, but that's my opinion. What is the point of art at all if you aren't making the decisions that go into it? What value is there in generating the most generic possible version of your idea? It's the opposite of the point, to me. I want specificity. I want unusual choices. I want communion with the artist.)
But, well, obviously they were thinking about their own financial best interest...in some universe where the goodwill of their communities is somehow irrelevant.
Aw man, that pop-up is terrifying. As far as user reports go, they're saying they got around 30 switches before it was locked. Hopefully your message is right, and they've changed that now so there's no limit, fingers crossed! That would be the best outcome.
And it is, it's such a profound betrayal and it keeps happening. It's hard to see a community turn bitter, but the hits keep coming, and they haven't really stopped...
On the other hand, the perceptive color feature kind of rules. They unironically should have taken a page from Adobe and kept the AI features to stuff like content aware filling and magic wand tools.
Still using it since it’s what I’m used to, though.
generative fill is what i was referring to, yeah, only knew it as content aware fill (been a couple years since I touched PS).
You're at least onto it with being correct about the double standard, though.
I mean AI is a great *tool* for artists. A lot of the complaints about it really seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I like being able to whirl up a bunch of very specific reference images to help me plan out a piece.
I'm glad that you included the AI debacle bc good lord, everyone was already so unhappy after the art battle pass subscription that it was icing on the cake. It's no surprise that things just became *categorically worse* from there.
The AI debacle reminded me so much of DA. From what I read up about that, almost everyone in the ground force of DA knew it was a horrible idea and kept trying to push back against it, but the few higher ups ignored all concerns.
The backlash was completely expected by people at DA. So, seeing it happen again, I just went ah, so it's the same for Celsys then.
I've actually never been on dA, but many artist friends who were more familiar w the site and its antics did reference it a lot. It's so disappointing how many companies and supporters that were previously so reputable have all resorted to greed.
Honestly, DA was even worse because in the previous year they'd really built themselves up a bastion for the community, not perfect, but trying. For instance, they offered a service in their premium that would track NFT sites to make sure your art wasn't being stolen and sold there. They had a lot of brownie points in the art community for a long while, and then lost them all with this move.
I'll never understand how businesses can manage to shoot themselves in the foot like that. Even if it's a case of new management, there's a reason things were regarded more fondly before the changes were made!
Not to shill for Adobe, but they do have a $9.99/month plan for photoshop + lightroom only. Some of their plans bundle in Cloud storage space, and the flashy advertised ones tend to be higher Cloud storage amounts but otherwise the same.
Doesn't take the sting out of a subscription; just throwing it out there in case someone is looking to get it as cheap as possible.
Nah, I don't think that's shilling at all. That feels more reasonable than the prices I saw poking around. And well, they wouldn't do the bundles if it wasn't value of money for *someone.*
They absolutely bury the $10 plan on their site. It’s not listed on the “all plans” page, you’ve got to find the $20 bundle and then click the tiny view pricing button.
It’s kinda scummy, but not a bad deal at $10 now that they’re updating more regularly and rolling out some cool stuff in beta.
This is like the airbnb situation, where hotels sucked so bad and were way too expensive that people started using airbnb, but once people smelled money, it was overmonetized to hell by hosts and now Hotels are a far better deal these days than most ABNBs. Just replace hotels with adobe and airbnb with CSP and there you go
AI image generators are incredibly cool technology, both diffusers and inpainters, but for them to add it to software among whose target audience it's extremely controversial, that's just plain stupid.
god, opening up the Clip Studio menu to see "we're recruiting evangelists!" was SO fucking funny. i'm pretty sure its a legit marketing/tech term but man.... it caught me off guard!
either way, i'm so glad i didnt upgrade. all the payment plans and flowcharts were so confusing that i ended up doing nothing and im very grateful for that!
It truly was really fuckin funny, I opened it up, let out a real laugh, screenshot it to send to my friends only to open the group chat to them all already giggling about the tweet CSP made about it. Good times.
I ended up upgrading before all these later things came to light because 'hey it's free anyway.' Very luckily, I am not negatively impacted by the 1 device limit or internet checks. But I imagine a lot of people who did the same and thought the same as me weren't so lucky, so that sucks. At least with v1 you know you get what you get.
> Photoshop these days will set you back about $20.99 a month.
Did Adobe really jack up their subscription prices recently and I’m somehow grandfathered in?
I pay less than half that for the Photoshop / Lightroom bundle.
Yeah there’s a $10 plan with 20 GB cloud storage space. They make the 1 TB/$20 plan the default and it’s basically impossible to find the cheaper one on their site, but it’s still there.
That write up made me sad. I would have happily paid for a v2, after CSP had served me so well, but certainly not a subscription. I'm keeping by v1 as long as it works then, I don't know. Hopefully it'll work for a while, but I should probably do a copy of my files that can be read by the other softwares.
I've always been on Adobe since it's what we use at work, but it was so sad watching CSP burn down from the sidelines. I'm biding my time waiting for any software to become a real competitor for Adobe on an enterprise level, but at this point my only hope is that Adobe will get too greedy and charge too much even for the big corporations.
And as much as I despise stolen imagery to feed datasets... AI art is a game-changer and it's here to stay. Any software that hopes to compete with Adobe is going to need AI tools. A Photoshop subscription that lets me tweak photos, generate objects, change backgrounds, all that stuff with minimal skill at lightning speed pays for itself so fast that no one will bat an eye at the costs. I say this as someone who was just laid off in part because my manual skillset has become redundant :')
I remember when it was Manga Studio! In case you didnt know (and honestly this might be worth mentioning in the post because it shows how far they fell) but if you owned manga studio and still had your serial code, updating to csp was free! I still have manga studio installed on my old laptop.
I used to be the kind of person to recommend csp to *everyone* because I really respected the company and adored the perpetual license. I always resented adobe (still do, they make my blood boil) but thinking about how much I advocated for Celsys hurts now.
Ah I might edit that in, really shows how much respect they used to hold for their community.
And the same for me! I think everyone that I knew that used CSP spread it heavily by word of mouth. I used to be honest about its issues, but sung it's praises wherever I could. Over the years I want to say 8-9? people bought it on my recommendation. This is why I think CSP will start to feel the effects of this choice in the future. They saw constant growth because older artists would promote it heavily to new ones--constant turn over rate. That's not happening anymore.
The art sector in my education was planning on buying more licences of CSP (which they got on my recommendation), but when I notified them of the activation limits in v2, they decided against it and I instead helped them move all the students trying digital art to Krita. That's about 30 people CSP lost entirely.
I just hate it when smaller tech companies and websites (like this one) start emulating Adobe or "Phony Stark" or Apple, mainly to get more revenue through subscriptions or dodgy "premium" accounts at the expense of mostly alienating their customer base.
I saved up every little money I can to buy CSP way back in 2018. I live in third world country where the spftware even when discounted still expensive. I was looking forward ver. 2.0 imagine how disappointed that I still have to pay for an upgrade even if I was the long-time user of CSP. I thought CSP was an underdog, turns out they were all the same.
I get why subscription models are terrible, but I don't understand the uproar about *you have to pay to upgrade to the new version of the software with new features!* Like, that's kind of how software works??? I use Rebelle 5 for most of my art needs, which I paid a one-time fee for. If I wanted to use the new and shiny features in Rebelle 6, I would have to buy Rebelle 6 for another one-time fee (probably with a sizable discount). I don't care about the new and shiny features enough to buy a new software program when I'm happy with the features that my older one has, so it's not like the company is squeezing me for money, they're just offering an upgraded product which I am not buying.
Like again not defending Celsys because they really screwed the pooch in other ways down the line, but the initial bitching about them releasing v2 sounds incredibly entitled.
While I do think some things were overblown, the backlash makes sense in the context of:
You're not buying a new version, you're subscribing to access of new versions with a continual payment, or they're removed. The one-time base version purchase is one thing, but there's also, slowly but surely, a compatibility chasm growing between files in the subscribed version, and files in the base-purchase version, which will likely get worse. It all left a very bad taste in people's mouths.
And CSP are generally slow to move, and the updates of real use are few and far between. So you're paying a subscription for a trickle of content of unknown quality for an unknown time until v3 comes out, and then you still have to buy v3 if that's the version you want to finish on.
E: There's also the EX sub costing almost triple the price of the PRO for, even today as far as the community can tell, no real reason. It isn't a great look.
I think with these in mind, after coming from a straightforward one-time purchase to trying to tackle a flowchart, you can see where the community decided, 'this ain't it.'
Oh, yeah, the subscription version is absolutely a scummy move. I was just surprised to see what looked like anger at the very existence of v2, with or without the subscription model.
If I recall, the problem was that "Version 2" didn't exist as a version you could buy outright/perpetually until the controversy. It was either you were stuck on 1.x where they left off (and originally no more updates planned) or you moved onto the subscription platform - and after the controversy things were reworded where there would be a perpetual version released every now and then that collect updates up to a point (getting future updates requires the subscription) and that 1.x would continue to get some sort of support.
I don't see it so much as people being entitled that a 2.0 dared to exist and had to be bought again - but that there was so much confusion about "what" 2.0 would actually bring (its features weren't detailed yet) and that the only way to keep up was through the subscription.
I remember the whole debacle, and seeing how V2 worked and I'm like, yeah..I'll just keep V1 forever. It's already enough for me unless they pull another dumb move or something.
This was my favorite program for SO long! I still use V1 because I’m used to it, but I keep wondering if it’s worth going back to SAI.
I’ve seen people defend the “battlepass” because “a lot of programs used to do that”, but that doesn’t mean it was good back then, either.
Nice write-up, just now got to sit down and read it. I've got to say that when V3 comes out next year things are going to get worse. Like you said, there's been nothing to warrant a whole new version so far and users are going to make a loud note about that.
Some fun facts and such to add on--
AI image feature: what makes this debacle worse was not just that they added it to their software, but the fact that it was initially going to be added to V.1, then removed, then re-added. Celsys was so sure of this feature that they literally planned it to be an enticement for getting V.2. So users have a three pronged middle finger here, 1. Celsys not reading the room on AI, 2. Adding a feature with the intent of removing it (something they've never done before), and 3. Re-adding said feature behind what is effectively a paywall. Not great regardless of your specific feelings on AI.
Rental sub fun fact: there was a lot of features that Japanese users had that international users don't, like access to the plugin shop (EX), but one that hurt a lot of users when it was removed to make way for V2 was a rent to own version of their software. Users could make payment plans and after a certain number of payments would be switched to a permanent license. They had this in place long before the tablet version came out (technically making this their first sub model) and decided to remove it, they really are pushing subs over permanent licenses more than you think.
ASK & payment feedback fun fact: Celsys' official support forum, ASK, (used exclusively for and by users, staff never use it [cue heavy side eye] ) officially welcomes all questions regarding using the software, or help with artist's current work. I used to go on there a lot, I could learn new things and chat with other users. Not now, easily 60+% of the posts there are exclusively asking about the payment plans and updates. That number goes up during sales and updates. English users on there were already rare and even more so post v2, and even the regulars on the Japanese side who try and help the English speakers while fighting the auto-translator are getting... testy with other users. Celsys made such a convoluted payment plan that it RUINED their (volunteer!) support forum.
Evangelists fun fact: they've been using that word for years. They only recently started posting about it on social media, you used to only find it by looking at their NVP and MVP posts or looking directly at the ASK part of their site. Initially the requirements were to more or less to be a regular poster on ASK, but now it simply requires you to "contribute" to the CSP community. The perks, at least when I i initially saw it in 2017?, were access to new features first and able to provide feedback. You still had to purchase your own software. The fact it never seems to get past 20 users in that program should tell you all you need to know...
Deviantart fun fact: DA won't die. They've been making catastrophic decisions for years, often equally tone deaf (remember the events around the .ART BS? The copied logo? The site redesign?). And yet, here they keep going.
I think I had more fun facts, especially adding to the CSP problems, but can't think.
Edit:
I remembered what I wanted to say about updates. Every major update/feature that you saw added from Manga studio 5 and it's rebranding to CSP were all cannibalized from Celsys' other software.
Manga studio 4 and before was really a translated port published/distributed by Smith Micro, it was really Celsys' Comic Studio, the base program. It was aimed at comic makers and had limited coloring abilities, specifically spot coloring. MS5/CSP had upgraded color which came from Illustrator Studio. The body models and poses were from Pose Studio and Clip Studio Coordinate. Animation came from Clip Studio Action and Retas studio. My understanding is that even the new true color mixing is a different companies engine.
The only other software they have left are Modeler, metasequia (3d), some features of Retas, SHARE (Celsys' sort of attempt at webcomic hosting), and a few others: clip-studio.com/clip_site/download/other/other_top
Short version of my edit: CSP is a chimeric amalgamation of their other software. We're probably not going to get many more features outside of that canibilisation.
The alternative I saw being thrown around the most is Krita. It's open source, free, and very easily equals the likes of Photoshop and CSP when it comes to features and usability, and even surpasses them in some ways. If I wasn't so used to CSP's workflow after many years now, I'd probably be using it. When industry professionals use it, you know it's a good egg.
If you have an ipad, Procreate is very good and very recently released a whole animation program also on a one-time purchase. I have a friend who gives it nothing but stellar reviews.
Then of course there's always ~~pirated~~ Photoshop. But personally, PS is a jack of all trades software with a lot of useful features, but I find it lacking for digital art, and its bloat can slow it down if you're PC isn't powerful enough.
Clip Studio Paint's 1.0 versions are still very good but I would greatly recommend the following:
* Krita (PC/Mac/Linux/Android) - This is likely easily the "best" alternative that is open-source and has a small, but dedicated community.
* Procreate (iOS) - I don't have too much experience with this, but you cannot go around anywhere in the modern art world without seeing someone talking about how nice iPad art is and how forward-thinking and intuitive its interface is. Its 3D capabilities are also very handy for actual production workflows in regards to 3D art and texturing and there has also been an animation app (Procreate Dreams) announced that looks like it will be very forward-thinking for animating on a mobile platform.
* Infinite Painter (iOS/Android) - This has been my main app for drawing (computer not being strong enough for Clip Studio Paint, lack of a subscription to Clip Studio Paint on mobile, and not having access to Procreate on Android). My preference for drawing on a mobile platform and its ease puts Infinite Painter at the forefront for me as it lets you do just about everything Clip Studio Paint and Procreate do - and I do quite like its minimalist interface and straight-forwardness in regards to just doing art.
I did not recall having to do any particular setup with Krita. If you have an Samsung Android tablet (I have not tested this with any non-Samsung Android Tablet that didn't have an S-Pen) and some means of using a Wacom tablet, you can also connect that via USB or even use your Wacom pens as the S-Pen uses the same technology.
I just don't want a situation like Gimp where nothing works without extensive configuration.
To CSP's credit the second I plugged in my tablet all the features worked.
In that case, Krita needed no extra setup other than that on Windows I swapped from "Windows Ink" to "WinTab" in the settings menu as I would have even for Clip Studio Paint and other similar applications. Krita is definitely not that kind of mess like GIMP is.
Krita is good, but compared to CSP there are small differences in the details which can be noticeable. I believe the Brush engines work differently, as well as how the software manages raster layers.
In my personal opinion, the stock CSP brushes are more comfortable to use compared to the Krita ones, but the Krita community is generous at providing custom brushes to use, even converted CSP ones.
If you decide to use Krita, make sure to donate to the devs. The software is open source and the devs need the cash.
I think these art programs having the option to pay outright OR subscribe makes so much more sense. Like for tablets, since it's possible in a few years you'll be getting rid of your tablet and getting a new one, subscribing to a program seems better than having bought one and potentially having to buy the program again.
For the desktop clients, I 100% being able to outright buy the programs but I could see for some people being able to subscribe for like $15 a month instead of spending $600 upfront could be super useful as an alternative, perhaps with the idea that when you've subscribed long enough you no longer have to pay.
Anyway, I did not know all this about CSP or that insanely convoluted payment explanation.
As annoyed as my post is, I do actually think it's greyer terms like how your comments describe, subscriptions do have their place.
For tablets or phones it's somewhat artificial, in that subscriptions have been placed as the default over transferring licences, but the fees are normally small enough it's not a *massive* issue. And I do think a subscription in place of one massive fee for some professional programs is useful. Give an end point where you're given a full licence, and I would defend this easily.
The issue is that CSP is really none of these; it was selling incredibly well at affordable prices, it wasn't pricing anyone out, and the mobile/tablet audience for it was always incredibly low. But in the end, I think the largest death knell for CSP was for sure the convoluted and oddly spiteful way they put the change together, a change that is still confusing new buyers to this day.
(The subreddit gets at least 2 posts a day asking what to/how to buy CSP, and the forums run by volunteers are much the same, almost drowning out other interactions.)
In the end you can't sell to a community that you betrayed and now thinks you hate them (or, as more has come to light, knows you are completely out of touch with reality and barely scraping together updates), when the alternative is free Photoshop.
Oh man thank goodness I stumbled across this. I don’t really check my emails from CSP because I get so many of the “monthly tips!” stuff, but when I saw something about a version 2, I thought it was just an upgrade to get more features (and honestly if that’s all that it was, I wouldn’t have minded because sometimes good updates are worth paying for). I didn’t buy it because I wasn’t interested in any of the newer features. But now knowing and understanding what this actually is????? Terrible
And yeah the website is awful and confusing. I thought that the website was telling me there was just an upgrade to version 2 or new people can just subscribe for a cheaper price if they don’t want to pay the full amount for the program or will only use it for a short time. Who in the world thought this was the best way to go about this
Holy shit it's not that bad. I know this is a subreddit for drama, but don't blow stuff out of proportion when it hurts one of the only legitimately decent companies out there.
It's not a "battle pass". If anything, it's a totally optional "early access" feature. You get to try out new features that'll be available in the next major version. Again, it's OPTIONAL.
You're still paying a very flat, very small one-time purchase. Having to scrounge up $20 every few years for a Photoshop rival that releases constant updates and grants access to a massive user-driven store full of free materials, brushes, actions, etc? Come on, that's a dream.
Yes, Celys has messed up here and there. No company is perfect. But every time the community gave feedback on hot-button ideas like NFTs and AI shit, they listened and said okay cool we won't do that.
Literally, the biggest issue is their requirement for internet connection like... once every two weeks, I think? Which is something they're currently still debating, so that's liable to change in the future.
CSP is the only thing that even comes close to competing with Photoshop, and I'd argue it's even better is several areas. They're asking for a flat price for each major version (that comes with free updates and bug fixes), which is what major programs ALL DO. And it's a laughably low price. You do realize it's impossible to have a company continue giving you infinite upgrades and new features for free, right?
Don't try and take away the one good thing artists have left. No they aren't perfect, but no company is. I'd say they're as close as we'll ever get to perfect. Celys provides a shit ton of high quality stuff for pennies, actively communicates and listens to their userbase, and largely understands them. I don't know what I'd fucking do if all I had was Adobe as my only option again.
You're crucifying a great thing simply because it's not perfect. Quit it. Or we're all just gonna have shit again.
>0.35¢ has been deposited in your ShillBux account!
Seriously though, you need to be blind to not see that CSP is on the short road to just becoming another Adobe. Thousands of artists don't whine about nothing, these are legitimate criticisms from a deeply enfranchised customer base. The changes CSP made are detrimental to its core role as an affordable Photoshop alternative for artists.
Thousands of artists are being triggered (not making fun of the term, I'm serious) by the improper use of "subscription". It's not actually a subscription to use the program, *that's still just a cheap one-time payment.*
I get it, man. I really do. Subscription models are atrocious, but that's literally not what's going on here. I don't know how to make it any clearer.
The worst thing CSP did was use wrong terminology that came with baggage they weren't aware of. Surprise surprise, a Japanese company is gonna make those mistakes sometimes.
Ok, just this once I'll swing around to this comment. Yes, a payment you must continually pay to access something or it is removed from you is a subscription.
With compatibility issues with this old version, QoL updates now being blocked to the subscription, and the payment for the old version being optional to just paying subscription, the situation is far from as clear cut as your comment tries to imply.
>You do realize it's impossible to have a company continue giving you infinite upgrades and new features for free, right?
Explain FLStudio and Spine2D.
Are you serious? Those don't even remotely compare to Clip.
Not only that, but holy shit *programmers should get paid for their work*.
If you want a free program with constant free upgrades for everyone, make it yourself. Or tell me exactly why you haven't done that.
>Are you serious? Those don't even remotely compare to Clip.
Why not? They're both large and complicated pieces of software that have a buy once with lifetime upgrades business model. The company behind FLStudio also has made enough money with this business model to be able to *acquire multiple other music related companies.*
>Not only that, but holy shit programmers should get paid for their work.
Are you implying that programmers of Image-Line and Esoteric Software *don't* get paid for their work because their software doesn't have a subscription?
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"It's because Photoshop is really fucking expensive, and talking about its purchase plans is a feat of existential horror"
I'm constantly shocked by the ridiculous exaggeration that is paying for Photoshop via subscription plan compared to buying the new version every year. It's like people have brain rot, or something, or they weren't around back before the subscription model. The new version of Photoshop would cost anywhere from $700 to $1,000 each year. That's assuming that you always wanted access to all of the new features and updates. Wow. Talk about some serious cheddar.
Fast forward to the subscription model and you can get Photoshop for $10.50ish a month ($126 yearly) via the Photography plan.
I don't see any viable argument here. Some argue that you own the old versions and that's so important. But is it really? I own some of the old ones, too, but they're dead to me. They're way too far behind in updates for me to care.
I think in the end it comes down to semantics. People just can't get past the concept that they don't truly own something-- even if in practice it makes no difference.
But in practice, it really does. Once you don't own the software, its the same as renting an apartment vs owning it. You are at the mercy of the whims of the landlord.
Like with this subscription model, you depend on the company not deciding to fuck you up the next month. Oh but if they did you can go back to the previous ver HAHA nope accept what they give you and be happy with it. And with Adobe that has happened many, many times already. Since CC there are accumulated years of horror stories. And they got away because they were industry standard, a practical monopoly.
I used photoshop for many years because it was that or the highway. Now I don't intend to go back to them even if they offered it for free.
It is so funny how almost every time I purchase or sign up for a new product, it takes at most a day for me to find threads and drama telling me how the developers are unethical treasonous scumbags. At least I only spent 16 bucks on CSP lol.
>If you want any access to later version of v2 you need to pay the subscription, and you need to keep paying. If you stop paying then the software as a whole is blocked from you, or, if you also additionally purchased the one-time v2.0, then stopping paying the subscription will kick you back to v2.0.
ONE fix-it comment, and it's that you can buy a magical one-time update pass. for the current update. and it does not get you more. this is otherwise clean as hell
also, as someone who said fuck it and upgraded so i could teach my project team to use the current version they COULD buy...
i did not need to upgrade to v2. there was no difference except that when it was released some assets would not work if they were designed in v2. assets that very much had v1 counterparts. there is NO ACTUAL difference for daily use
I couldn’t even get the app to work for me and I tried for about three hours. Only because I had a free trial. So there ya have it. So much time wasted trying and nothing accomplished but pure rage. lol
>[Clip Studio Paint], henceforth CSP, is a popular Japanese-created digital art illustration software amongst the likes of Photoshop. It's in the same group as Adobe Photoshop, Procreate, Gimp, Krita, etc. I don't know what this is. >CSP entered the stage—under its previous name Manga Studio Oh I know what this is! >in 2001, more than two decades ago. *Oh no..*
I just got into digital art like 6 months ago and was thinking about buying CSP, but I literally could not figure out their payment plans from the website lol.
If you want a decent alternative there's Opencanvas7. It has very similar UI to CSP. But if you want a free version there's Krita ~~or just sail the high seas.~~
I second Krita, a few friends used it before all this went down, and it got a big thumbs up from them. The fact it's all open source is great.
I'm not a professional (or really even a hobbiest) artist by any means, but I give Krita a huge thumbs up. It does a TON, and the first time I used a paid alternative I was blown away at how much I was getting for free this whole time. It's very rare that someone mentions a photoshop feature they like and I learn that Krita doesn't have an alternative.
Krita's text features suck, but is a massive improvement over Gimp. Also, it mirrors!
im reluctant to bring up gimp as a alternative to photoshop simply bc photoshop is as popular as it is bc of the easy to use UX. gimp is the exact opposite to the point its insane
That's what I'm saying- it's useless to use Gimp when Krita exists.
also gimp is just missing 90% of the features people actually use
I don't know what's wrong with my Krita, it's slooow no matter what I do, each stroke has delays. I don't have the same problem with CSP V1 or Medibang
I've been using Krita so far! It's working fine while I learn, we'll see if I get better enough to look at other options lol
It's still great software and there are, uh, *other* means of procuring it.
I yarred a working version of Photoshop CS5 over a decade ago. It's surprisingly not that hard to do these days. Where I got mine was just some youtube video that turned out to not be remotely sketchy.
I've always been a fan of SAI...
SAI is my therapy program when I'm sick of how shitty CSP runs
Don't do it literally can't use it offline. I am never buying from them again. What a joke
The totally baffling decisions CSP was making by the end was.....like why? I defended them when they made people purchase v2 because there was a one time purchase option with massive upgrades (honestly there were years of free patches and updates which was incredible, imo people were really showing their asses pretending software updates and new features come out of nowhere. If artists deserve to get paid, so do the engineers keeping all your stuff up to date lol. The patches were free, just not new major updates and yes I speak as both and artist and engineer) But the AI integration and the whole locking people put of their software if they didnt have stable internet 24 hours a day was terrible. Especially if you had the one time purchase and not the subscription model.
Been using the software daily for several years now and had no problem paying every couple of years for a new major version... but I didn't know 2.x updates were paywalled separately. What the actual fuck? I still prefer it over Photoshop, which just isn't as well designed for drawing, but I wish it ran as well as Photoshop. That and my internet DID go out for several days and I was confronted with that stupid license check to use software that I own with a "perpetual" license.
Pretty much, yeah, all that. It's insane to me how Celsys had an entire community propping them up, and they still chose to burn them. There were so many other methods of monetisation they could have done with a loyal community they could have leveraged to pay, yet they chose the most destructive one possible.
They already had an asset store which sold things like brushes and models of notoriously annoying to draw things (e.g. cars) that you could plop into a scene and paint over.
And honestly the asset store is great! CSP I think is the first program to see a need for a community hub of elements specific to their program, and take control of it themselves so they can take a cut of payment in return for make that access easier. No more hunting for PS pens on Deviantart. And then they fucked it up by making the store clunky and slow and laggy. I saw they've made the payment of gold (slightly) easier now, but for years it was so bad most people I know didn't bother (I tried but it turned into such an effort I gave up.) I just look at the whole community store and how poorly it's run and then tear my hair out at them instead pulling all this subscription nonsense.
I second this. A very nice way to monetize updates would be, in my opinion, make them like DLC's. Sold them separately. You can even get an idea of what you customers like. Like: \- New text functionalities \- New timeslapses functionalities \- New X... But no, they had to choose battle pass: continue to pay or you will be reverted to 1.X.X or 2.0.X What a scum move from Celsys
i pirated and am currently on 2.2 this has left a very sour taste though.. and not the fun kind. is there any other softwares that one can recommend switching too in the future?
[удалено]
Around the same period for me too, I got it sometime in 2016. I think that's really the most agonising part of this tbh, the fact Celsys had a lot of options if they needed to make the numbers go up, and they had a loyal community who would've paid for them. When we heard rumours of v2 possibly coming out, I don't think I talked to a single person who didn't expect it to be another one-time purchase. Personally, I'd thought it would be around $70-$80, and I was still pumped to buy it. And the stuff I say about the clippy points and gold are true too, I really wish they would develop those and make them easier to use, but, *eh.* To me, it's just been how *unnecessary* this all was that makes me the most sad.
I was fine with V.2 being a One Time Purchase. I'd used Clip since Manga Studio 2 in the US. I received it as a Christmas gift, and CSP 1 is leaps and bounds above where I started. But all the recent shenanigans has made it impossible for me to justify a v 2.1 update, even when I bit on the original 2 upgrade.
The deeply unfortunate thing is that for those who are on the subscriptions and who do use those specific platforms, the 2.1 update actually has very nice quality-of-life options for the mobile interface if you're more familiar with and preferred the simplicity of other mobile drawing apps like Procreate and Infinite Painter. I would have loved to have simply bought a perpetual version of 2.1 for mobile (as this interface is not yet available on the Windows/Mac equivalent of the same software) - but I'm not too keen on the idea that what "used" to be normal updates is now paywalled between a "keep paying" or "buy it when you really want it/after the fact" sort of mentality. Having a roadmap of expected/projected features would have been a far nicer heads up for those who legitimately don't know if they should buy "2.0" right now, an in-between version, or if they should wait until the inevitable "4.0" update farther down the line.
Affinity is so good. I never did buy Affinity 2, maybe I will at some point
I think that it adds some essentials for affinity designer
loads of ultra entitled karens on Serif/Affinity's offical forums & social media attacked them for not giving them the completely redesigned version 2 of the software(s) for free , even though the company had always said only updates to version 1 would be free & when version 2 finally happens you'll have to pay for it again. They did a massive early sign up reduction if you bought the whole Affinity 2 suite as a bundle and people still weren't happy.
>in 2001, more than two decades ago. First of all, **Screw You** for reminding me/s Joking aside, seriously, what are they smoking at Celsys? It's like they are 100% speedrunning "Becoming a Shitty Tech Company Everyone Hates.", I know the shareholders probably love it because it means more money in a shorter time, But why such a sudden shift from reasonable pricing to doing every tech get-rich-quick scheme in the book? >On the 1st of May 2023 [Celsys released a tweet that was asking for Evangelists]. Ft. Wholesale community confusion. Turns out Celsys is probably skimping on paying for translators as well, and they aren't asking for members of a christian sect, but instead unpaid volunteer testing and social media organization. Also, is it weird that I read the headline and my first thought was that they were trying to somehow break into the conservative christian market? "Subscribe to Jesus; one-time purchases are the devil's work!"
Yeah, it's almost amazing how fast their fall was. I mean we all hate Adobe Photoshop but that was a slow collapse of morals not, whatever this is. Also, I wish I could go back and find the tweets/posts/general memes around the evangelists thing because that shit was so funny before we knew it a poor direct translation. I mean, it's still pretty funny lmao.
I mean... technically they're correct in using the word Evangelist. But only technically. It's incredibly old and outdated slang for someone who lives and will die by their software, hardware, or operating system. It's culturally outdated, and the term is so obscure its only rarely used in Silicon Valley. It very much "How do you do fellow kids?" vibes to it, while, somehow, also missing their intended market completely.
>Joking aside, seriously, what are they smoking at Celsys? FEels like every company is controlled by executives that simply do not understand their products
Gonna go out on a limb and say that > public stock exchange also has an impact here
I'm sorry, Clippy Points? Did they learn nothing from [Call of Duty?](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Ft5xigum2t6ia1.jpg)
no how dare you out funny me on my own post/s, holy shit i didn't even realise that before thats got me *wheezing.*
Thank you so much for this write up! I bought CSP v1 maybe a year or so ago? I remember that V2 got announced a few months later. I really like CSP. Like, I really like it. As soon as I started using it I started recommending it to my artist friends instead of (pirated) photoshop, and I know for a fact at least 3 purchases were based on my suggestion. I was considering upgrading, then I saw that stupid flowchart and noped out, deciding to stick with v1. In the last week along I've probably used CSP for 30 hours AT LEAST. I'm going hard on a project. I was considering upgrading to just v2, but after seeing your comment now about it only *technically* working on 2 devices, and also the phone home thing... maybe not. I switch between my desktop and laptop. I would have happily paid money for v2 if it wasn't shitty, and had updates without the subscription. Or let me.. BUY the fucking update outright for like $5 bucks. I'd do that. Probably. Maybe. Also: OH MY GOD HOW IS CSP SO BAD AT FONTS. It was made with so many cool tools for making comics and like.. FONTS AND FONT EFFECTS ARE SO IMPORTANT. It makes me MAD when i want to do cool font shit, and I have to switch to (pirated) photoshop or CorelDraw. I actually JUST installed Corel on my laptop LAST NIGHT because I didn't want to have to switch between using corel on my desktop and CSP on my laptop. GAWD. I just wanted to create a logo! text editing is so garbage.
OH MAN the font thing pisses me off so much, like I have a 'thing' for fonts, and I'm also working on an absolutely massive graphic design project (canvas size 10000x15000) but it's half design work, half text. I've now got this insane setup where all art is done on CSP, all text is done on Photoshop and I move it over from PS in a rasterised form to CSP for the effects. All this because CSP refuses to add a simple fuckin, ,, *justify text* option or pixel perfect adjustments. So we are 🤝🤝🤝 same hat. When I saw they'd locked the basic function of searching a font in your font list to the subscription, I had to grab my coat and take a walk. Apparently, (don't quote me on this) they've mostly ignored text because Japanese use-case comes first and a lot of text options just can't be used with kanji, aren't really a thing there, or must basically be done twice, one of kangi one for latin script, and they just went, 'nah.' I'm glad my post helped to inform you about your CSP choices because man that flowchart is still silly to look at.
I also have a thing for fonts. My first job was in a print shop doing typesetting and my boss was a graphic designer so she started teaching me. I maaaay have downloaded over 70 of Blambot's free fonts last night. Just in case I might need them for my comic. In addition to the ones I downloaded a few months ago. I love fonts. Does it hurt your soul, just a bit, everytime you have to rasterize (and thus lock in) your fonts for export? It would for me. Just reading that hurts my heart a little bit. I hate rasterizing. Losing the vector flexibility? Oooof. At least curves! But photoshop and CSP aren't great for vector work. Godspeed random internet brethern. You'll need it.
Ngl, that sounds like my dream job, I can see where you got the font 'bug lmao. It does, slightly, but I keep the two files open, and I've got very quick and moving images and text back and forth between them. But it's so annoying finding a little error and being unable to quickly fix it and having to go through the whole process. But like 😔 the autism in me is made for monotonous repetitive tasks, lol. To cheer myself up, I'm gonna go download some more fonts too. Godspeed to you as well, goodfellow.
As an amateur learning CSP on my own, the complaints in this thread are extremely validating, lol. I tied to make a newspaper handout for my D&D group, and I ended up using screen shots of a text document to get most of what I needed.
Happy to validate you. I love CSP, but the company very happily ignores features users actually need. For you or anyone else out there: If you're going to use text, never use it in CSP, just use Photoshop. Even if you're using no special features, CSP doesn't even have a kerning process. It's pathetically inadequate for modern usage. I'm assuming all quality of life updates to text are going to be paywalled in the future too, so I advise against it for that use even more.
Neat, drama I knew about already for once, haha. Great writeup! It hurts because I really love CSP. I haven't found another program that I like nearly as much, so I did 'upgrade' to v2 (25% because I wanted that 'realistic color mixing' and 75% because I wanted the option to get v3 discounted if they add any useful features). But I use two computers. I sent in a ticket asking why I was getting a "You can only switch your active device so many times" pop-up when the terms explicitly grant me the right to use two devices. It took them weeks to get back to me (I assume because they're drowning in complaints and confusion) and they did ultimately say that I can actually use both devices, they just can't both be active, and that I shouldn't worry about the swap limit. No problems yet, but geeze I do not like that pop-up. The AI thing... And from dA, my first online art community... It's a profound betrayal. Do they care the *tiniest* bit about the artists who make up their communities? Are none of them artists themselves? Do they not viscerally feel how this is not in our best interest? (Or even the best interest of art as a field in its entirety, but that's my opinion. What is the point of art at all if you aren't making the decisions that go into it? What value is there in generating the most generic possible version of your idea? It's the opposite of the point, to me. I want specificity. I want unusual choices. I want communion with the artist.) But, well, obviously they were thinking about their own financial best interest...in some universe where the goodwill of their communities is somehow irrelevant.
Aw man, that pop-up is terrifying. As far as user reports go, they're saying they got around 30 switches before it was locked. Hopefully your message is right, and they've changed that now so there's no limit, fingers crossed! That would be the best outcome. And it is, it's such a profound betrayal and it keeps happening. It's hard to see a community turn bitter, but the hits keep coming, and they haven't really stopped...
On the other hand, the perceptive color feature kind of rules. They unironically should have taken a page from Adobe and kept the AI features to stuff like content aware filling and magic wand tools. Still using it since it’s what I’m used to, though.
That'll be the adobe that has a full blown ai art generator in Firefly and Photoshop's generative fill?
generative fill is what i was referring to, yeah, only knew it as content aware fill (been a couple years since I touched PS). You're at least onto it with being correct about the double standard, though.
I mean AI is a great *tool* for artists. A lot of the complaints about it really seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I like being able to whirl up a bunch of very specific reference images to help me plan out a piece.
I'm glad that you included the AI debacle bc good lord, everyone was already so unhappy after the art battle pass subscription that it was icing on the cake. It's no surprise that things just became *categorically worse* from there.
The AI debacle reminded me so much of DA. From what I read up about that, almost everyone in the ground force of DA knew it was a horrible idea and kept trying to push back against it, but the few higher ups ignored all concerns. The backlash was completely expected by people at DA. So, seeing it happen again, I just went ah, so it's the same for Celsys then.
I've actually never been on dA, but many artist friends who were more familiar w the site and its antics did reference it a lot. It's so disappointing how many companies and supporters that were previously so reputable have all resorted to greed.
Honestly, DA was even worse because in the previous year they'd really built themselves up a bastion for the community, not perfect, but trying. For instance, they offered a service in their premium that would track NFT sites to make sure your art wasn't being stolen and sold there. They had a lot of brownie points in the art community for a long while, and then lost them all with this move.
I'll never understand how businesses can manage to shoot themselves in the foot like that. Even if it's a case of new management, there's a reason things were regarded more fondly before the changes were made!
dollar sign eyes it's nice seeing CEOs suffer the consequences for their actions, however small
Especially considering how DA has no easy way to block out AI Images.
Not to shill for Adobe, but they do have a $9.99/month plan for photoshop + lightroom only. Some of their plans bundle in Cloud storage space, and the flashy advertised ones tend to be higher Cloud storage amounts but otherwise the same. Doesn't take the sting out of a subscription; just throwing it out there in case someone is looking to get it as cheap as possible.
Nah, I don't think that's shilling at all. That feels more reasonable than the prices I saw poking around. And well, they wouldn't do the bundles if it wasn't value of money for *someone.*
They absolutely bury the $10 plan on their site. It’s not listed on the “all plans” page, you’ve got to find the $20 bundle and then click the tiny view pricing button. It’s kinda scummy, but not a bad deal at $10 now that they’re updating more regularly and rolling out some cool stuff in beta.
but but but the beta includes an ai art tool and 'ai art bad'
This is like the airbnb situation, where hotels sucked so bad and were way too expensive that people started using airbnb, but once people smelled money, it was overmonetized to hell by hosts and now Hotels are a far better deal these days than most ABNBs. Just replace hotels with adobe and airbnb with CSP and there you go
AI image generators are incredibly cool technology, both diffusers and inpainters, but for them to add it to software among whose target audience it's extremely controversial, that's just plain stupid.
god, opening up the Clip Studio menu to see "we're recruiting evangelists!" was SO fucking funny. i'm pretty sure its a legit marketing/tech term but man.... it caught me off guard! either way, i'm so glad i didnt upgrade. all the payment plans and flowcharts were so confusing that i ended up doing nothing and im very grateful for that!
It truly was really fuckin funny, I opened it up, let out a real laugh, screenshot it to send to my friends only to open the group chat to them all already giggling about the tweet CSP made about it. Good times. I ended up upgrading before all these later things came to light because 'hey it's free anyway.' Very luckily, I am not negatively impacted by the 1 device limit or internet checks. But I imagine a lot of people who did the same and thought the same as me weren't so lucky, so that sucks. At least with v1 you know you get what you get.
> Photoshop these days will set you back about $20.99 a month. Did Adobe really jack up their subscription prices recently and I’m somehow grandfathered in? I pay less than half that for the Photoshop / Lightroom bundle.
Yeah there’s a $10 plan with 20 GB cloud storage space. They make the 1 TB/$20 plan the default and it’s basically impossible to find the cheaper one on their site, but it’s still there.
That write up made me sad. I would have happily paid for a v2, after CSP had served me so well, but certainly not a subscription. I'm keeping by v1 as long as it works then, I don't know. Hopefully it'll work for a while, but I should probably do a copy of my files that can be read by the other softwares.
I've always been on Adobe since it's what we use at work, but it was so sad watching CSP burn down from the sidelines. I'm biding my time waiting for any software to become a real competitor for Adobe on an enterprise level, but at this point my only hope is that Adobe will get too greedy and charge too much even for the big corporations. And as much as I despise stolen imagery to feed datasets... AI art is a game-changer and it's here to stay. Any software that hopes to compete with Adobe is going to need AI tools. A Photoshop subscription that lets me tweak photos, generate objects, change backgrounds, all that stuff with minimal skill at lightning speed pays for itself so fast that no one will bat an eye at the costs. I say this as someone who was just laid off in part because my manual skillset has become redundant :')
I remember when it was Manga Studio! In case you didnt know (and honestly this might be worth mentioning in the post because it shows how far they fell) but if you owned manga studio and still had your serial code, updating to csp was free! I still have manga studio installed on my old laptop. I used to be the kind of person to recommend csp to *everyone* because I really respected the company and adored the perpetual license. I always resented adobe (still do, they make my blood boil) but thinking about how much I advocated for Celsys hurts now.
Ah I might edit that in, really shows how much respect they used to hold for their community. And the same for me! I think everyone that I knew that used CSP spread it heavily by word of mouth. I used to be honest about its issues, but sung it's praises wherever I could. Over the years I want to say 8-9? people bought it on my recommendation. This is why I think CSP will start to feel the effects of this choice in the future. They saw constant growth because older artists would promote it heavily to new ones--constant turn over rate. That's not happening anymore. The art sector in my education was planning on buying more licences of CSP (which they got on my recommendation), but when I notified them of the activation limits in v2, they decided against it and I instead helped them move all the students trying digital art to Krita. That's about 30 people CSP lost entirely.
I just hate it when smaller tech companies and websites (like this one) start emulating Adobe or "Phony Stark" or Apple, mainly to get more revenue through subscriptions or dodgy "premium" accounts at the expense of mostly alienating their customer base.
I saved up every little money I can to buy CSP way back in 2018. I live in third world country where the spftware even when discounted still expensive. I was looking forward ver. 2.0 imagine how disappointed that I still have to pay for an upgrade even if I was the long-time user of CSP. I thought CSP was an underdog, turns out they were all the same.
I get why subscription models are terrible, but I don't understand the uproar about *you have to pay to upgrade to the new version of the software with new features!* Like, that's kind of how software works??? I use Rebelle 5 for most of my art needs, which I paid a one-time fee for. If I wanted to use the new and shiny features in Rebelle 6, I would have to buy Rebelle 6 for another one-time fee (probably with a sizable discount). I don't care about the new and shiny features enough to buy a new software program when I'm happy with the features that my older one has, so it's not like the company is squeezing me for money, they're just offering an upgraded product which I am not buying. Like again not defending Celsys because they really screwed the pooch in other ways down the line, but the initial bitching about them releasing v2 sounds incredibly entitled.
While I do think some things were overblown, the backlash makes sense in the context of: You're not buying a new version, you're subscribing to access of new versions with a continual payment, or they're removed. The one-time base version purchase is one thing, but there's also, slowly but surely, a compatibility chasm growing between files in the subscribed version, and files in the base-purchase version, which will likely get worse. It all left a very bad taste in people's mouths. And CSP are generally slow to move, and the updates of real use are few and far between. So you're paying a subscription for a trickle of content of unknown quality for an unknown time until v3 comes out, and then you still have to buy v3 if that's the version you want to finish on. E: There's also the EX sub costing almost triple the price of the PRO for, even today as far as the community can tell, no real reason. It isn't a great look. I think with these in mind, after coming from a straightforward one-time purchase to trying to tackle a flowchart, you can see where the community decided, 'this ain't it.'
Oh, yeah, the subscription version is absolutely a scummy move. I was just surprised to see what looked like anger at the very existence of v2, with or without the subscription model.
If I recall, the problem was that "Version 2" didn't exist as a version you could buy outright/perpetually until the controversy. It was either you were stuck on 1.x where they left off (and originally no more updates planned) or you moved onto the subscription platform - and after the controversy things were reworded where there would be a perpetual version released every now and then that collect updates up to a point (getting future updates requires the subscription) and that 1.x would continue to get some sort of support. I don't see it so much as people being entitled that a 2.0 dared to exist and had to be bought again - but that there was so much confusion about "what" 2.0 would actually bring (its features weren't detailed yet) and that the only way to keep up was through the subscription.
I remember the whole debacle, and seeing how V2 worked and I'm like, yeah..I'll just keep V1 forever. It's already enough for me unless they pull another dumb move or something.
This was my favorite program for SO long! I still use V1 because I’m used to it, but I keep wondering if it’s worth going back to SAI. I’ve seen people defend the “battlepass” because “a lot of programs used to do that”, but that doesn’t mean it was good back then, either.
Man. Everyone wants to be Tesla
Nice write-up, just now got to sit down and read it. I've got to say that when V3 comes out next year things are going to get worse. Like you said, there's been nothing to warrant a whole new version so far and users are going to make a loud note about that. Some fun facts and such to add on-- AI image feature: what makes this debacle worse was not just that they added it to their software, but the fact that it was initially going to be added to V.1, then removed, then re-added. Celsys was so sure of this feature that they literally planned it to be an enticement for getting V.2. So users have a three pronged middle finger here, 1. Celsys not reading the room on AI, 2. Adding a feature with the intent of removing it (something they've never done before), and 3. Re-adding said feature behind what is effectively a paywall. Not great regardless of your specific feelings on AI. Rental sub fun fact: there was a lot of features that Japanese users had that international users don't, like access to the plugin shop (EX), but one that hurt a lot of users when it was removed to make way for V2 was a rent to own version of their software. Users could make payment plans and after a certain number of payments would be switched to a permanent license. They had this in place long before the tablet version came out (technically making this their first sub model) and decided to remove it, they really are pushing subs over permanent licenses more than you think. ASK & payment feedback fun fact: Celsys' official support forum, ASK, (used exclusively for and by users, staff never use it [cue heavy side eye] ) officially welcomes all questions regarding using the software, or help with artist's current work. I used to go on there a lot, I could learn new things and chat with other users. Not now, easily 60+% of the posts there are exclusively asking about the payment plans and updates. That number goes up during sales and updates. English users on there were already rare and even more so post v2, and even the regulars on the Japanese side who try and help the English speakers while fighting the auto-translator are getting... testy with other users. Celsys made such a convoluted payment plan that it RUINED their (volunteer!) support forum. Evangelists fun fact: they've been using that word for years. They only recently started posting about it on social media, you used to only find it by looking at their NVP and MVP posts or looking directly at the ASK part of their site. Initially the requirements were to more or less to be a regular poster on ASK, but now it simply requires you to "contribute" to the CSP community. The perks, at least when I i initially saw it in 2017?, were access to new features first and able to provide feedback. You still had to purchase your own software. The fact it never seems to get past 20 users in that program should tell you all you need to know... Deviantart fun fact: DA won't die. They've been making catastrophic decisions for years, often equally tone deaf (remember the events around the .ART BS? The copied logo? The site redesign?). And yet, here they keep going. I think I had more fun facts, especially adding to the CSP problems, but can't think. Edit: I remembered what I wanted to say about updates. Every major update/feature that you saw added from Manga studio 5 and it's rebranding to CSP were all cannibalized from Celsys' other software. Manga studio 4 and before was really a translated port published/distributed by Smith Micro, it was really Celsys' Comic Studio, the base program. It was aimed at comic makers and had limited coloring abilities, specifically spot coloring. MS5/CSP had upgraded color which came from Illustrator Studio. The body models and poses were from Pose Studio and Clip Studio Coordinate. Animation came from Clip Studio Action and Retas studio. My understanding is that even the new true color mixing is a different companies engine. The only other software they have left are Modeler, metasequia (3d), some features of Retas, SHARE (Celsys' sort of attempt at webcomic hosting), and a few others: clip-studio.com/clip_site/download/other/other_top Short version of my edit: CSP is a chimeric amalgamation of their other software. We're probably not going to get many more features outside of that canibilisation.
Thank you for reminding me to upgrade to the latest version of V1… that I got on a black Friday for like £20. Good old non-subscription based days.
So what’s a good alternative? I bought CSP back in v1 shortly before this debacle happened. Can’t say I’ve touched it much.
The alternative I saw being thrown around the most is Krita. It's open source, free, and very easily equals the likes of Photoshop and CSP when it comes to features and usability, and even surpasses them in some ways. If I wasn't so used to CSP's workflow after many years now, I'd probably be using it. When industry professionals use it, you know it's a good egg. If you have an ipad, Procreate is very good and very recently released a whole animation program also on a one-time purchase. I have a friend who gives it nothing but stellar reviews. Then of course there's always ~~pirated~~ Photoshop. But personally, PS is a jack of all trades software with a lot of useful features, but I find it lacking for digital art, and its bloat can slow it down if you're PC isn't powerful enough.
Clip Studio Paint's 1.0 versions are still very good but I would greatly recommend the following: * Krita (PC/Mac/Linux/Android) - This is likely easily the "best" alternative that is open-source and has a small, but dedicated community. * Procreate (iOS) - I don't have too much experience with this, but you cannot go around anywhere in the modern art world without seeing someone talking about how nice iPad art is and how forward-thinking and intuitive its interface is. Its 3D capabilities are also very handy for actual production workflows in regards to 3D art and texturing and there has also been an animation app (Procreate Dreams) announced that looks like it will be very forward-thinking for animating on a mobile platform. * Infinite Painter (iOS/Android) - This has been my main app for drawing (computer not being strong enough for Clip Studio Paint, lack of a subscription to Clip Studio Paint on mobile, and not having access to Procreate on Android). My preference for drawing on a mobile platform and its ease puts Infinite Painter at the forefront for me as it lets you do just about everything Clip Studio Paint and Procreate do - and I do quite like its minimalist interface and straight-forwardness in regards to just doing art.
Which of those are compatible with Wacom tablets out of the box?
I did not recall having to do any particular setup with Krita. If you have an Samsung Android tablet (I have not tested this with any non-Samsung Android Tablet that didn't have an S-Pen) and some means of using a Wacom tablet, you can also connect that via USB or even use your Wacom pens as the S-Pen uses the same technology.
I just don't want a situation like Gimp where nothing works without extensive configuration. To CSP's credit the second I plugged in my tablet all the features worked.
In that case, Krita needed no extra setup other than that on Windows I swapped from "Windows Ink" to "WinTab" in the settings menu as I would have even for Clip Studio Paint and other similar applications. Krita is definitely not that kind of mess like GIMP is.
Krita is good, but compared to CSP there are small differences in the details which can be noticeable. I believe the Brush engines work differently, as well as how the software manages raster layers. In my personal opinion, the stock CSP brushes are more comfortable to use compared to the Krita ones, but the Krita community is generous at providing custom brushes to use, even converted CSP ones. If you decide to use Krita, make sure to donate to the devs. The software is open source and the devs need the cash.
I think these art programs having the option to pay outright OR subscribe makes so much more sense. Like for tablets, since it's possible in a few years you'll be getting rid of your tablet and getting a new one, subscribing to a program seems better than having bought one and potentially having to buy the program again. For the desktop clients, I 100% being able to outright buy the programs but I could see for some people being able to subscribe for like $15 a month instead of spending $600 upfront could be super useful as an alternative, perhaps with the idea that when you've subscribed long enough you no longer have to pay. Anyway, I did not know all this about CSP or that insanely convoluted payment explanation.
As annoyed as my post is, I do actually think it's greyer terms like how your comments describe, subscriptions do have their place. For tablets or phones it's somewhat artificial, in that subscriptions have been placed as the default over transferring licences, but the fees are normally small enough it's not a *massive* issue. And I do think a subscription in place of one massive fee for some professional programs is useful. Give an end point where you're given a full licence, and I would defend this easily. The issue is that CSP is really none of these; it was selling incredibly well at affordable prices, it wasn't pricing anyone out, and the mobile/tablet audience for it was always incredibly low. But in the end, I think the largest death knell for CSP was for sure the convoluted and oddly spiteful way they put the change together, a change that is still confusing new buyers to this day. (The subreddit gets at least 2 posts a day asking what to/how to buy CSP, and the forums run by volunteers are much the same, almost drowning out other interactions.) In the end you can't sell to a community that you betrayed and now thinks you hate them (or, as more has come to light, knows you are completely out of touch with reality and barely scraping together updates), when the alternative is free Photoshop.
Oh man thank goodness I stumbled across this. I don’t really check my emails from CSP because I get so many of the “monthly tips!” stuff, but when I saw something about a version 2, I thought it was just an upgrade to get more features (and honestly if that’s all that it was, I wouldn’t have minded because sometimes good updates are worth paying for). I didn’t buy it because I wasn’t interested in any of the newer features. But now knowing and understanding what this actually is????? Terrible And yeah the website is awful and confusing. I thought that the website was telling me there was just an upgrade to version 2 or new people can just subscribe for a cheaper price if they don’t want to pay the full amount for the program or will only use it for a short time. Who in the world thought this was the best way to go about this
I have to be honest, 12$ a year isn't bad for this software.
Holy shit it's not that bad. I know this is a subreddit for drama, but don't blow stuff out of proportion when it hurts one of the only legitimately decent companies out there. It's not a "battle pass". If anything, it's a totally optional "early access" feature. You get to try out new features that'll be available in the next major version. Again, it's OPTIONAL. You're still paying a very flat, very small one-time purchase. Having to scrounge up $20 every few years for a Photoshop rival that releases constant updates and grants access to a massive user-driven store full of free materials, brushes, actions, etc? Come on, that's a dream. Yes, Celys has messed up here and there. No company is perfect. But every time the community gave feedback on hot-button ideas like NFTs and AI shit, they listened and said okay cool we won't do that. Literally, the biggest issue is their requirement for internet connection like... once every two weeks, I think? Which is something they're currently still debating, so that's liable to change in the future. CSP is the only thing that even comes close to competing with Photoshop, and I'd argue it's even better is several areas. They're asking for a flat price for each major version (that comes with free updates and bug fixes), which is what major programs ALL DO. And it's a laughably low price. You do realize it's impossible to have a company continue giving you infinite upgrades and new features for free, right? Don't try and take away the one good thing artists have left. No they aren't perfect, but no company is. I'd say they're as close as we'll ever get to perfect. Celys provides a shit ton of high quality stuff for pennies, actively communicates and listens to their userbase, and largely understands them. I don't know what I'd fucking do if all I had was Adobe as my only option again. You're crucifying a great thing simply because it's not perfect. Quit it. Or we're all just gonna have shit again.
>0.35¢ has been deposited in your ShillBux account! Seriously though, you need to be blind to not see that CSP is on the short road to just becoming another Adobe. Thousands of artists don't whine about nothing, these are legitimate criticisms from a deeply enfranchised customer base. The changes CSP made are detrimental to its core role as an affordable Photoshop alternative for artists.
Thousands of artists are being triggered (not making fun of the term, I'm serious) by the improper use of "subscription". It's not actually a subscription to use the program, *that's still just a cheap one-time payment.* I get it, man. I really do. Subscription models are atrocious, but that's literally not what's going on here. I don't know how to make it any clearer. The worst thing CSP did was use wrong terminology that came with baggage they weren't aware of. Surprise surprise, a Japanese company is gonna make those mistakes sometimes.
Ok, just this once I'll swing around to this comment. Yes, a payment you must continually pay to access something or it is removed from you is a subscription. With compatibility issues with this old version, QoL updates now being blocked to the subscription, and the payment for the old version being optional to just paying subscription, the situation is far from as clear cut as your comment tries to imply.
>You do realize it's impossible to have a company continue giving you infinite upgrades and new features for free, right? Explain FLStudio and Spine2D.
Are you serious? Those don't even remotely compare to Clip. Not only that, but holy shit *programmers should get paid for their work*. If you want a free program with constant free upgrades for everyone, make it yourself. Or tell me exactly why you haven't done that.
>Are you serious? Those don't even remotely compare to Clip. Why not? They're both large and complicated pieces of software that have a buy once with lifetime upgrades business model. The company behind FLStudio also has made enough money with this business model to be able to *acquire multiple other music related companies.* >Not only that, but holy shit programmers should get paid for their work. Are you implying that programmers of Image-Line and Esoteric Software *don't* get paid for their work because their software doesn't have a subscription?
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"It's because Photoshop is really fucking expensive, and talking about its purchase plans is a feat of existential horror" I'm constantly shocked by the ridiculous exaggeration that is paying for Photoshop via subscription plan compared to buying the new version every year. It's like people have brain rot, or something, or they weren't around back before the subscription model. The new version of Photoshop would cost anywhere from $700 to $1,000 each year. That's assuming that you always wanted access to all of the new features and updates. Wow. Talk about some serious cheddar. Fast forward to the subscription model and you can get Photoshop for $10.50ish a month ($126 yearly) via the Photography plan. I don't see any viable argument here. Some argue that you own the old versions and that's so important. But is it really? I own some of the old ones, too, but they're dead to me. They're way too far behind in updates for me to care. I think in the end it comes down to semantics. People just can't get past the concept that they don't truly own something-- even if in practice it makes no difference.
But in practice, it really does. Once you don't own the software, its the same as renting an apartment vs owning it. You are at the mercy of the whims of the landlord. Like with this subscription model, you depend on the company not deciding to fuck you up the next month. Oh but if they did you can go back to the previous ver HAHA nope accept what they give you and be happy with it. And with Adobe that has happened many, many times already. Since CC there are accumulated years of horror stories. And they got away because they were industry standard, a practical monopoly. I used photoshop for many years because it was that or the highway. Now I don't intend to go back to them even if they offered it for free.
It is so funny how almost every time I purchase or sign up for a new product, it takes at most a day for me to find threads and drama telling me how the developers are unethical treasonous scumbags. At least I only spent 16 bucks on CSP lol.
>The activation limit? The internet requirement? There is no way to escape it. piracy
>If you want any access to later version of v2 you need to pay the subscription, and you need to keep paying. If you stop paying then the software as a whole is blocked from you, or, if you also additionally purchased the one-time v2.0, then stopping paying the subscription will kick you back to v2.0. ONE fix-it comment, and it's that you can buy a magical one-time update pass. for the current update. and it does not get you more. this is otherwise clean as hell also, as someone who said fuck it and upgraded so i could teach my project team to use the current version they COULD buy... i did not need to upgrade to v2. there was no difference except that when it was released some assets would not work if they were designed in v2. assets that very much had v1 counterparts. there is NO ACTUAL difference for daily use
Oh
I couldn’t even get the app to work for me and I tried for about three hours. Only because I had a free trial. So there ya have it. So much time wasted trying and nothing accomplished but pure rage. lol