Digital painting. Digital painting is the creation of imagery on a computer, using pixels (picture elements) which are assigned a color. The process uses raster graphics rather than vector graphics, and can render graduated or blended colors in imagery which mimics traditional drawing and painting media.

Origins

Sketchpad

The earliest graphical manipulation program was called Sketchpad. Created in 1963 by Ivan Sutherland, a grad student at MIT, Sketchpad allowed the user to manipulate objects on a cathode-ray tube (CRT). Sketchpad eventually led to the creation of the Rand Tablet for work on the GRAIL project in 1968, and the very first tablet was created. Other early tablets, or digitizers, like the ID (intelligent digitizer) and the BitPad were commercially successful and used in CAD (Computer Aided Design) programs. Modern-day graphics tablets are the tools of choice by digital painters.

Tablets
The idea of using a tablet to communicate directions to a computer has been an idea since 1968 when the RAND (Research and Development) company out of Santa Monica, developed the RAND tablet that was used to program. Digitizers were popularized in the mid-1970s and early 1980s by the commercial success of the ID (Intelligent Digitizer) and BitPad manufactured by the Summagraphics Corp. These digitizers were used as the input device for many high-end CAD (computer aided design) systems as well as bundled with PCs and PC-based CAD software like AutoCAD.

MacPaint

An early commercial program that allowed users to design, draw, and manipulate objects was the program MacPaint. This program's first version was introduced on January 22, 1984, on the Apple Lisa. The ability to freehand draw and create graphics with this program made it the top program of its kind during 1984. The earlier versions of the program were called MacSketch and LisaSketch, and the last version of MacPaint was MacPaint 2.0 released in 1998.

Much of MacPaint's universal success was attributed to the release of the first Macintosh computer equipped with another program called MacWrite. It was the first personal computer with a graphical user interface and lost much of the bulky size of its predecessor, the Lisa. The Macintosh was available at about $2500 and the combination of a smaller design made the computer a hit, exposing the average computer user to the graphical possibilities of the included MacPaint.

Adobe
Another early image manipulation program was Adobe Photoshop. It was first called Display and was created in 1987 by Thomas Knoll at the University of Michigan as a monochrome picture display program. With help from his brother John, the program was turned into an image editing program called Imagepro but later changed to Photoshop. The Knolls agreed on a deal with Adobe Systems and Apple, and Photoshop 1.0 was released in 1991 for Macintosh. Adobe Systems had previously released Adobe Illustrator 1.0 in 1986 on the Apple Macintosh. These two programs, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator are currently two of the top programs used to produce digital paintings. Illustrator introduced the uses of Bezier curves, which allowed the user to be incredibly detailed in their vector drawings.

Kid Pix
In 1988, Craig Hickman created a paint program called Kid Pix, which made it easier for children to create digital art. The program was created in black in white and after several revisions, was released in color in 1991. Kid Pix was one of the first commercial programs to integrate color and sound in a creative format. While the Kid Pix was intentionally created for children, it became a useful tool for introducing adults to the computer as well.

Corel Painter

Corel Painter was created in 1991 by Mark Zimmer and Tom Hedges of Fractal Design.

Web-based painting programs
In recent years there has been a growth in the websites supporting online painting. The user is still drawing digitally with the use of software: often the software is on the server of the website which is being used. However, with the emergence of HTML5, some programs now partly use the client's web browser to handle some processing. The range of tools and brushes can be more limited than free-standing software. Speed of response, quality of color, and the ability to save to a file or print are similar in either media.

List of digital art software

See also
 Art software
 Brain painting
 Computer art
 Computer graphics
 Computer painting
 Digital Art by Microsoft
 Digital illustration
 Digital photography
 Electronic art
 New Media
 Software art

References

Further reading 
 Donald Kuspit The Matrix of Sensations VI: Digital Artists and the New Creative Renaissance
 Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, At the Edge of Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2006
 Christiane Paul Digital Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd
 Donald Kuspit "Del Atre Analogico al Arte Digital" in Arte Digital Y Videoarte, Kuspit, D. ed., Consorcio del Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid
 Robert C. Morgan Digital Hybrids, Art Press volume #255, pp. 75–76
 Frank Popper From Technological to Virtual Art, MIT Press
 Bruce Wands Art of the Digital Age, London: Thames & Hudson
 Christine Buci-Glucksmann, "L'art à l'époque virtuel", in Frontières esthétiques de l'art, Arts 8, Paris: L'Harmattan, 2004
 Margot Lovejoy Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age Routledge 2004
 Brandon Taylor Collage Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2006, p. 221
 Wayne Enstice & Melody Peters, Drawing: Space, Form, & Expression, New Jersey: Prentice Hall
 Frank Popper Ecrire sur l'art : De l'art optique a l'art virtuel, L'Harmattan 2007
 Fred Forest Art et Internet, Editions Cercle D'Art / Imaginaire Mode d'Emploi
 Lieser, Wolf. Digital Art. Langenscheidt: h.f. ullmann. 2009

Graphics
Painting
Digital art
Contemporary art
New media
New media art
Conceptual art
Visual arts genres
Visual arts media
Computer art
Postmodern art