Serif DrawPlus X5 review

Photo & Graphic Designer doesn’t have anything to match DrawPlus’s natural media brushes. There’s a huge array of chalk, pen, pencil, airbrush and sponge brushes, and even petals, grass cuttings, metal chains, zips and scarfs. Brush strokes don’t mix and blend in complex ways in the way dedicated painting software allows, but there’s detailed control over the brush behaviour and support for pressure sensitivity when using a graphics tablet. Unlike dedicated painting software, each brush stroke is stored as vector coordinates and brush settings, so there’s unlimited potential to edit existing strokes.

Natural media brushes and the ability to convert photos to vector shapes opens up some interesting artistic possibilities

Ultimately, it’s the little details that make everyday use a pain or a pleasure. On the whole, Serif has got these spot on. DrawPlus is packed with useful timesavers, such as the Group button that appears just below when multiple objects are selected, or how selecting a solid object and then the Text tool automatically inserts text inside the object. There’s also an Autofit button to make the text just small enough to fit.

On the one occasion that the software crashed, it automatically restarted and restored the unsaved project we were working on. However, we did experience a few bugs whereby edits weren’t reflected on screen until we zoomed in or out. Inserting text inside an object and applying a radial transparency didn’t work as it should. Even simply selecting objects sometimes proved tricky. Crucially, it didn’t match Photo & Graphic Designer’s frequent screen refreshes. In Serif’s software, we usually had to drag a handle or adjust a slider and then release to see the effect, whereas in Xara’s the screen updated constantly and smoothly as settings were changed.

It’s for these reasons that DrawPlus X5 doesn’t manage to dethrone Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 7. It comes pretty close, though. If natural media painting or photo cut-outs are important, it’s an excellent choice.