Playing with colors, vibrance, hue saturation upon photographs can be exhilarating. If executed properly, it can also output some delightful, creative pictures. Akvis MultiBrush ($49 ) allows barebones image painting functions that offers some nice tools. Nonetheless  they are limited and demand dexterity  to be able to use them.

I downloaded the trial version of Akvis MultiBrush and discovered that its  limited occasionally trying group of tools for painting on your photographs can match somewhat the features offered by Adobe Photoshop. MultiBrush’s GUI is clean and straightforward. Along the ribbon are a handful of icons for opening or saving a file, printing, Undo or Redo; to the right, you’ll find links to the online help and preferences. There’s the basic toolbox to the left of the image window which grants access to the core group of painting tools, such as: Color Brush/Color Pencil, Eraser, History Brush, Clone Stamp, Chameleon Brush, Sharpen/Blur, Lighten/Darken/Saturation, and so forth. I found myself drawn to  the Chameleon Brush  which clones  the luminosity of a source image onto a destination background, applying the  tones to create some interesting ghostly or otherwise artistic effects. Then there’s your usual  History Palette that keeps track of your modifications, for rapid mastery over Undos. Take note that the history tool doesn’t really exploit this palette; rather, it is a selective Undo, restoring the area brushes to the original form.

What I didn’t like is that brush options don’t offer much. There’s a lack Selection or Masking tools so you can’t do the fancy glows, pastes and edits easily accomplished in Photoshop. Plus You need great hand/eye coordination to place precise brush strokes, for decent creation.

MultiBrush comes as a plug-in for Photoshop-compatible programs, for the same low price of $49. Alternatively you avail both the plug-in and standalone editions for $69. While the MultiBrush standalone opens and saves JPEG, BMP, PNG and TIF files, the plug-in will support files native to the host program .

Is  Akvis MultiBrush worthwhile? That depends. How steady is your hand? If your hand quakes, this software is next to useless. It may also prove to be feature sparse for the intermediate designer.  But for those on a budget who can’t fork over $300 for Photoshop , it can be a deal.

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