ProArtisan has been on the RISC OS platform for as long as RISC OS itself and almost two decades on from the original release, it is now one of the best graphics packages on the RISC OS platform. Artisan and the Pro version was orginaly developed and published by Clares' Micro Supplies to run on Arthur and RISC OS 2, today it is developed and published by APDL - ProAction to run on RISC OS 5 and 6.

The price has also changed a lot too, at one time the price was almost £200 but now is down to £39 so, it doesn't burn as much of a whole as it used to be.

ProArtisan has always taken advantage of the latest hardware, the RiscPC in 1994 and the Iyonix in 2002, these new machines let the performance of ProArtisan improve.

Development of ProArtisan resumed after a long time a year or two ago to support newer hardware like the Iyonix and the brand new A9 range of machines, so that you no longer require Aemulor (Pro) to run ProArtisan. There is also hope of new features in future versions of the package like PNG graphics and improved and not so buggy Photo CD support.

The latest release is supplied on a single CD in a quite nice box and a glossy printed manual, most RISC OS users with a CD Drive will be able to use ProArtisan24, from the earliest RiscPC and RISCStation to the latest Iyonix or A9.

Users of the first APDL - ProAction release, 1.20 can download a free upgrade to version 1.21 from the APDL website, users of the last Clares' Micro Supplies version, 1.10 can upgrade to the latest version for a mere £12!. Owners of earlier versions of ProArtisan are charged £29 to receive an upgrade to the most recent version.

ProArtisan supports PhotoCDs, so you can simply insert a PhotoCD to view or copy your favorite pictures and then eject the CD from the drive. Unfortunately, the format is now a bit dead as digital cameras have more or less taken over so the feature is a bit useless now.

There's a rather petit section of sprites to choose from to draw your pictures by using the nice selection of vector shapes, lines, polygons, curves, ellipses and rectangles.

To perfect your picture, you can take advantage of the medium sized range of functions and effects: Inverse, Tint, Anti-Alias, Lighten, Darken, Cutoff, Grey Shift, Remove Dots, Colour Shift, Contrast, Sphere, Find Edges, Block, Halftone, Sharpen, Generic, Warp, Pattern and Emboss.

Overall, ProArtisan is very good quality for money and is a must for RISC OS users interested in graphics and design, it won't exactly burn a large hole in your pocket either. ProArtisan is much simpler to use than other art applications on the platform. If you like using ProArtisan then you would feel quite at home with using Photodesk although it is a bit harder.

I give ProArtisan an

8 / 10

(C) Sion Cleaver 2006