Top drawer

If you’ve ever been stuck trying to do some technical illustration or wanting to add some annotation to an existing drawing or image and the traditional software lets you down, help is at hand in the shape of

.

The number of illustration packages available is amazing, but this wonderful little application, now in version 2, provides access to the high level sketching tools of the Alias stable for a fraction of the cost. Just $180 buys you an excellent sketching complement to Photoshop or Corel Draw.

The only downside is that you need a Tablet PC or Wacom Tablet type input device to take full advantage of the sketching characteristics. You can’t really sketch (in the artistic sense) with a mouse, and a mouse has no notion of stylus pressure. So light, wispy thin lines are impossible.

According to the manufacturers, ‘Alias SketchBook Pro is a nimble, high-quality paint and drawing application designed specifically for use with a stylus. The product features an artist-friendly, gesture-based user interface built around Alias’s patented Marking Menu technology.’ The stylus allows the user to access tools such as pencils, markers and brushes; pen-driven layers; background templates; and a pan/zoom tool. These are backed up by a 50-brushstroke ‘undo/redo’ option.