Manga Studio 3.0

[Hyperguy]

Official Site

I'm excited about this program.  I've read a few reviews for it and so far what I've heard is that while it won't completely replace Photoshop when it comes to digital editing and photo manipulation it's got a lot of poweful features geared specifically towards comic making that Photoshop doesn't have.  Plus, it's compatible with PSD files so it may end up being the program for finishing up comics made in Photoshop.

The standard debut edition's only $50 too, which is extremely cheap for an image editing program of this quality.

Cool Things it can do:
Keep track of pages and layouts
Allow for Custom Layouts (This would be really useful for weekly webcomics that use the same format every week.)
EZ Special Effects and Page Layout Templates
Make Lettering Comics Easier
Has many, many tones, and a large amount of samples to work from
Uses layers, just like Photoshop

Why it might suck:
From what I've heard it only supports black and white images.
Anything this program can do, Photoshop can probably do.  Maybe not better or in the same way, but Photoshop's a very versatile program.  This thing looks to be best used as a supplement to Photoshop.

Some reviews:
Review 1
Review 2

[LordRyunson]

Can you get it in a PC store? Cause I eventually want to create some stuff for Manga.

[Doctor_Raven]

Is that site implying that the guy who created Van Von Hunter uses this program?

[Hyperguy]

Can you get it in a PC store? Cause I eventually want to create some stuff for Manga.

From what I can tell it looks like it'll be sold in the software section of school bookstores and some specialty places.

Is that site implying that the guy who created Van Von Hunter uses this program?

Dunno. It's possible.

[JG]

From what I've heard it only supports black and white images.

Why? It's actually harder to do grayscale only than full color in both Windows and Mac X.  Unless there's something I don't know about layers in PSD format.

[Hyperguy]

Because manga's traditionally in black and white.  My best guess is that it was optimized to take advantage of the fact.

[Doctor_Raven]

But that's only in collected versions sometimes they are in color.. sometimes...

[Hyperguy]

Very true, which is why only allowing black and white doesn't make any sense.

[Hyperguy]

I looked it up on their official site and confirmed that Manga Studio does support colors.  Why someone would mention otherwise in a review doesn't make much sense, except that maybe when they used it they were unware of how to access the program's color features.

The official site has a tutorial on working with colors here:

http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/1752/1/739/

I managed to get a copy of it today, but haven't worked with it much.  I'll report on my findings later.

[LordRyunson]

Can't wait to get it. Then I'll be able to draw some stuff for various people.