I brought Clip Studio back when it was called Manga Studio. Its a powerful and versatile tool I've developed a lot of love and experience with over the years. But I'm stuck.

Free updates stopped. Payment to upgrade isn't an inheriently bad thing for a business to do, but clip studios updates are presented in a way more confusing than a videogame digital deluxe edition. It is presented in a confusing and superfluous way.

I don't really want the big ticket updates. They're toys to me. I want the little things, the performance improvements, support for more modern file formats, UI tweaks. Clip Studio is bulky and clunky.

A part of me is genuinely considering the subscription. I don't like subscription-only services, but paying to upgrade is so confusing and a subscription removes that cognitive load. If the subscription lapses I can always downgrade and not lose complete access. I still have the license I have for Manga Studio/CSP1 and that won't be revoked.

But maybe its time to leave Clip Studio behind. I like free software and free updates.

So I tried Krita.

The way Krita handles comic panels and alpha masks is fucking awful. A Google search says its an engine limitation, sucks for them. I could work within the clunk, but I don't want to. I like the way every other image software does alpha masks, and I want Krita to be normal.

Krita has a plugin called "Blender Layer". If you know how to use Blender, like me, its 1000000x better than Clip Studio's dated and simplistic 3D engine. It is laggy, but you can switch between Blender and Krita. If most of your 3D work is in Blender with slight adjustments in Krita, the lag isn't too noisome. Its also powerful enough to look good, CSPs render engine is so barebones and ugly. You can just render an image in Blender and put the 2D picture into the software, but its a trial-and-error process that being able to make in-drawing-software adjustments mitigates. Blender Layer is an excellent plugin and a dream tool for me.

A lot of Clip Studio's positives are also in Krita. And if my decision was netural, if I didn't have years in Clip Studio, I would probably switch.

Unfortunately, Krita does have a heap of the free software clunk. Its not the worst of all FOSS image softwares, GNUIMP, but its still got awkward annoyances to learn. Although its got one killer plugin, the engine issues that handle alpha weirdly and the unfamiliar clunk repel me. Clip Studio is the clunk I'm used to. So I am sticking with Clip Studio. If Krita handled alpha masks in a normal way, I probably would switch.