Krita Review by an Artist: Everything You Need to Know

Krita is a great drawing app that many artists use to create digital art. I have been using Krita for more than three months. Before using Krita, I drew using Clip Studio and Photoshop for around one year. 

I have great experience drawing on Krita, but it is not perfect. Let’s look at its pros and cons as a drawing app. 

With my experience, I hope you can decide whether you should use Krita as your drawing app or not

Pros of Krita

1. Krita is a Free Application

Krita is an open-source application. This means it is free to download and install without requiring a proprietary or premium license.

The price of competitor software like Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint is increasing. As an open-source application, Krita doesn’t require you to pay for a subscription. 

The best part is that you don’t need to register an account to use the app. After using Krita, you won’t get spam emails about the latest promos and discounts.

 It’s incredible how feature-packed Krita is as an open-source application. 

2. Krita is Safe to Install

Krita is safe to use even though it’s a free application. Many developers leave many open-source applications unsupported, causing the app to be riddled with bugs and security threats. 

Krita developers actively patch bugs and prevent security threats from appearing on the Krita application. 

You can safely install Krita on your PC and laptop. Keep in mind you must download Krita on the official website at https://krita.org/

3. Krita Have a Smooth Digital Art Workflow

Here are the lists of Krita features that ensure the best experience of creating digital art

• Custom Canvas and DPI Setting
• Brush and Texture Selection
• Custom Color Support and Management
• Zoom in and zoom out
• Rotation feature
• Undo and Redo the feature
• Layer feature
• Vector Tools and Vector Layer
• Export to various formats, including PSD, PNG, JPG, WebP, PDF, etc. 
• Save your artwork to a cloud drive (Google Drive, Microsoft Onedrive, and iCloud)
• Mask and Filter
• Pen Pressure ability
• Canvas Only Mode

You can also modify your shortcut in Krita to make your workflow faster

4. Good default brush and support for Photoshop brushes

I will be honest with you: Krita’s default brush is good. You can create a good lineart and sketch using the default pencil brush. 

If you don’t like the default brush, you can use it as a basis by modifying its settings. You can create your unique brush on Krita by adjusting the brush parameter and preset.

You can even share your brush with your artist friend or on the internet.

Amazingly, you can import Photoshop brushes (.abr) into Krita. Photoshop has many excellent and feature-packed brushes; if you miss them, you can use them on Krita.

Check out our guide on How to Add and Import New Brushes in Krita if you want to use Photoshop brushes in Krita

Besides Photoshop, Krita also supports importing brushes from Paint Tool Sai. Krita also accepts GIMP brush tips.  

It also lets you use a PNG file as a brush. You can transform any PNG image into a brush and use it freely. I know some artists that use a PNG brush to draw hair quickly

5. Krita Allows you to create animations

Are you interested in creating animations? The good news is that you can create animations on Krita. 

Krita has a Timeline and Onion skinning feature that can help you create animation on Krita.

Krita renders animation by converting all frames into PNG, then combining them and encoding them into video files using FFmpeg. 

The timeline feature on Krita allows you to view all animation frames. It’s similar to the timeline that came with video editing software. But instead of editing the video, you will be editing a canvas.

The onion skin feature on Krita lets you superimpose the previous frame of the animation. Onion skin can help the artist draw the next frame of the animation.

After finishing your animation, save it as a Krita’s KRA file or a GIF, MP4, or MKV video file.

Sadly, Krita has only basic animation features. Clip Studio Paint Ex has better animation features if you want to focus on creating animation. 

Or, if you want to become a professional animator, it will be much better to learn industry-standard animation software like Toon Boom.

If you’re a beginner, Krita will be enough to create a basic animation 

6. Krita is Compatible with most Drawing Tablets

Krita is compatible with most drawing tablets and trendy brands, such as Wacom, Xp Pen, and Huion, which digital artists use widely. I have been using Krita with Wacom Intuos Medium and never faced any issues.

Sometimes, driver incompatibility can occur between the drawing software and the connected drawing tablet. Pen calibration and pressure sensitivity always break when driver incompatibility occurs.

Luckily, Krita has great developers who continuously support new drawing tablets to ensure the drawing software works perfectly.

I have never had issues using Wacom and Xp Pen drawing tablets on Krita. The default Wacom and Xp Pen styluses with a custom pressure sensitivity work perfectly on Krita. 

Beware that many Krita users face issues using the stylus that came with the Surface Tablet. If you have a Microsoft Surface tablet, choose another drawing program besides Krita

7. Compatible with Photoshop

Krita has excellent compatibility with Photoshop. You can easily switch over from Photoshop to Krita thanks to these great compatibility features on Krita:

• Similar Software Interface to Photoshop
• Open and edit a .psd file
• Save your digital art into a .psd file
• Import photoshop brush

8. Krita has a Large, Dedicated Fanbase.

It’s important to consider how many users a drawing app has before using them.

Why?

Because more users usually mean better support.

If you are confused and looking for help, you can ask other artists on the forum. Krita has 2 forum, Krita Artist Forum and KDE Forum. 

You can actively ask questions on the Krita forum and subreddit and get a quick reply. If you face any issues, other users will likely have the same issue. The developers will likely fix the problems because many users will actively report them.

Cons of Krita

1. Krita Feels a Bit Buggy

If you scour the Krita forum, many artists may find issues and bugs when they use Krita. It’s understandable. Krita is an open-source application supported by countless volunteers. ‘

Krita is less stable and has more bugs than Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint. 

But according to my experience using Krita, you don’t need to worry about experiencing bugs on Krita. I rarely find them, and simply restarting the application will fix the issue. 

If you want more help comparing Krita with other drawing apps, check out:

Krita vs. Medibang

Krita vs. Paint Tool SAI

Krita vs. FireAlpaca

2. Requires at least 16GB of memory on Windows PCs and laptops

Krita will require a lot of memory on your PC and laptop. 16 GB of memory is the minimum. Many layers and countless brushes on your canvas can easily consume most of your RAM capacity.

If you want to know more about layers, check out How to Work with Layers in Krita

If your system has 8GB of RAM, Krita is still usable; you may face issues like lagging during drawing. 

Sometimes, the app will forcefully be closed if you don’t have enough memory on your laptop.

Check out Krita’s Recommended PC, Laptop and Macbook specs for more information.

This is why, if you have a computer with only 4 GB or 8GB RAM, Krita will not be suitable for you

3. Not well-optimized for AMD CPU and GPU systems

I tested Krita on a laptop with an AMD CPU. I noticed that it felt slower on the AMD Laptop than on a laptop with an Intel CPU. 

Krita is a drawing app that is not optimized perfectly for AMD CPUs and GPUs. Most digital artists use an Apple MacBook or Windows PC to draw their art, but most Windows PCs come with Intel CPUs.

This resulted in Krita developers being more likely to optimize the software for the Intel Processor. Compared to AMD, you will get better and smoother Krita performance on an Intel-based PC.

Many Reddit and KDE forum users with AMD processors on their systems also face the same issue.

4. Krita Stabilization isn’t perfect

Krita has a stabilization feature that helps smooth out shaky or uneven lines. This feature is important because drawing a straight line on a drawing tablet is harder than drawing on paper. 

The problem is the Krita stabilization feature is less advanced than those used in Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint. 

The difference is not that huge. Based on my experience, drawing on Krita with stabilization turned on is around 10-15% harder than drawing on Photoshop.

I don’t recommend using Krita if you want absolute precision on your line. Krita is not suitable for creating pixel art. 

5. Adding Text is difficult on Krita.

Even though Krita has a feature for adding text to the canvas, it’s technically unusable.

You must type the word on a separate panel before you move the word to Canvas. You can’t directly type the word on the canvas. 

Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop have better text support. The text feature is helpful if you’re a manga and webtoon artist. 

I don’t recommend using Krita if you want to draw a manga or webtoon. Clip Studio Paint will be a better choice for manga artists than Krita.

Important Update: In the latest version of Krita, adding text to Krita is more accessible but still harder than CSP and Photoshop.

If you are unsatisfied with Krita’s default font, consider Adding More Fonts in Krita.

Conclusion

If we compare Krita with other open-source drawing programs like Gimp or Inkscape, Krita is the best because it has the most features for drawing, painting and animation.

Krita is still supported today. New features are constantly added, and bug fixes are released monthly to ensure the software is stable for artists.

As a digital artist, I highly recommend Krita to anyone who wants to draw and paint on their PC or laptop. It’s a great Photoshop alternative for beginner artists.

However, if you specifically want a software for drawing manga, webtoons, or pixel art, Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint may be more suitable.

Are you interested in using Krita to draw your art? Check out our guide on How to Install Krita on Windows, MacOS and Android Tablets.