This is Windows 10's new free SketchPal app with pen support for latest Surfaces
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Windows 10 already has the trusty old Paint app, but Microsoft's Garage incubator has now released a new free app designed for sketching with new Surface devices and pens.
The app, called SketchPal, supposedly provides a "modern inking experience" because it combines traditional layers and custom brushes with new tools like "coloring assist, stroke cleanup tools, and a reference view".
As with Microsoft's Paint 3D sketching app, SketchPal is designed to make the most of the Surface and Windows 10 in general, providing low pen latency, the ability to tilt sketches, Dial integration, and the ability to allow sketching across multiple screens.
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It's also meant to help those with multiple devices, enabling users to start drawing on one device and easily pick up the sketch on another device, as well as on other painting apps.
"Use a second device as a remote palette, or continue drawing in other devices" and "seamlessly continue working on the drawing in your favorite art tool, or export it as a .psd file", Microsoft says on the app's page.
A demo video shows that users have several custom brushes to choose from and can add additional brushes, as well as add audio feedback to sketching activities. There are also features to join strokes that don't meet up, trim the strokes, and straighten them. These are all activated with the aid of a lasso tool.
The app was developed by Arcadio Garcia, a software engineer who works on the Windows 10 Shell, who teased the release of the app with a quote from last week's Surface event.
Microsoft last week launched the Surface Laptop 3, Surface Pro 7, Surface X, and unveiled the dual-screen Windows 10X Surface Neo tablet and the dual-screen Android Duo phone.
"I can't think of a better way to tease it than with this (relevant, I swear) quote from the last Surface event," he wrote, referencing what appears to be a slide for forthcoming Surface Neo, which is compatible with a stylus.
Stay tuned for an announcement tomorrow: A small side project that has been on the works for a while now.
— Arcadio "HalloWin32" García 🎃 (@arcadio_g_s) October 9, 2019
I can't think of a a better way to tease it than with this (relevant, I swear) quote from the last Surface event.
🖊🎨🌌 pic.twitter.com/nzSWACnODA
So now Windows users have the classic Paint app, which now has a bunch of new accessibility features, the newer 3D Paint app, and the SketchPal app, which is designed with Surface devices in mind.
But the Microsoft Garage incubator has also released a bunch of Android apps, so it can't be ruled out that it could release the SketchPal app at some point for the Android Surface Duo.
The new SketchPal app is available on the Microsoft Store and is for Windows 10 PCs, the Xbox, and HoloLens.
SketchPal is designed to make the most of the Surface and Windows 10 in general.