Serif CraftArtist 2 Professional review

Serif’s CraftArtist 2 Professional software aims to help keen hobbyists and crafters design and create all sorts of craft projects on their PC. It offers various templates, backgrounds, embellishments and effects, all managed and edited through a consistent and familiar interface, allowing artists to experiment with various craft ideas and executions without getting their fingers covered in glue. It’s inexpensive and doesn’t require a particularly powerful PC, but you’ll need a reasonable amount of free disk space, especially if you want to work with high-resolution photo content.

CraftArtist 2 starts with a simple Getting Started Wizard that lets new users view a set of helpful and well-produced videos that explain what the software can do. The wizard also contains various options for getting started, including the choice of beginning with a predefined template or a blank project. Templates cover a range of projects, from greetings or congratulation cards to party items and even gift boxes.

Page setup helps ensure your projects end up looking as you intend

The various templates and other crafting material such as backgrounds and artwork are contained within ‘digikits’. The included DayDream pack follows a fairly kitsch theme, being big on turquoise, pinks and various flowers, but other digikits are available for download from Serif’s DaisyTrail crafting website. Many of these are free once you’ve registered, but the free packs mostly only cover various holiday themes such as Christmas, Easter and Halloween, and in many cases they seem a little twee.

CraftArtist 2 did its best to disguise our lack of artistic talent

BUYING DIGIKITS

Fortunately, there’s a wide range of other digikits produced by Serif and various third-parties. If you’re willing to pay for your digipacks you’ll find more interesting materials. There are several steampunk packs, for example. While the cheapest non-free digikits are just £2 or so, several cost around £7. It’s better value to buy collections of digikits, although these range from £10 up to £24, which is more than CraftArtist 2 Professional itself. We were keen on the Era range of digikits, which is comprised of themed packs celebrating the 1920s, 40s, 50s and some other eras.

Make your own CraftArtist 2 digikit, or buy one

Once installed, a pack’s contents are added to the resources available for creating and working on a project. Unfortunately, all of the free and paid-for packs we checked were only licensed for personal use, or personal and ‘angel’ use, which essentially means limited editions of up to 200 items. The terms of all packs ruled out commercial use, including the creation of flyers or signs, which could limit its use. It’s worth pointing out, however, that it’s possible to create fully original work in CraftArtist 2 without using any digikit content at all, or to create a digikit from your own image files.

CRAFTY DEVIL

In use, CraftArtist 2 is much like a cross between a desktop publishing application and an image editor. If you started from a template you’ll find that the various panes and menus are already populated with suitable content and settings, but if you’ve begun from scratch it’s easiest to start by importing a digikit to work with.

Digikit contents are displayed in a pane at the left of the screen and are divided into various components. If you’ve something specific in mind, it’s a good idea to drag and drop a suitable layout onto the project pane then drag in the background on which you’ll work. Then you can add other digikit items, such as materials that can be cut to shape, lettering, or picture frames into which you can drop your own photos or graphics. In each case, the software applies relevant sizing and crops, but it’s easy to position, rotate and size things further.

The built-in photo editor offers a big range of effects

You can create layers and move items between them to allow more precise editing and to control which parts of overlapping items remain visible, but this is just the start of the more advanced options available. There’s a comprehensive set of tools for drawing or importing content into the project and working with the various on-page elements until they’re exactly as you want. Many of these appear in a context-sensitive toolbar, such as a fairly powerful photo editor that’s available when photos or other images are selected.

Digikits contain some interesting templates, but we wouldn’t use this one with a conventional bulb

Although you can export CraftArtist 2 projects to image or PDF files, or share them directly with the DaisyTrail online community, it would be a shame to never turn the best into reality. Fortunately, it’s easy to choose a paper size and orientation suited to the project. For example, if you want to make an A5 greetings card, the software will automatically size and position the print area on A4 card so that all you need to do is make the fold after printing. You’ll need a colour printer, of course, and for the best results we recommend a good photo inkjet because these handle a wider range of paper weights and special media than a laser.

Whether you’re a casual user or a more committed and enthusiastic crafter, CraftArtist 2 Professional has all the tools you’re likely to need to make craft ideas a reality. Plus, most of them are intuitive enough not to divert the creative flow. Many users will find that they need to download or buy more digikits to get the most from it, but the software itself is good value, and a sound addition to any box of crafting tools.