Reducing Post-production work with PostworkShop Pro!

Recently, I have been given the privilege to do a down-to-earth review of PostworkShop Pro. Being curious, I jumped on the opportunity and played around with it for a month.

To start off, all types of artistic work have three primary steps: pre-production (planning), production (drawing or painting), and post-production (revising or editing).

While the lessons on this site emphasize pre-production and production work, I can also see the importance of when post-production work is needed.

That’s where PostworkShop Pro comes in!

Rather that deal with layer styles and filters in your digital at program, this will allow you change artistic effects on your finished product quicker and easier than any built in filters of any art software I have seen.

The interface

The interface of PostworkShop Pro is fairly easy to understand. On the right hand side, that is where all the style filters are located at.

The large central window on the left is where you see the results of the filters being applied to the picture.

At the bottom left, this is where the objects or files you are manipulating are shown. You can have multiple picture files opened all at once and can potentially interact with one another.

At the center bottom, this is where you apply the individual filters to the active picture file. You can basically select a layer style from the left hand menu and then drag and drop it onto your file to get the specific artistic effect.

Postworkshop Pro

What I like the most about this particular interface is that it fits in very well with the concept of ‘non-destructive editing.’

In other words, the original layer containing the picture stays intact as you have a choice of either placing the style layer on top, actually alter the original picture file with the style, or placing the style below it.

The types of styles

The styles itself is arranged into categories to help you find it better. For example, the first row contains building blocks, drawing, painting, graphics art, and the photos category.

If I were to choose drawing, it will give me a secondary option of chalk, charcoal, ink, marker, pastel, pen, and pencil.

After choosing the parameter I want, like pencil for example, there’s about more than 20+ different styles I can apply and experiment.

Postworkshop Pro

As you drag and drop the styles onto your picture, you can choose to stack on more styles and separate the style layers by opacity or layer blend modes (soft light, multiply, overlay, screen, etc).

On top of giving you new and amazing effects, this will give you added flexibility in case there is a style that you want to create manually or revert back to.

With more than 350+ different filter styles you can do, it would impossible to list them all in this review. Your best bet is to download the demo version and see for yourself!

Benefitting the artist

Initially, I was skeptical as to what PostworkShop Pro is capable of doing in terms of post-production that my digital software can’t.

Having experience in Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Painter, and GIMP, I was certain it would be similar to the filter manipulation options in these programs.

However, after playing around with it, I was pleasantly surprised as I found out that I can a lot of post-production touchups that would normally take five to ten steps in other graphics software!

An example would be producing a comic effect on a photo or finished digital painting. It looked better in PostworkShop than in Photoshop. Plus, it only took a few steps to do rather than the lengthy process outlined in Photoshop.

Postworkshop Pro

If you’re in a field that requires a specific style, then you can just paint everything (in your style) on a digital art program and then edit your paintings later with Postwork Shop.

Plus, you can look at styles that you want to imitate as part of a planning phase for your clients to see and adopt into your own workflow. That is a huge benefit! With that in mind…

Final thoughts

As stated, since this program is only for post-production work, you still need a good drawing program that will take you through the pre-production and the production phase.

In the meantime, if you are not doing a digital painting, PostworkShop Pro can take photos and turn them into digital paintings, drawings, comic art, or any style that you would like. It really is a nice way to wow your friends, families, and even clients!

Just remember, though: this can’t replace your own artistic ability no matter how good it edits and renders your photos or finished digital paintings.

Just think of it as an extension, in which you can see just how well this will compliment and work with your current drawing program, when you look at all the possible styles available.

In conclusion, for what it can do (a simple and easy to use post-production editing software), I recommend it!

Whether for personal use or commercial use, this is one of the best programs out there that can benefit artists for speeding up their workflow in the post-production phases!

There are two recommended versions depending on your needs: Postwork Shop Artist and Postwork Shop Pro. Here's what is available for version 2.0: