I recently discovered Leonardo through a former DNEG colleague and friend, Jahirul Amin. We are having a zoom meeting and he was taking notes and showing diagrams for his cave Academy courses with Leonardo. The first thing that struck out to me was the infinite canvas feature as if he was using a reference application such as PureRef. However, it was clear that this was a drawing focused program.
Overview
Leonardo is being developed by a small group of people (maybe one person?) in Sweden to create a drawing and painting focused program to rival Photoshop. From my first 50 hours of use it is clear to me that this is well on its way to dethrone Photoshop (at least the drawing and painting side).
Favorite features
the UI is incredibly simple and flexible. The dropdown menus are detachable so you can completely customize your setup.
Drawing experience is just as good as photoshop dare I say better. There is a performance window to see how well it runs. It boots up lightning fast which is refreshing.
Tools are intuitive and quick to use. The lasso tool immediately lets you drag after selecting what you need so there's no need to hold ctrl.
Perspective tools are excellent too with multiple points of perspective.
The core concept of the program is appealing. Small team, no nonsense, smooth and effective.
Infinite canvas is arguably the highlight of the program. Even as your canvas gets larger, the file size stays much smaller than a PSD file would and still functions well.
note, you do not have to use the infinite canvas. You can create specific file sizes.
Export features are slick. You can export the whole canvas or select the a portion of it making it fast to get your sketches out.
Missing features
Only available on Windows at the moment but there are plans to make it run on Mac OS and iPad OS (see FAQ for more details).
Layer effects like blur, iris blurs, noise grain.
The ability to create custom brushes by importing textures and be able to utilize all the different brushes features for creating a new brush.
A way to share brush presets via a code to share with friends!
Timeline for boarding and animating or a way to view other files and click through them like Bridge.
Saving custom workspaces would be great too! So if you drag out certain windows you can save that layout when you come back to a certain file.
Conclusion
For $40 USD (beta price), you will get the future upgrades so it’s an absolute must on Windows! It’s my go to app now for brainstorming, research and sketching characters. The more I learn about the program, the more I see myself using it as a Photoshop replacement in the future. Granted it needs a few additional features to really replace photoshop but one day I'll cancel my Adobe subscription!
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