efrontier releases Manga Studio 3.0

efrontier today announced the release of the Macintosh version of Manga Studio 3.0, the company's new manga and comic book creation software program designed for professional artists. The company says that Manga Studio contains "everything needed to create high-quality, manga-style comics without the use of other graphic software." The Mac version works with many popular graphic software packages such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop as well as all efrontier graphic software such as Poser and Shade. The company also announced the addition of "Power Templates," which are designed to be used as drawing reference for creating figures for comics and manga and also announced its manga related community web site called "Manga Revolution," which offers forums, galleries, Podcasts and other manga related content and information.

Manga Studio 3.0 features a large selection of screen tones, single-click special effects, drag and drop tools, word balloons, floating palettes, and support for digital pen tablets. Once the manga or comic artwork is completed, it can be printed from any computer, sent to a service bureau for publishing, formatted for the Web or exported to other popular graphic software. Manga Studio was originally created in Japan as ComicStudio and has become the number one selling manga software in Japan and worldwide, according to efrontier.

Manga Studio 3.0 can support a variety of image file formats including TGA, PNG, PICT, TIFF, BMP, JPEG and PSD. Original line art can be drawn by the artist, scanned-in or imported from other programs. It also features over 80 templates, which provide comic and manga artists many choices of pre-defined sizes for getting started quickly, including four-panel manga and multiple postcard templates.

The software is available in two separate versions: Manga Studio Debut ($50) is designed for the aspiring artist or hobbyist and Manga Studio EX ($300) is for those that need professional tools and results in single software package. The Studio EX version adds over 1,200 more screen tones, vector graphic drawings, 2D/3D Line Tone rendering, an Action Palette to streamline multiple operations into single-click commands for quick results, a custom tools palette, automatic line smoothing, and more.

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