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Some tools including newer versions of Photoshop and the Snipping Tool built into Windows (go to Start and search for snip) support automatic smoothing of hand-drawn lines.

Can anyone tell me what other applications support that feature?

To be clear, I'm not talking about soft brush appearance. I'm talking about the feature where you draw a line by hand and after you finish the line, the application automatically smooths out corners/angles/kinks, shakiness, and overly-tight turns -- effectively making the line look more like a stroked vector path and less like that of a shaky freehand shape.

NOTICE TO FLAGGER OF POSSIBLE DUPLICATE: This questions is NOT a duplicate of the other question referenced here: Illustrator pen auto-correction on Photoshop

The other question specifically asks about how to do smoothing in Photoshop. My question is a general question about what various applications are known to support the described feature.

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    Possible duplicate of Illustrator pen auto-correction on Photoshop — Lazy Nezumi has been around the longest. It has tons of features.
    – Joonas
    Jul 15, 2018 at 17:17
  • Please read questions more carefully before you flag them as possible duplicates. The other question is not at all the same. The other question is specifically about Photoshop. If the answers go off-topic it's because they offered additional information that was ancillary to the question; duplicate information in answers does not imply the questions are duplicate.
    – JamesHoux
    Jul 15, 2018 at 23:11
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    Don't rip your shirt over that. The answers on that question answer what you are asking as well.
    – Joonas
    Jul 15, 2018 at 23:16
  • as @Vincent suggested in chat I think both questions should be merged so we can keep all the good answers
    – Luciano
    Jul 18, 2018 at 8:31

2 Answers 2

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GIMP has smoothing options in the paint brush dynamics options.

enter image description here

Krita has similar weighted smoothing

enter image description here

And also stabilizer smoothing

enter image description here

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  • The picture showing smoothing vs Stabilizer is worth a thousand words. I didn't even know about the stabilizer. Thank you.
    – JamesHoux
    Jul 15, 2018 at 22:55
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Inkscape has it:

enter image description here

You can keep the smoothing on as you draw. As well you can do like me just now ie. adjust the smoothing afterwards.

I drew the upper curve with the pencil without smoothing, made a copy, selected the copy, clicked the pencil tool again and dragged the smoothing from 0 to 79%.

Illustrator and Affinity Designer have it, too. Actually Illustrator do not let me draw so bad curve as the non-smoothed curve in Inkscape was.

Affinity Designer hasn't adjustable smoothing, it has "Stabilizer" which prevents too fast direction changes. It works also in bitmap mode. It's the only directly to bitmap drawing application where I have used "automatic smoothing as you draw" like functionality.

Not true: I just tested things that I have seen in other answers and comments. Affinity Designers Stabilizer seems to work like GIMP's or Lazy Nezumi's weighted smoother, but the weight and string lenght are quite small.

Tested also Krita's dynamic brush. Obviously it's the same. Unfortunately it was easy to adjust to behave like trebuchet or other sling which throws the painting spot too far away. Of course It was me who couldn't understand the interaction between the two parameters and dragging. Proof: the default setting worked reasonably well.

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  • I looked at Affinity Designer. It looks amazing and the price is incredible! Thanks for your response.
    – JamesHoux
    Jul 15, 2018 at 17:16
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    @James beware: Try the trial before you pay. Affinity D is full of omissions that Illustrator users would see fatal altough it has plenty of potential for the price. Take inkscape, too under learning.
    – user82991
    Jul 15, 2018 at 17:23
  • Krita has automatic bitmap smoothing too.
    – Orphevs
    Jul 15, 2018 at 18:45
  • user287001: Thank you very much. I upvoted both your answer and comment. It was tough to decide which answer to accept, but I ended up accepting Billy Kerr's answer because picture examples are incredibly helpful. I didn't even know such thing as the Stabilizer existed. The animated pic is worth a thousand words. Anyway, you both have been tremendously helpful. Thank you!
    – JamesHoux
    Jul 15, 2018 at 22:54
  • @James No problem, mr. Kerr has traditionally made fine explanations which often reveal something that I didn't know. This wasn't an exception. Hopefully we also in the future see plenty of them.
    – user82991
    Jul 15, 2018 at 23:06

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