Oh definately have
coolorus 1 of the cheapest and best plugins always wonder why PS does not have this feature as standard considering every other art program does.
I am not going to lie to you as this is a photoshop forum but honestly digital painting/ sketching / drawing is better done elsewhere my preferences are paint tool SAI, Manga Studio, Krita which is free or maybe even corel painter.
Paint tool SAI is a brilliant program that is light weight and is a no thrills program, it is designed for sketching and painting, it does not have all fancy tools which is why it is good, it is light weight and simple to use, also offers pen stabilization for mouse/ tablet where it will smooth your lines. Also has rotate canvas as you work feature so like you would in real life drawing and colouring except maybe on large scale....
Krita is still very new good for anti photoshop users it has focused more on the art side and has interesting features ie symmetry rulers, nice brushes that act more like corel painter and very customizable, has the colour wheel, a particle brush ( sorry I like them) Very nice repeatable pattern tool just press W and voila you have a repeating pattern instantly as ypou work on it. nice right click hot menu visual and large so when you right click a tablet pen you have instant features like different brush modes and a colour wheel like you would get in sketchbook pro. But remember this is new and is not a direct PS replacement software far from it. Has a nice tablet friendly interface not over crowded.
Manga Studio, Is the 1 I am focusing on learning at the moment very nice brush sets, and customization, nice basic stabilizing and post drawing correcting, best inking software out there in my opinion, plenty of downloadable brush styles, even Copic marker sets in digital which are free. personally my favorite coloring in software because I love the blend tool to blend colors together, However it is heavy software (lighter than PS though) has a lot of nice presets where you can import 3d models (already built into manga studio) and use them for drawing guides, posing them etc, great feature for beginning out artist. has great rulers etc with the most advanced symmetry ruler awesome for mandela art and patterns, or just for drawing bodies/ weapons, Also has great layout features for storyboards and comic pages etc.
HOwever Manga STudio future is in question, to people in the know Manga Studio is the english version of Clip Studio just licensed to the western world, now the owners of clip studio have said they can no longer sell hard copies of manga studio and can only have digital downloads.... But what this means for Manga STudio is unsure at this time all though CLip STudio or Manga Studio however you know it by will be staying around and updated in 1 way or the other. SOme people say it is bloated and a lot to learn but I dont find it that hard to be honest,
Sketchbook Pro I do not have much experience but I would only assume it is not as good as others mentioned as it is more sketching and doodling but I could be wrong.
Art Rage, Love this program for digital painting that looks like it is a painting not digital, great paint features, canvas textures, paint mixing and blending,,, however for digital art in my opinion it is not designed for it but I have not had much experience with it I only got it as it was on sale 1 day so I thought hey why not try it out....
Corel Painter, Great reviews Only own it yet again as it was on sale so didn't want to miss out I do however love their particleshop plugin for PS. I am still new to digital art and trying things out beyond PS not had much experience with this 1 as from a lot of reviews it does crash a lot when saving but technically the program should be good enough if not the best for digital art, all depends on file size and the lag it may cause using special brushes etc is my only concern.
Photoshop. Personally I have been using it for years it has done me fine it is brilliant it does everything you would want it to but yet when you have seen better software out there then you come to realise the title gives it away, PS is a Photo editing software, sure it is an art program as well and sure it can do a lot of things but really once you start using more specific programs, you soon realise what PS isnt.... IT is heavy and laggy, paint blending is no where near as good as others, or the behaviour... Yes it can do the job, yes you can do amazing work with it, it just misses out some of the nicer luxory quircks, like page rotating, blending colors, trust me the blur tools, smudge or even the mixer brushes themselves, not a patch on dedicated software for painting.
THey are the main contenders sure you have Gimp, ELements etc and many more but I have tried all of these and own them so only going from experience. if you want to get inspiration and style watch the youtube for Artists as I like to call it where it is digital artists all live streaming...
You will see the most common 3 programs are
Paint Tool SAI
Manga Studio
Krita/ Photoshop
check it out
https://picarto.tv/