A New Toy: Corel Painter Essentials 4
Oops, I mean, new tool! It's for WORK, right? (Just nod and smile like you believe me....) I've been coveting a decent software package ever since I switched to the Mac and lost the PC Arcsoft Studio program. (It runs on OS 9, but the interface is ugly). I had a lot of fun with the trial version of Corel Painter Essentials 4 , and missed its features when it expired. It has the most amazingly intuitive interface, which I find very pleasant to use, and seems to have all the features I need for drawing and image editing.
I'll be using it to create some tutorials over the next few weeks, so I'll let you know how that goes, and whether there are any major limitations you need to know about. If you'd like a more detailed assessment, check out the review of Corel Painter Essentials 4 (Mac and Windows) by our Graphics Software guru Sue Chastain.
I found buying online from Corel surprisingly fast and easy. I already had an account at the Corel website, and had registered Essentials 3, so I was eligible for the upgrade, making it a little cheaper. I started the trial version of Essentials 4, which sent me to the Corel website to purchase the key. The checkout auto-added a two year 'software guarantee', which sounded like a good idea, so I kept that option. Then it was just a matter of printing the receipt and typing in the activation key. Easy peasy!
So I guess I'd better go and have some fun, er, I mean, do some work...
Comments
Ah Ha! another Corel Addict!
I have an older suite, pre painter, but still love it!
Hi, I need advice. I am not gifted when it comes to software, so how complicated is Corel? And since I draw/sketch with a soft lead pencil, how can one actually “draw” fine lines/features and maintain good control of the drawing tool(s)?Some of my drawings are applique patterns, various other designs–including mixed media art. I draw, play at painting, and do a wide variety of things…mostly for the sheer pleasure of creating. So I need to know what Corel will do and won’t. Thank you for any information and/or advice.
Thanks ~ Fran
Hi Fran. When I’ve put the program through its paces more thoroughly, I’ll write more on it. So far I’ve mostly been just playing about with it and not really making notes.
Do you have a drawing tablet? I have a Wacom tablet, quite a good one, which works well with these software packages. Drawing with a mouse is very frustrating and you really can’t get precise results.
Even with an upper-tier tablet, I find that the sensitivity isn’t as good as I’d like – I can’t get the very light tones that I normally would with a pencil.
For design work, you might find that one of the smaller tablets works well for what you need. (holiday gift suggestion perhaps?)
You can have a one-month free trial of the Corel Painter programs from the website, so do try them out. Make sure you know you’ll have time to use it though – in the past I’ve loaded trials when I’ve been too busy to properly try the program, which is quite frustrating, because they won’t give you a second shot at it!
Hi Helen, to get the very light tones like a pencil, select “2B Pencil”, reduce the Size to “1.0″ and Opacity to “5% to 20%”.
Try it and Good Luck!!!
Hi Fran, I have recently purchased PainterX, and can’t leave it alone. It has a fantastic amount and variety of brushes, and so many other features. Like Helen, I have a Wacom tablet that I can sketch with as well as paint. I don’t know the cost of, or the features of Painter4, but I can certainly recommend PainterX. If as you say, you play at painting, you’d have a ball with PainterX. Hope this helps.
Don, I’ve tried Painter X too, briefly – and you’re right, it’s a fantastic program. I really enjoyed using it, but it’s just a little bit too expensive for me at the moment. I liked Painter X more than Adobe Photoshop, though I think the latter is used more extensively in graphic design, and has good support with tutorials and so on – I’d probably get more out of it if I did lessons. I’m lazy though and like intuitive interfaces.
Artrage is another fun, easy to use drawing program.
By the way, David, thanks for the suggestions on the settings. I’ll give it a try. I guess what I’m getting at though, is that with a single pencil, I can get a very broad range of tone. I would like to be able to achieve the same degree of variation with the tablet – not having to draw a lighter values separately to dark ones.
I’m experimenting with it. I need to make sure that I’ve thoroughly explored the possibilities, then I’ll take it up with Wacom if I can’t achieve a suitable result. A chap I spoke to there said it might be a reasonably simple software tweak to ajust the tablet sensitivity.