Corel Painter Review by Renée Dawson by community

Corel Painter is the ultimate digital art studio and digital art application available for PCs and Macs. This painting and illustration software is aimed at artists, photographers and illustrators. It simulates, with astounding accuracy, the appearance and behavior of traditional media such as:

• Acrylics
• Air Brushes
• Calligraphy
• Charcoal
• Oil
• Pastel
• Pencil & Ink
• Watercolors….and so much more!

As a published artist in traditional painting methods I honestly never thought I’d make the switch to digital art. The creative world as I knew it, however, was completely transformed when I discovered Corel Painter and the Wacom Intuos® drawing tablet.

Corel Painter presented me with an opportunity to combine my love of two worlds; art and photography. The thousands of photographs in my personal library are now subject to all kinds of artistic representation, layering, and digital painting. One of the biggest perks is that I no longer need to worry about toxins, the cats getting in my paint, or cleaning out my brushes.

I use Corel Painter a lot for bringing pet portraits to life. You can use a photograph for reference, as I’ve displayed in the before and after image(s) below, or if you’re more adventurous, you can create your artwork from scratch.

No drawing or painting experience? Painter’s auto painting feature and Smart Stroke brushes will help you paint your photograph.

_{Original Image (scan) > Corel Painter Version}

If I simply want to tidy up the background on a photograph, remove some distractions or give it a painted look, the Quick Clone feature and clone brushes do the trick quite nicely.

The Air Brushes are among my favourites and were used to give this lovely black lab a brand new red collar. In addition to the numerous brush variants available to you in Painter you can create unique brushes, specific to your needs. Painter 11 also allows you to create brushes that do not exist and create canvas with surface textures unavailable in art stores.

Having dived into the digital world with Corel Painter 10 I must say I was very excited about the new features available in Painter 11. Some of which include;
• 40+ new brushes
• Enhanced shade control with pencils & chalks when using a drawing tablet
• More color options available in the mixer palette
• Ability to enlarge the color palette for a closer view of selected or mixed color
• Marker, pen, pencil & chalk brushes mimic traditional media more accurately

In Painter 11 Photoshop users can also open layered PSD files and keep layers and color profiles intact. The ability to create custom work spaces will also save you time by allowing you to save commonly used brushes, textures, patterns and menu commands.

_{Original Image (scan) > Corel Painter Version}

Amateur and professional artists and photographers alike can truly benefit from this amazing software. The possibilities of what you can achieve are endless.
I love being able to transform photographs into treasured memories and works of art as well as the diversity to create something from a blank palette when I choose to do so.

With Corel Painter the sky truly is the limit!

Renée Dawson