Customer Reviews

Corel Painter 11 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Just an Update for the review:

As of January 6, 2010 - nearly a YEAR after release, Corel has released a major patch update that resolves most problems I've had with the product. I have left the review alone (besides adding updates) to show how long it takes for these things to be resolved. I still stand by the fact Painter needs to resolve GUI issues, by appearance and stability.

** A special note, is that I wish Painter would include a dynamic resizable navigational/preview window like other paint programs have. There have been suggested work-arounds but I think it's time for Corel to include a much wanted feature.

As of August 26,2009 - I included a bug that still hasn't been fixed and is disruptive for workflow

As of May 21, 2009 - Corel has released a hotfix for the intuos3 missing stroke, corrupted workspaces, and cut and paste issue. The rest of the bugs still seem to remains.

I actually have been familiar with Painter since the old school large serial tablets and it was called Fractal Design Painter.

I really really wanted to love Painter 11. It has some nice new features such as the hard/real media brushes, and re-sizable Mixer and Color wheel. There is now PNG support too, but until there is a patch, it's not worth the upgrade or purchase. It feels like this should have been partial (but not a good update to) Painter X. The last time it took it to patch was when Painter X encountered GUI glitches on release (in Feb of that year) but it wasn't until June were there fixes. It didn't receive any patches after that and we (as in other people interested in the program) were waiting for the new release to see if it would fix previous problems.

Here's a list of major problems:

** (August 26 2009) Updating a bug issue I didn't put up here. This affects about anyone with a tablet and most likely wacoms. When you chose a brush, you have it at a certain size, for example 2.0, now use the eraser side of your stylus, change the size of your eraser. Flip back your stylus. Your 2.0 size has now increased to 17. I'm told that it doesn't have to happen when changing the brush size, but it happens when you use your eraser side of your stylus.

1. It's slow. It loads fast for a few days but for whatever reason it becomes increasingly slower to load. I'm using a Core Duo with 2gb of ram and even with nothing on (as in other programs running) it's still slow. (I'm a PC user)

2. a: Intuos 3 users will be frustrated. Apparently, there is a bug in this version of Painter. It causes a missing stroke or a random brush dab (the dab issue was present in X). Yes, that's right a painting program that can't register whether or not you're placing a stroke on your tablet. Let's see if this improves with an Intuos4. I feel sorry for intuos3 users right now (and I am one!)
b: Intuos 4 users may find themselves frustrated. I've tested the software in Windows XP sp3 with an Intuos4. The touchring can be downright unresponsive when trying to change brush sizes.
3. Bugs from X are still in here. Watch out for crashes when using guides and rulers. I already mentioned the missing brush dab problem. If you change your brush selector bars to stroke view, it changes them to thumbnail view when you go back to it. Sometimes trying to fix it back to stroke view causes it to crash.

4. CPU bug. For whatever reason, Painter likes to eat about 45% of your CPU or more even when you're idle and not drawing. I don't know why it's consuming so much CPU on idle times (as in I'm not even painting!). I'm told because I'm using multiple cores it may actually be closer to 100% if I had a single core processor.

5. Color Management. It also appears that painter is assigning incorrect color management to documents from the one you specified. This means you're blacks may not look 100% black because of this issue. There's even a bug for Mac users with color management.

6. Copy and Paste bug. Some reason Painter 11 is having issues copying and pasting selections into a new layer. This is really a problem for example if I wanted instead of lifting inks to a Watercolor layer...to copy and paste it into a new layer and setting it to gel.

7. The new Transformation tool...yep that's buggy too. It crops out certain areas, and sometimes doesn't transform selections correctly. What's the point of this tool if it doesn't work properly?

8. Ugly GUI - General User Interface. While the softened colors are better, the rest of the interface is just back to windows 2000. Nothing intuitive about the placement of tools on the tools palette, too many confusing palettes that need to be stored in an intuitive manner for many users, and interface bugs.

9. This maybe should be the number one issue for Corel. Really poor customer service. If you pay for the full edition, people have been told over the phone to go to their PanterFactory forums instead of getting real customer support. That can be absolutely frustrating for someone who just called their center expecting some support with their software package. In addition, the support level on their forums is abysmal. I'm not expecting Corel to be Adobe, but I feel like I'm on a sinking ship with the level of support.

I'm told they're already working on a Painter 12 and really....they should be working on revamping their product. I feel like more of this program is dedicated to photopainting, and the illustrators are feeling more and more ignored unless they help push the product. I really love painter for the natural brush emulation but the support and bugs leaves me bittersweet.

** - Edit I'm also trying to figure out why another person directed a counterpoint to my review about saying the Tilt function was faulty in Painter when this was never once mentioned in my review? I said there was a missing stroke bug, which is a completely different issue with the intuos 3. Reading comprehension...? (I kind of believe that to be a must in a good review before arguing something I never something I never said).

I have been using Corel painter since version 4 and think the best version is version 6. Since Corel took over the application it has seen some improvements; painting along a path is ingenious and the oil painting although of limited value to my own working method is really cool. But parts of it have got steadily worse with each release, brush size sliders are now 'drop down' (WHY?), dragging a brush out to place it on the canvas causes it to grow a large panel when the small icon would be infinitely better, the pressure sensitivity is jumpy at best (even with the new Intuos 4), the keyboard short cut for changing brush size is not accurate enough to be anything other than a gimmick, it would be much better to have the brush size slider appear at the tip when the shortcut is used. I could go on; I have a long list complaints collected over the years which I talked to Corel about but to no avail.

Painter is vastly better than photoshop for painting digitally and is the only application I would use but it is very flawed. The application is confusing and burdened with too many features that are not useful to a professional artist. The claims made for various brushes are nonsense...I would challenge someone from Corel to tell me the difference between say a 'fine tip marker' and a 'smooth round pen' ; they may be different under the hood but they look exactly the same when drawn on the canvas.

The new release Painter 11 is good for one reason; they finally introduced a 'polygon lasso'. but having bought it a few months back I don't use it because it is so buggy (missing strokes being the worst bug) and have gone back to 10. If you do buy it, my advice is to open the brush creator and switch off all the settings and experiment with each setting one by one, saving a brush when you get one that works. You'll soon have a collection that suits your working method. Also make use of the keyboard shortcuts; this is a fantastic feature which allows you to keep all the shortcuts at your non-drawing hand which means you can paint without ever looking away from the screen. (Unlike photoshop's keyboard shortcuts, Corel allow you to use the keys 'z' and 'x' to change the brush size instead of the usual brackets).

Painter is an application that needs to be wrestled free from those who want to add gimmicks to justify each new release and put in the hands of developers who would have the guts to strip it down to the great application hiding under all the garbage.

I first wrote this review a few months back for UK amazon site and since then have emailed Corel numerous times to ask for a bug-fix update for the Mac OS X....I am still waiting. In the meantime I am continuing to use Painter X which is not much different to version 11.

Corel Painter 11 undoubtedly reaches new bounds in expanding the perimeters of digital photography. Make no mistake, its for and all about digital painting. The tools allows one to tweak and experiment with brush strokes, canvas texture, composition and offers a palette that includes every color in the rainbow. Even some that are not in the rainbow.

Sadly Corel loses style points for following the ways of Adobe and others in packaging a high ticket product without a detailed printed manual. The basic instruction mini booklet doesn't come close to filling the bill. More guides are available on the CD. That said, installation was a breeze.

Painter 11 offers an incredible array of tools that allows the user to manually or auto paint photographs. Whether it be chalk, oils, watercolors, crayon or air brushing etc; each and every photograph is a masterpiece. Without a doubt, this program speaks volumes in digital painting/manipulation.

The ability to switch between different modes from one centralized tool and transform the contents of a layer, was amazingly fast and unfortunately at times hit and miss. Once in awhile and out of the blue, a cropped version of the photograph I was working on would make an unwarranted appearance. Surprisingly, when transferring photographs from Photoshop to Painter 11 and vice versa, color and layers were maintained without the usual tweaking.

Unfortunately even on a new Windows operating system I have noticed when utilizing guides or just opening up a new layer, the program has a tendency to crash. It does not happen every time, but it is enough for me to lower the product rating to three stars. For me personally, the asking price seems a bit steep for a buggy program.

Even with the intermittent bug issues it goes without saying, that Corel Painter 11 is not just another accompanying tool for Photoshop. Without a doubt it is geared for the seasoned digital painter. Once the bug issues have been resolved it will be the premier program, second to none.

One super improvement in Painter 11 is the Transforming and Selecting tools. Now you can do a good deal of that in Painter, which keeps you from going back and forth between Painter and Photoshop so much. Yes, much of what you used to have to do in Photoshop, you can do in Painter, but sadly not everything, you still need Photoshop. Still, with some projects I find I don't have to go to the Adobe program at all.

There's a new and improved color management system in Painter 11. Open the Canvas Menu and you'll see all the new options and with these setting you can control the color profiles of your files with relative ease.

I work on both a PC and an Intel Mac and I've seen a definite speedup of the program on the Mac. At least it feels faster to me. And then there is the Real brushes and pencils which really make Painter shine, those and the color management system, the improved tools and the faster speed all combine to make this a worthy upgrade.

I'm a long time user of Photoshop and that is still where I go first when trying to make any kind of digital image. I got this package hoping to use it to change some photographs into more painterly images. I watched a lot of tutorial videos that showed how to use scripted processes to get painterly effects. I played with the software for weeks but had little meaningful success. It eventually got forgotten - until I found this book.

Painter 11 for Photographers: Creating painterly images step by step

I found this book mentioned in another review so decided to check it out and it has re-inspired me. I have enjoyed "playing" with this package but the book helped to vastly accelerate my learning curve and now I feel more successful at using the program. Despite lots of graphic arts experience, I found this package to have a bit of a steeper learning curve.

Performance

The package has been fairly stable. I have had it crash a couple times while processing though. It runs a little slow on filters and rendering, but not bad, and I run it on a lower end Macbook so it might be peppier on a more robust graphics machine.

Suggestions

It seems almost mandatory to have a tablet for this package. I have been very impressed with it's interoperability with my Wacom Intuos4 Medium Pen Tablet. Also I would suggest 4+ gigs of RAM

Summary

I wish I had found that book earlier, I feel like I wasted some opportunity with the software. I have been making decent images now and can see a lot of potential (far more in the package than in me.) I still am a lot more comfortable in the Adobe interface but familiarity is coming along.

I've bought Version 12 and Version 11 just to see what are the differences. Although Version 12 has more features and some new brushes, I found that I don't really need them to paint digitally. Version 11 turned out to be more user-friendly and easy to navigate to find the features or brushes that I need.

Corel Painter 11
(2009 Edition)
------------------------
I have struggled for months to master this product well enough to review it intelligently, and finally had to give up. This is an extremely powerful graphic tool, but as a layperson (not a graphics design professional) I found the program it very difficult to navigate, as well as to access specific features. So many tools are built into the Painter suite that it quickly becomes an impenetrable labyrinth; you access one tool and lose the path to dozens of others. If I try out a new feature, just poking around in the tabs and menus, I often find it difficult to backtrack or to find another feature that I want to use. Even simple stuff like sampling and adjusting colors, then using brushes to apply them (which I am familiar with from Photoshop) has eluded me - Painter frequently seems to "lock" each feature into place, and although I realize the problem is that I just don't know how to use the program, I nonetheless find it frustrating that it's so difficult to find the desired solutions. Like many new software packages, the internal documentation (help menus, toolbars, etc.) is not geared towards lay people -- basic features are not covered, plain English is not used, the approach is technical and high-level professional, with little offered in the way of tutorial or remedial assistance. I just found it too complicated to use beyond a very basic level, which was disappointing because I would love to use some of the fancier features. Oh, well. I guess I'll have to shell out a few hundred bucks to take a class or something... Although, really, users shouldn't have to do that.

Better documentation and clearer navigation would be wonderful for this product. Also, perhaps Corel could consider designing this package in "levels," like a video game: new users could select "basic" (level one) features and work their way up into more complicated tool as their skill set improves, instead of just being thrown into the deep end, and finding the entire product mystifying and dense. I realize there is a separate, stripped-down version of this program for sale, but I don't see why that basic version couldn't be built into the architecture of the full package, so that non-professionals could work their way up to the full use of what seems to be an amazing product. Perhaps these comments with help Corel with future upgrades. (Joe Sixpack)

After spending two days getting it to install, i have now found that it will quit right after it tries to open. Like some of the others I am using a Wacom digitizer tablet?
I don't know if this is the reason? But now they want to bundle these together? Good luck if you buy and have the latest Mac.

So, this is my first time with corel and the painter line of products and I must say it worked perfectly as I had hoped. I use a graphic pad and draw art in a non digital way -- I set an undercolor and try to design something as if it were fine art.

The images I made seemed almost as if I had done them directly on a canvas. The choices of brush types helped to ease this process even further. This was all further simplified with how easy it is to access different tools with shortcut keys and how my graphic pad quickly was recognized and used by the software.

Definitely worth the money in my eyes but as someone who has not used other graphic software or the previous versions I don't know what has changed or what is better. As an artist though I enjoy this product.

Painter 11 is impressive, but requires an impressive amount of learning to get up to speed with the program.

The installation was easy on my older (3+ years) WinXP desktop system with 2gb of ram memory. Painter runs fine on my system with minor delays on occasion, mostly during autopainting related steps. It has crashed a few times when I seemed to get way out in left field trying new things in a rushed manner but I was able to restart the program and continue on easy enough.

Based on my prior experience with photo related software (Photoshop CS3, Nikon Capture NX2, etc.) I feel that Painter 11 is a solid and well heeled painterly specific product that is very close to Photoshop in software quality, features (toolkit) based on primary purpose, and usability. I would have rated Painter equal to Photoshop CS3 in software quality but CS3 has never crashed on me.

At first I got stuck because I didn't have a workflow to follow, but after watching some tutorials I made great progress and enjoyed the journey. I highly recommend John Derry's Workflow Tutorials at Corel's website under resources and then follow his lead.

I also bought Karen Sperling's Painting for Photographers ebook that has step-by-step instructions tailored for Corel Painter. It is easy to follow and you also get some relevant painting theory and practices which were very helpful. Her software mastery with Corel Painter is impressive and her ability to teach me made the tutorial worth every penny spent.

The Corel Painter 11 supplied User Guide under the Help menu was useful also.

After learning the essentials of navigating around in the program and its myriad of features, with much thanks to the tutorials I used, I can see why a master artist would use and rely on this program to transform photos into digital paintings of the highest quality.

I have found the progression of steps from beginning photo to finished painterly art is quite logical for image editing software. There is support for non-destructive layers, cloning, underpainting, tracing, dodging, burning, rubber stamping, along with a huge assortment of customizable brushes, chalks, pencils, etc., and artistic effects. It will be a long time before I exhaust the possibilities presented to me in this software.

I like the auto painting underpainting feature with color scheme selections as I can get well into the painting process quickly and the results are much better than other programs I have tried. Underpainting's Smart Blur set to 100% was impressive. The tracing feature is very nice because I can paint intelligently with the original photo "underneath" at a lesser opacity as my guide and then quickly flip back and forth between the painting and the original photo to see my progress.

I was originally drawn to Corel Painter because some of the masters use this tool quite successfully and it is recommended often in painterly forum discussions. I was not disappointed by following their lead.