Customer Reviews

Corel Painter IX.5 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

If you are an artist who works with "wet media"--oils, watercolor, magic markers, pen and ink or if you are a digital artist who creates only with pixels of light on a computer, you should seriously look at Painter IX. This is without a doubt, digital art software at its very best.

I've used a form of Painter since its very first version, which was called Sketcher. This was back before 1990, I am pretty sure, and Sketcher, which was a Fractal Designs product, came in a snazzy cigar box (because many sketch artists keep their charcoals in this handy container.) The software did grey-scale renderings of drawings into charcoal, pencil or ink and it could be used to sketch on graphics tablets.

After Sketcher came Painter, which was sold amusingly in a paint can and did color rendering of oil, watercolor, pencil and inks. Eventually, Painter was sold to Corel, who had the expertise in graphics design software to take Painter to a whole new level. While previous versions of Painter had some idiosyncrasies, Painter IX has been revised to match current graphics capabilities of computers, and has been debugged to the point that it is a pure pleasure to use. As a result, professional designers of everything from brochures to fast cars use Painter instead of real media or in conjunction with art media to create some stunning digital creations. In addition, wet media artists now routinely use digital art software to visualize, compose and test designs before doing them by hand. I do this myself; I take photos or sketches and try out palettes to see how a certain color scheme works. Or I cut and paste elements of a composition to visualize the painting before I sketch it on paper. My own medium is watercolor, and I find it a lot more comforting to have a plan of attack before I hit that scary white (and pricey) piece of watercolor paper. Visualizing my composition on the PC screen is a very useful tool.

If you had tried Painter before and were less than thrilled, you should take a look again. If you have never used a digital arts package and want to be serious about digital art, I can't think of another product I'd recommend.

So, let's get a detailed look into Painter IX and see what it does:

Art Media:

1. Literally 100's of brushes that can be modified in size and quality (hairness, spray direction, stroke depth, and "taught" your personal stroke on the graphics tablet.) You can create brushes, and even make "image hoses"--a way to spray a graphic and paint with say, berries, leaves, architectural elements. You can make your own image nozzle out of any graphic element and even have it shaded with a drop shadow. The image hose is a lot of fun--scrapbookers can find a lot of uses for it as it's rather like a digital rubber stamp.

2. 30 plus media, like oil, impasto, charcoal, crayon, ink, gouache, watercolor, airbrush, oil and chalk pastel, pencil, photo filters, and even woodcut and sumi-e. They are realistic to the point where you can smear the oil around--the only thing is you don't smell the turpentine. The texture of canvas or paper comes through under the media according to the amount you choose, and you can light the finished work to highlight texture and shine.

3. Textured papers like canvas and watercolor. You can input your own textures to make a customized paper. There are pattern fills like cloth and pebbles, and you can make patterns to use as background fill. Any image can be captured to make a texture or pattern.

4. Wet media --like ink, wet oils, watercolor. A wet layer allows you to push the paint around as if the surface were wet. It can be "dried."

5. A mixing palette to mix paints as one would on a real palette.

6. Cloning--copying a picture and then rendering it as if you had a tracing paper over top a real picture. You can grab portions of the picture with your tablet stylus and brush them into oils, watercolors, chalk. You can auto-clone and create a sketch from a photo.

7. Photo filters: a good set of filters used to modify digital photos and scans are included.

8. Typical adjustment features to modify color, remove color, change contrast and light/dark.

9. Animation tools and web design tools. Many graphics software packages have these (Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Fireworks) but these allow you to create web graphics with a handpainted or handdrawn look. For anime artists, this could be a huge plus.

10. A scripting engine that lets you record your own operations and play them back with one click to automate your work or create movies. Scripts are automatically saved --meaning you can recover work if your PC crashes.

The major improvements in Painter IX are noteworthy:

1. A 175 page printed spiral-bound manual to get you started and an online help that looks like a spiral-bound manual with everything from online videos, art examples to inspire you and recipes. The tutorial movies from Lynda.com are included in the license. The learning tools are amazing; the spiral bound manual stays open and is easy to navigate. The online tools are lavish and very helpful, because Painter is powerful and there IS a learning curve to get into the most advanced features.

2. Kai's Power Tools (filters for photography) are included. This popular standalone package of photo adjustment tools has Gel, Goo, LensFlare, Lightning, Pyramid Paint, Reaction, and ShapeShifter.

3. There are many new shortcuts, most welcome of which is Quick Clone, reducing the number of steps needed to clone a picture down to a single click.

4. Mixing oils on a palette is more like real media.

5. The watercolor has been sped up to lightning-fast; it was rather slow in previous versions.

6. I found far fewer bugs or crashes--my graphics card is not particularly new and could be bumped up a bit (I have onboard graphics and I could do with adding a better video card) but I still found Painter IX faster and far easier to use than Painter 8.0. The watercolor function was about 10 times faster, at least.

Summary: If you think you'd like to do digital art, this is the one package I'd recommend.

Minimum computer requirements:
· Macintosh: Mac OS X 10.2.8 or higher, 500 MHz, 128 MB RAM (256 recommended), 1024x768 monitor resolution, 395 MB disk space.

· Windows: Windows 2000 or XP, 500 MHz Pentium II (or higher), 128 MB RAM (256 recommended), 1024x768 monitor resolution, 380 MB disk space.

Recommended:

A graphics tablet is a must--you can use a mouse, but you won't get the benefits of real media feel without a tablet. The package can use various tablets, but is optimized for the Intuos (WACOM) line of tablets.
Update your graphics card and graphics memory if you have an older PC.

Painter occupies a very particular niche in the world of digital imaging software. Though the latest versions of Photoshop sport an excellent brush tool and ample brush controls, there is nothing to match the power and possibilities of Painter's brush creator. And Painter is truly unique in its emulation of natural media, ranging from thick impasto strokes to naturally drying watercolor, and oil paints that stay wet as long as you please. There is a mixer palette which works exactly like an actual one: new colors can be mixed on the fly as if mixing actual pigments rather than colored pixels. Of course, the digital environment also offers possibilities not available in the real world, and apart from the natural media Painter therefore offers a whole array of fantasy and pattern brushes, as well as distortion filters and blender. As all these can be adjusted and turned into new brushes according to taste, the possibilities are truly limitless. Layering options are numerous, and come with an array of blending methods more extensive than that in PS. Selection possibilities are excellent too, with highly accessible options for saving and reloading particular complex selections. There are some nice filters as well, including a particularly fine bevel tool that allows detailed control of complex bevels. There are, of course, many plug-ins available that can be added according to budget and taste, such as the KPT filters. Painter includes the usual vector pen and shape options, which are excellent for making precise selections or creating smooth shapes.
This is, as the name suggests, a painting program. It is not primarily an image editor. It can be used a such, but obviously yields to Photoshop in that regard. It appeals strongly to the individual creativity of the user, and can be inspiring to work with. If you are familiar with PS, you'll have to get used to the Painter interface, which puts similar functions in different places than PS. There are some nifty solutions, such as the possibility of creating a custom box of drawing tools: simply drag the thumbnail of the desired brush into the work area. On the other hand, some options on offer seem superfluous or even confusing. E.g., the "paint outside"/"paint inside"/"paint everywhere" switch achieves something just as easily done by inverting or discarding a selection. As usual with such high end programs, the array of options is apt to make for a cluttered workspace. Fortunately, palettes are all floatable and collapsible.
Downsides? Well, yes. Apparently recent versions of Painter have gained speed compared to earlier ones, but the program still seems to have some serious memory management issues. On my PC (1.6Ghz P4, 1Gb RAM, 250 GB harddisk, nVidia GeForce FX 5950 256 MB videocard, Windows XP Home SP1), routine operations like loading a selection or changing the zoom level, and even saving, regularly lead to program freezes that can last for some time (as in: go downstairs, make yourself a cup of coffee), though on the plus side I've experienced no actual crashes. Some brush types also tend to be excruciatingly slow to respond, especially with large brush sizes, which rather detracts from the natural painting feel.
Still, Painter remains a more than worthwhile addition to any collection of digital imaging tools. Make sure you also have a drawing tablet, or you will not reap the full benefits of Painters possibilities.

We want patches! Runs great, the program is amazing really but I had it running for all of 2 days on my XP machine. I've repaired, uninstalled, reinstalled, fiddled with the registry, nothing has helped. It's been solid on my 2k laptop though. So if you're still running 2K Pro this is a 5 star program but be ready to battle on XP Home. Next attempt is to see if it likes XP Pro any better.

I have been using Painter on Windows XP for just over seven years now, and this latest version is absolutely wonderful to work with! I paint primarily with watercolor and could not really get Painter 7 or 8 to behave properly, but Painter IX has changed all of that for me! I can finally get my brushes to work like they did in Painter 6, only they are much faster now and I can use them on layers! Thank you Corel!!! You have restored my faith! : )

I've primarily been using Painter 6 because I didn't like versions 7 & 8 (slow & watercolor wasn't working right & custom palettes were missing). Once again, I reluctantly gave the latest version a test spin only this time I was very surprised! The brushes are easily double the speed. I especially noticed it with the watercolor brushes (my primary brushes). Don't take my word for it though! Download the trial version and check out the difference between 8 and 9 on your computer. Apart from that, there are cool new oil brushes called artist oils. Another huge improvement was the quick clone feature. This one alone saves me 5 or 6 steps!
anyhoo, Painter keeps its position as the best painting tool by far! Thanks Corel - it's about time!!!

Corel's Painter 9 is all about the freedom to design how you want. I have been a Painter user for some time and I just recently upgraded to the new 9.
There is no other product that lets me use so many different artistic tools/brushes with my photos, and I take a lot, or for painting my own from scratch. Granted, when I first started using Painter, it was difficult to use or get started with because there was so much to it. But to use it and design images with it is heavenly.
Now for what I've experienced with this version so far is a definitely noticeable improvement in speed when paints are applied to canvas with certain brushes. Especially the ones I work with over and over. I also found a new control for changing the speed of my brush. That's pretty cool! I like the watercolor painting capabilities and this version appears to have had some good improvements as the watercolor paints blend nicely, look and act like realistic watercolors do, and I didn't believe it but the paints do stay wet between successive painting sessions. This product continues to amaze me all the time. Oil painting as well seems to be vastly improved with the interaction the paints have together. Cloning with Painter has always been one of its best features in my opinion and that too is so quick to do now.
As I said, Painter has allowed me to create designs for my work that I know I couldn't do with anything else, at least as easily or smoothly. I highly recommend Painter 9. And don't try to use Painter with a mouse, use a pen and tablet, I use the Wacom Intuos 6x8 tablet.

Hello Richard and Tabbycat,

My name is Rick Champagne and I am the Program Manager for Corel Painter. After reading your posts, I consulted with our Technical Support team to find out if customers have been having problems with Windows XP and they assured me that they were not receiving these types of calls. That being said, there are many outside factors that may have caused your difficulty, so if you are still having problems installing, I would love to get more information from you to help resolve your particular situation. If you purchased Corel Painter IX, we want to ensure that you have the best user experience possible, so please get in touch with us. I can be reached at rick DOT champagne AT corel DOT com. No spaces and replace "DOT" with "." and "AT" with "@".

Kindest Regards,

Rick

P.S. I tried posting with a "-" rating, but it seems Amazon needs 1 to 5 stars. I gave Painter IX 5 stars based on the average rating we have been receiving from longtime expert reviewers in the media - which would have been 4.9 out of 5, but there was no 4.9 so I picked the nearest whole number. : )

A natural painting program intrigued me. I went to their site and there's a Trial version of 30 days available. Worked for just 1 day. Every time I try to run it, it claims that it was "damaged or illegally modified". I tried reinstalling as it suggested and now cannot even open it (I keep getting that error). I searched online and found I wasn't the only one running into this error. Apparently it's been happening since version 7 and not to just the Trial versions! If you can get it to work, good for you, you might be able to enjoy it. I'm currently waiting to see if their customer service responds. I'll keep you posted.

Customer Service finally responded and said there's nothing they can do. They transfered me to Tech support and they said there was nothing they can do. They said the only way they can help is if I purchase the program and then proceeded to tell me there was a 30 day refund policy which they said makes it just like a trial version. Yeah right.

I tried contacting "Rick" the program manager who posted what looked like a helpful comment here. He did respond. But just transfered me to someone else and claimed that that person would get in touch with me soon. That was over a month ago and I still haven't heard anything back from anyone. **update No one ever got in touch with me.

This lack of support has left me with a bad feeling and I don't want to struggle with it any longer. If you're interested, definitely try out their trial before buying. At least to see if it will even work for your system. God forbid if you run into any future problems though.

I did like this program. There are shorcomings. The selection tools are nowhere near as good as what Adobe supplies but it offers some options that Photoshop doesn't have that are really useful for one who combines natural drawings with the digital medium.

Then, for no apparent reason as I do a file save every few minutes, it crashed. And it destroyed a file that I'd worked on for a week. There's 128k left (out of about 35MB) and I can't recover it. I phoned customer support. Their recording had all the information about how to buy things but ran for several minutes before (finally) giving an alternate number to call for tech support. I didn't call that one. After several minutes of listening to a recording that had nothing to do with my needs at that moment I was in no mood to listen to another. The support number SHOULD be listed on Corel's help page along with the other numbers listed. A customer SHOULDN'T have to jump hoops to find it!

Does anyone from Corel read these things? I hope so, because this is where I stand now.

They are not getting any more of my money. Crashes do happen. But they shouldn't take the last saved version with them when they decide to explode. In eight years I've only ever had something like that happen once. It was with GoLive 6.0 and that appeared to be caused by a memory management issue as well. But that program creates back up sites as one works. It doesn't log all of the small saved changes so what's left after a serious crash may not be a completely up to date but it did leave something that could be worked with. Painter didn't. It does offer the iterative save feature (which I will do when I use this program again) but that tends to seem wasteful since each iterative save puts a completely new file on the hard drive. I wouldn't be so mad if there was support staff on hand to suggest options I might not be aware of. But there wasn't. As is often the case now support for a product is moved to the back of the bus where it's hard or impossible to find (which is probably done in the hope that customers won't use it).

This could be a great program. It offers digital artists an array of brushes that's to die for. The effects pallette is impressive and the lighting pallette is a joy to work with. The selection tools are another matter. To begin with they've barely been improved on since version 4 when they were owned by Meta Creations. And the old ones used to shut down properly. The current ones don't always do that too well. And they aren't very good about showing the user when it's happening either. It's probably something to do with the memory management issue that another reviewer mentioned. Whatever the case these tools shouldn't wipe out files that have been saved at least a hundred times over the course of a week. Right now they're fully capable of that.

The bottom line: the ssues with the selection tools prevent this from being a great product and the lack of accessible support makes it a 'buyer beware'. The buggy selection tools could be lived with if the support was there. But it isn't. Until Corel is interested in supporting their product as well as selling it, don't buy it.

I have been using Painter 6 for a long time. Never wanted to upgrade because there was never anything new that was worth the upgrade for me. Well all that has changed with this new version!!! This version of Painter is definitely the best yet!

First thing you will notice is the speed improvements. But as you start using the app, and try out the new features, you will find that there are plenty of new stuff that makes this an incredible upgrade. Digital Watercolor, Quick clone, Artist' oils, customization, brush controls, custom palettes, snap to path to name a few.

Thank you Corel, it's about time!!!