CorelDraw has for years been the Gold Standard when it comes to computer drawing and drafting and X5 is Corel's latest offering in the line. The last version of CorelDraw I used was version 4.0 (a LONG time ago) so I was eager to see how it had changed. My experience with it has been a positive one and I learned a few things along the way.
There are two main applications in the suite as well as other supporting apps; I will talk mainly about these two applications - CorelDraw itself and Corel PhotoPaint.
This particular version is the Home and Student version, which has few restrictions on the application but has clear wording in the licensing that preclude it from commercial use. It is not meant to be used for corporate gain; it is meant as a learning tool for students, a productivity tool for home users and an affordable solution for volunteer work. In my case this is an excellent option. If you need CorelDraw for commercial use, you must purchase a commercial license. Unfortunately, there is no option to upgrade the license that I could find, so there is no upgrade path. Keep this in mind.
Installation was straightforward and painless though it took a good deal of time. I selected the Custom installation and told the program to load everything, and the installation took roughly 15-20 minutes from start to finish. Considering the sheer size of what was written to the drive - over 5 GB of stuff - this seems like a reasonable length of time. Curiously, after the installation completed the desktop icons did not show up until after I rebooted the system.
The first launch of the flagship application in the suite, CorelDraw, took quite a bit of time to load, maybe 30 seconds before anything appeared on screen. (This is on a reasonably equipped system so this seemed a little unusual.) After the initial launch subsequent starts have been much more responsive.
Upon launch CorelDraw presents a quickstart screen which provides some information, access to different tools and recent documents and a gallery viewer too. Opening a new, plain document presents an empty canvas; opening a new document from a template presents a gallery of premade, professional-looking templates for project quick-start which are very handy.
When a new document is opened (either by template or just blank) the user is presented a canvas with access to several drawing tools and effects. It is a simple click of the mouse to change the active tool to free-hand drawing with a pen, adding shapes and shading, select and moving elements and much more. There is a bar of tool buttons along the left side of the canvas, as well as along the top of the client area. A thin band of tools runs across the bottom of the client area and a flyout hint tab adorns the right. All that said, the screen is not nearly as busy as you'd suspect, and everything is available without undue clutter on the desktop. Corel did a very nice job of designing their interface to maximize productivity without getting in the way.
I have a tablet wired to my computer so I was interested in using it to do some drawing and sketching. I found a place in the tools menu that allowed me to configure my tablet with CorelDraw and even was able to see that it recognizes pressure differences in the way I hold my pen, but once configured I have been unable to find any distinguishable difference (on-screen) between using my pen/tablet and using my mouse. The help files provide precious little to explain where a tablet adds anything to the drawing experience within the application. I hope this is just a case of me not looking hard enough...
CorelDraw has a very large set of filters and effects that can be applied to a document, such as blurs, lens effects and more. Many of these are context-sensitive and will not work unless the document is first converted to a bitmap, though this is a mouse-click away.
Comparing CorelDraw and Corel Painter, CorelDraw is geared more toward the jack-of-all-trades type of work and is more technical in nature while Painter is very definitely an artist's tool. The same end results are possible with either program but the route to get there is different. If looking for a true artist's canvas on the computer, Painter may be a better fit.
The other primary tool in the suite, PhotoPaint, is an industrial strength photo editing tool.
When launching PhotoPaint, just like CorelDraw the application presents the user with a quickstart screen with the same available options. If you select opening a new document you get a blank image that you can manipulate which at first seems a little silly but it is helpful for capturing images via cut and paste. Of course, you can open an existing photo as well, which is likely what most users will want with this application.
PhotoPaint has a good number of effect and filters for manipulating an image, some of which are artistic effect and others are geared more toward touch-up and editing. The very best feature of PhotoPaint relates to the filters in that any effect applies in a preview window so that you can see the result before committing the change to the main image. Of course there is undo should something undesired gets applied... There are enough filters and effects that it is likely you'll find anything you'll need in PhotoPaint for manipulating images to the desired end result.
Pairing CorelDraw and PhotoPaint together gives the creative individual tremendous power and flexibility in creating astounding artwork with professional results.
Corel has put together a very nice package with two professional-grade applications for creating and manipulating digital images and documents. So far I haven't found any obvious flaws that make using the applications less pleasant or easy, and I can recommend this package for the budget-minded individual who needs the power for non-commercial work.