0 Comments Art Review: Corel Painter

Program - Corel Painter 2018 (Corel Corporation)
Tested version - v18.1.0.651

Price - 30-day trial, $199.00 for full version
Systems - Windows 7/8.1/10, Mac OS X 10.10
Official website - https://www.painterartist.com/en/product/painter/

Raster or Vector - Raster with some editable vector tools

Ease Of Use - Simple to start a new image, select a brush and start smearing paint around. Setting up a comfortable layout, brushes, and other necessities takes a bit more effort.

In the Help menu are various options for help, video tutorials, etc that open in your web browser. Online there is the official help manual, tutorial section, YouTube video channel, and more. However, links to various related forums/communities/etc lead to outdated and seemingly abandoned sites.

All software is subjective to hardware installed, so with that in mind here is my current workhorse PC (A updated HP Z200 Workstation) specs I used for testing with all updated drivers...

CPU - Intel Core i5 CPU 660 @ 3.33GHz (2 Cores, 4 Threads)
Memory - 12 GB DDR3 total
Graphics - EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti SC (Superclocked GM107) 1 GB (DDR5 memory)
Space - 2.5 TB hard drive disk space
System - Windows 8.1 Pro

 
Program Speed - Quick and fluid for most tasks. Even at tabloid sized work (11" x 17") at 600 ppi smaller brushes are lag-free; although, using large brushes, thick paint, or the paint bucket (the bucket can be nearly instant to about 5 seconds depending on fill size) all have lag.

Noticeable Lag - Besides those mentioned, when working at large sizes/resolutions the zoom and rotate options lag to the point it is best to avoid them when possible. The Text tool has much lag (perhaps due to the amount of my installed fonts) and caused Painter to crash too.

Page Options - Maximum size is 27.303" x 27.303" at 600 ppi, and 54.607" x 54.607" at 300 ppi. Both image size and resolution are tied together like usual, and adjusting either will limit the maximum of the other

In the New image window options (first image above) include Name, Preset (with 4 presets, or create your own), Size, Resolution, Canvas color, and Paper texture. The image color is strictly RGB; however, options are available for conversion to CMYK (image 2 above) when saving, that is in the main menu Canvas -> Color management settings.

There are no crop /margin /bleed /etc options, but does offer a Canvas ruler with guides, so you can set those for reference.

File Formats -

• Open - RIF /RIFF (Corel Painter), TIF /TIFF (TIFF), PSD (Photoshop Document), BMP (Windows Bitmap), PCX (PC Paintbrush), TGA (Targa), GIF, JPG /JPEG (JPEG), PNG, FRM (Painter Framestack), MOV (QuickTime moves), AVI (Windows AVI)
• Save - RIF /RIFF (Corel Painter), PSD (Photoshop Document), TIF /TIFF (TIFF), PNG, JPG /JPEG (JPEG), GIF, TGA (Targa), BMP (Windows Bitmap), PCX (PC Paintbrush), EPS /EPSF (PostScript) Export - AI (Adobe Illustrator)

Plug-in Support - Unclear. Older versions such as Painter 2015, had a support issue on a plug-in so apparently that version did. Finding anything for Painter 2018 specifically online about plug-ins only shows spam websites and nothing from Corel.

Customizable Shortcuts/Menus/Icons - Yes keyboard shortcuts. Unlike other Corel software though, Painter allows little customization.

Various floating windows can be switched on and off, and are combinable in some cases (but return to default settings if altered with menu commands on/off or layouts changed). Most do not dock in Painter and simply float in the way - the tool area can not dock, so the very few windows that can are pointless (hidden behind the tool area).

The best trick is to double-click the window's individual tabs to hide their options to take up less screen space when not in use.

Layer Options - Layers are a portion of a floating window as seen in the image above.

Basic options include 22 Composite methods (blending modes), Composite depth, Preserve transparency, Pick up underlying color, Opacity slider and numerical input, Visibility, Layer commands (Group /Ungroup /Collapse layers), Dynamic plugins (Bevel /Burn /Equalize /etc), New layer (4 types), New layer mask, Lock layer, and delete.

Clicking the sub-menu options (as seen above) opens all the options.

Color Selection - The color window is part of the layer option as seen previously.

The options are the color wheel (changeable from RGB to HSV) and sliders with numerical input. Double-clicking the Main or Additional color (foreground or background color) brings-up the built-in Windows color selector (2nd image above) which I have thought was removed by Microsoft years ago... Anyway, the only added option here is using a color bar window instead of a wheel.

Selecting the Mixer tab (image above - left side) shows the paint mixing palette. Besides mixing paint yourself, there are several mixed built-in from the options button (top-right icon below the gear). You can also clear the mixing pad and mix your own, or alter any of the built-in ones offered.

The last tab option Color set libraries shows a loaded swatch/palette. There are four included by default, but you can create your own or import them as well.

Brush Options - Selecting the Brush tool the basic options are shown near the main menu area. Which are the Brush selector (image 2) that includes brush libraries /brush types /and brush presets, Reset tool, Freehand or Straight lines, Perspective-guided strokes, Size amount, Opacity amount, Paper texture with Grain amount, Resat amount (amount of color replenished in a stroke), and Bleed (how much it smears underlying colors).

Clicking a corner arrow of Size, Opacity, or Paper texture opens a list of further options.

The real brush power settings and options are hidden in additional windows. In the image above you can see some of the General brush controls and Advanced brush controls windows. Also additional options can also be added to them from the main menu Window -> Brush control panels and selecting the ones you want.

Of course you can create your own, and import brushes as well - However there are 112 brush presets in the new Natural Media Brushes, 646 brush presets in Painter 12/X3 Brushes - and I'm not going to count the remaining Painter 2015 Brushes, Painter 2016 Brushes, Painter 2017 Brushes, Painter 2018 Brushes, or Painter X11 Brushes all included in the Brush Library by default. A estimation is over 3000 brushes total.

Common Necessities - Other tools that are primarily tools, and is surprising lacking in some software making it necessary to include them briefly.

Paint Fill - The Paint bucket works surprisingly well and has basic options, including the ability to fill with Color /Texture /Gradient /Source image /Weave.
Eraser - The options are Free or straight, Soft and Hard mode, Size amount, and Opacity amount.
Image Zoom - Onscreen buttons in the Navigator, menu controls (Zoom to fit and Actual size under Window), and shortcut controls. It includes zoom in/out on the mouse scroll wheel, but does not do 100% so you have to use another method. Zoom range 1% to 1600%.
View Rotate - Yes a Rotate tool (E) (or in the Zoom tool as well) and Onscreen buttons in the Navigator. The art can be rotated to any degree, or entered manually.
Selection Tools - Rectangle, Ellipse, Lasso, Polygonal, Magic wand, and Section adjuster. All have various options depending on the tool.

Text/Font Options - A look at the text tool options along the top shows Shadow (None /External /Internal), Font list (scrollbar only - text can not be entered manually or alphabetic characters to jump to sections), Font size, Align (Left /Center /Right), Text attributes (on/off), Text shadow (on/off), Select Color, Opacity amount, and 22 Composite methods (blending modes).

Opening the Text window (main menu Window -> Text) offers more options. Tracking and Leading options however apply to all the text not just selected text, making it worthless for most fonts - I guess it would be useful for making meme text images... Kerning is absent from the options, but would be pointless anyway in that limited usage.

The available fonts from the list appear to be limited to TrueType fonts only as well (OpenType formats I have are missing from the list). Other options such as styles (Bold, Italic, etc) are completely missing too, rendering the limited fonts to their regular typeface only (no matter the amount of fonts in the family).

Drawing Aids - Basic Rectangle, Ellipse, Pen, Quick curve tools that are created as vector objects - and editable with the Shape selection tool (to rasterize the objects right-click and select Convert to layer). The adjustable node Perspective guides (2nd image) allows for creating city skylines and more (the paintbrush snaps to the guides). The composition tools Layout grid (rule of 3rds), and Divine Proportion (3rd image) are great time-savers.

Symmetry tools including Mirror painting and Kaleidoscope (4th image) help speed-up the process and accuracy of symmetric work. Rounding out the aids are a Page ruler with guides, and a adjustable Grid.

Extras - The options Scripts allows recording the artwork brush strokes, and plays them back extremely fast (not sure of the point of it really as it only works inside Corel Painter too) - it does not record anything that is not "brush on canvas" related, so is not a Macro or Action type of item.

There is also a option to create a New movie animation (2nd image), animation options with onion skin setup.

Pros -

• No monthly/yearly subscription cost.
• Absolutely huge amount of brush settings for many various options.
• Videos, tutorials, brushes and more to create Bob Ross (The Joy of Painting) style work which I find refreshing - even if my university professors would highly disagree. 😁
• Lives up to it's name, and a great program to simulate traditional mediums and more.
• Over 3000 preset brushes in the Brush Library included by default!
• The composition tools help make getting started easier, and a real fundamental tool stressed in many painting classes (but overlooked in other painting software).
• Drawing aids such as Perspective guides and Symmetry tools are helpful.

Cons -

• Floating windows galore hiding artwork below - with the only option of turning them on/off as needed.
• Occasional crashes (from Text tool and Scripts for me) so stability can be a issue.
• The Text tool/fonts appears to be a afterthought, especially when targeting manga/comics. The font options work only on all text (no individual character/word/line settings), no font styles besides regular type are supported (so no Bold /Italic /etc), and most of my fonts are missing in the list and appears to only support TrueType fonts.

Recommended Use - For creating painted style illustrations and artwork.