Review by NoVA Music Lover

I’ve used the full version of Corel Painter for years and it’s one of my favorite packages for digital art, especially when using a Wacom Tablet. The power of the full version is a bit too much for many people, but Painter Essentials is accurately named: it captures the essential piece of Painter and allows an artist that’s new to digital art or that doesn’t want to learn a bunch of menus to create something beautiful.

The user interface is very intuitive and has quite a few features from the full version, but with a greatly simplified interface. The selection of brushes isn’t quite as rich as with the full version, but it’s very powerful at its price point.

One thing many may like are the tools for creating art from a photograph. The workflow is very easy and lets you have some fun with your photos. The mirror image tool is fun, but the most popular tool for my kids is the auto paint mode. You import a photograph, choose a style, and the program takes over. It’s kind of interesting to watch, but it’s not very fast. Once the auto paint has finished, you can edit the results.

Overall, I think this is a nice tool for someone who’s getting into digital art, but I recommend using a tablet instead of a mouse since a digitizing pen lets you move much more naturally.