Review by Colorgirl

I am usually very good at writing reviews, but this product has had me wondering how to begin. There are so many amazing facets to this program that I am not quite sure how to go about addressing this.

There is a variety of ways that I can address this from the person who has never seen Painter before to the person who has used Painter since the days of its origin at Fractal Design before Corel bought it, and even those who use this for high end graphics production in text books, fine art, and gaming illustration.

I have decided to go about it from the perspective of what I am using it for and a brief history of my experiences and exposure to Painter. I will also list what my computer is like, what I am using for a graphics device, and then as best I can what is new in the program. I will submit this review and add to it as I can gather the information to provide for you. This will not be short and sweet, because this program is very deep and intense. I don’t think you can justify a short review of it.

(By the way my keyboard is acting up on me so if you find some odd words that might not even exist, please pardon me- I am looking into keyboard replacement soon)nnMY COMPUTERnHere are my specsnnIntel Core i5 CPU 650 @ 3.20 GHznMemory 6GBnOS- Windows 7 64bitnInput- mousepad and Intous 5 from WacomnnBRIEF HISTORYnnI had the original Painter from Fractal Design back when it was amazing and a challenge to use,nbut it put me ahead in light years for my artistry. I have not only done graphic arts, but I amna fine artist. My primary use for Painter at the time was to use it for throwing ideas upninto the screen and trying out alternative colors and textures for my paintings.

Sometimes I would scan in my paintings or take a photo if the painting was too big and usenthe program to test out ideas. I even would do this for using it for very tiny details- the kindnthat could greatly ruin a painting should I put it in the wrong place.

I work in watercolor primarily so I need something like this to test out ideas as watercolor is somethingnyou can not retract once you have done it. That can be highly frustrating when you have worked a longnwhile on a painting and you ruin it by doing one small thing at the end.

Painter helps me to avoid this kind of frustration. For this, it has been a delightful tool.

I used to have the ArtZII pen and graphics tablet, but due to some awful driver issues, it suddenlynstopped working with Windows XP. That meant that the Painter X that I had purchased was pretty muchnuseless to me and I never got to explore the program. I could not afford another pen and using a mousenwas far too frustrating.

The old Painter was nice. It gave the idea of doing artwork on the computer, but there was still a gapnbetween real time artist tools and what was in the program. Still it was useful and I used it constantlynuntil my Wacom graphics tablet stopped working.

EXPERIENCE OF PAINTER X3nnSince it has been some years since I have had the chance to use Painter, I have forgotten all of the wonderfulnthings it can do.

I now have the Intuos 5 Touch Graphic Tablet (Medium) from Wacom and let me tell you this program is so overwhelmingnI feel as if I might drown there is so much in it.

When you first enter the program, there is an opportunity to get some training on using Painter X3.nYou can opt into the training from the initial screen. This will give you an option to go to the extensivenhelp files or go online to learn how to use Painter X3 for whatever your penchant is.

There are tutorials for Fine Arts, Illustrating, Photo Art, and Painter Interface. Beyond that, there arentutorials for doing specific art pieces provided by a variety of artists. Some are for previous versions ofnPainter, but they still apply.

HOW THE PROGRAM INTERACTS WITH INTUOUS 5nnI am a bit overwhelmed with this program. Not only am I dealing with all of the amazing improvements of the programnsince I used to use it constantly, but the Intuos 5 is another whole breed of graphics pads. Painter is designednto work with the Intuos 5 graphics tablet, so you can do just about anything with it.

I love that when I am working with the pad you can zoom in or out just by using your fingers to expand or contractnthe paper. This can be turned off, incidentally. You can turn the paper to just about any angle you like with yournfingers as well so the art creation experience is much more realistic.

There is a seemingly endless series of brush strokes and nuances that this pen and tablet capture that are very closento duplicating the real life art experience. There is the ability to take a thick line and draw it down to almost imperceptiblenline that fades to a point just like in real life.

The new jitter brush enhancement to this program is delightful. It more closely duplicates the way that paint or other media willnnot be uniform no matter how much you have a steady hand.

SOME NEW THINGS THAT IMPRESS MEnnThe Jitter brush is one of the new features, and there is a brush search. You can search based upon what you want- if you want only brushes that will jitter, then you can narrow it down by that. I have not had any problems with this feature yet, but as I continue to use it over time, I will update.

There is a way to view an inspirational reference image while you keep focus on your current work. You can independently change the view of the docked panel without changing your work space or changing focus from it.

You can also control the minimum values of brushes like size or opacity. Also, you have some bit of control of the settings of the jitter brushes. I have not had a huge amount of interaction with this to find the bugs yet, but it sure is interesting to mess with.

Perspective guides are amazing to me- they are lines that appear so you can use them as guides when putting perspective in your painting or work.

There is also an ability to go back and forth between a clone image- you can apply some changes to the original piece that you are cloning as well as the work you are cloning to- going back and forth between them.

I have not been able to truly explore the layer application but now you can apply changes to layers simultaneously. The small projects I tested it on worked well- again I have not come across bugs yet.

FINAL COMMENTSnnI have to say that this Painter X3 release is so packed full of goodies that I can not even begin to rave as much as I want to in this limited space. Using it with the Intuos graphics pad makes it so delightful that I am like a kid in a candy store with unlimited budget!nnThere are some frustrations with the Intuos- using this sometimes is a bit frustrating- the paper will go a bit too far left or right, or become too small or big and I have to mess with it, but I am not sure if this is the software in Painter, the Intuos 5 physically, or a combination of both.

There is so much in this program that I want to comment on but I will update this review as I have the chance to explore it more in depth. I am truly impressed with it so far. I am not naive, however. Programs will have bugs or limitations in them and it is just a matter of time before I encounter one. However, at this time, it is pretty solid in performance and I love using it.

WHO WOULD LIKE THIS PROGRAM?nn–If you are a graphic artist who tends to want to do more ornate graphics, backgrounds or illustrations, you would most likely like this program.

–If you are a fine artist who wants to test out designs before you paint them, you will definitely like this.

–If you are a photo person who likes to dress up photos in a more artistic way, you will like this.

–If you have access to a decent computer with the ability to get a graphics pad, you will probably like this, especially if it is the Wacom Intuos 5nnWHO WOULD PROBABLY NOT LIKE THIS?nn–If you have an older computer and graphics pad, you might not like this. It takes some power to use. (Go bigger than minimum system requirements)nn–If you are a dabbler, you will probably not like this program. They do have a lighter version that might be betternn–If you the type of person who has to feel the texture of the paper below your hand and experience the smells and performance of real media, you probably won’t like this program. Many of the artists I tried to talk into trying it, refuse for those reasons.

All in all, at this time, I highly recommend this program to any artist who loves the arts, anything that is geared toward working with natural media (pen and ink, spraying, painting, markers, watercolor, etc). If you are delighted at being creative this program will give you more than you will probably ever use, but you will have a lot of freedom to create.

Again, I will update this review as I discover more about this delightfully overwhelming program.