Review by Penfist

Mastering this piece of software appears to require 1,000s of hours. There’s just no way I was going to do more than scratch the surface in 30 days. The interface feels a bit cluttery because there are dozens and dozens of brushes to choose from and each has another half dozen variables that can be applied.

I spent most of my time with Painter 2016 experimenting with features like autopaint. I took a variety of photos and turned them into simulated paintings with a varying level of success. I have a Macbook Pro made in 2013. The images I was working with were roughly 21MB in size. I was surprised by how long it took to apply different effects to my images. Painter definitely took up all the CPU cycles, sometimes for 2-4 minutes.

It’s going to take a lot longer than 30 days to master Painter. There are additional add on brush packs and tutorials available for purchase. They seem very expensive considering the amount that you have to spend just for the base product. If you want to do serious digital painting I don’t know of a more robust product on the market.