Review by Elisa 20

I liked using this program. As a photographer, I like to use photo editors for more than fixing the photo problemscropping, sharpening, adjusting hue, etc. If you primarily want to adjust your photosfixing them as photos including adding some color enhancements–there are several other very good, much less expensive programs like Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop Elements that do that.

This is a pretty expensive program and I wouldnt get it unless I felt it did something that I couldn’t do less expensively elsewhere (or couldn’t do at all elsewhere) or unless it made something much easier to do than a less expensive program did.

Painter 2016 doesnt make thing easierthe interface isn’t horrible and the tutorials are goodbut it is not all that intuitive and takes a little patience. (I also found some of the Youtube videos helpful). If youve used Photoshop, etc. youll see a lot of the same concepts herethe layout of the workspace, the toolbox, palettes, brushes. You can use layers and adding one is just as easy as clicking New layer.nWhat I like is taking a photo and using it to make something that is less like a photo and more like a painting (obviously those who start from scratch can use the tools to create a drawing or painting from scratch. The dpi is good.) The cloning tool and tracing features are very useful. It will do underpainting for you automatically. You can choose the texture of your paper and between all the things youd expecta watercolor effect, pastel effect, charcoal, etc. Choosing the right brush is a big thing in Painter, but it isn’t that hard to get used to. In addition to the texture of your paper, you can control the brightness of it and adjust the texture to customize it for your own needs. It was good for landscapes, okay for portraits. There are some special effects filters, wood cut, kaleidoscope, glass distortion, and so onnot useful for me, but someone may like it.

If you want to make art, particularly from a photo, this is a good program for it. I found the graphic capabilities able to add the kind of artistic details that made the end product look more like something that had started out as a painting done from scratch rather than a digitally enhanced photo. If you understand what that means and want to do it with your photos (and have the time to do it–it’s not like applying a filter, it’s like actually making a work of art), you would probably enjoy this very much. (Theres a free 30 day trial).