POSTS
Review by BBP
Corel Painter X3 is the most powerful paint program Corel makes and it functions a lot like Photoshop. That’s a good thing. It means not having to relearn many of the tools. The floating palettes, menus and interface should be immediately intuitive to anyone who has used an Adobe product. Buttons and key functionality are even located in the same place on the screen and much of the terminology is the same. As a web professional, I use Photoshop every day and I know a lot of people who use Photoshop exclusively to paint with as well. It is one of the major tools for professional digital artists and game developers, so why would you consider Painter over Photoshop?nnWhereas Photoshop has evolved into an all-purpose tool for digital artists, photographers, graphic designers, and web developers, Painter is a more specialized tool aimed at serious digital painters who want to paint. The brush options are extensive and bewildering, designed to feel the way natural brushes and media feel. For example, you can control the wetness, viscosity and evaporation rate of certain brushes and inks and paints. Experimenting with traditional media in real life would cost you quite a bit of money. To get the most of out the product, you’ll need a Wacom tablet. Using just the mouse, it is unable to detect pressure and brush orientation.
The 943-page manual is available as a PDF from Corel’s website. Corel also maintains an extensive YouTube channel for tutorials and showcases as well as on its own site. Corel offers a fully-functional time-limited demo for you to try out to see if it’s right for you. If you don’t need all the featuresor are just starting out, you can go with one of the earlier versions of Painter at a considerable savings.