Review by A. H.

Over the years, I have used any number of photo editing and graphics programs, ranging from Adobe PhotoShop to CorelDraw to PaintShop Pro. However, I’ve never used anything quite like Painter Essentials 5.

This program is designed to help you convert your photographs into art. It has a number of tools that will let you paint using your photographs as a jumping off point. It also has filters and algorithms that will automatically convert your photographs into pre-selected styles (e.g., watercolor). The program gives you controls of numerous parameters and is quite powerful for the price.

I have toyed around with it using a mouse and also a Bamboo pad and pen. Both work well. You don’t have to be a whiz to get in and start fooling around. However, if you want to do anything serious with this program, prepare to spend some time learning its process. The online help isn’t bad, but to get the most out of this you’ll have to spend some time with it.

It installed and ran like a breeze on an Intel i7-3770K machine I built a few years ago, running Windows 8.1 with 16gb of RAM and a decent AMD video card. The controls were smooth and responsive.

If you have a yen to make painterly scenes or portraits from your photographs, this is a powerful program that will let you do it. Just be ready to invest time learning how to get the most out of it.