| Corel Painter 11 is the latest release of
Corel's advanced digital art studio software. By providing the drawing and painting
technology, Painter 11 allows artists to pursue their creative endeavors in totally new
and inspiring ways.
Corel Painter 11 is aimed at five major groups of users.
First are commercial designers who require the tools to
create their visions for architecture, graphic design, and illustration.
Next are concept artists who need tools to speed their
production time as well as have the ability to create astounding scenes for animation,
movie, and video games.
Photographers have, in recent years, begun using Corel
Painter to explore new avenues for creative work, and generate additional revenue.
Then there are the fine artists who use digital as
"just another medium" within the world of fine art.
Finally there are students and teachers of art or design
who want the ability to learn their craft without the cost, mess, and chemicals associated
with traditional art supplies.
What do you need to run Corel Painter 11?
There are both Windows and Mac versions, and each requires
a 700 MHz or better processor, 1 GB RAM, a mouse or pen tablet, 24-bit color display with
1024x768 screen resolution, a CD-ROM drive, and 500 MB hard disk space.
So what is new with this version of Corel Painter 11?
Hard media variants continue Painter's leadership in the
creation of realistic natural-media brushes. In version 11 you get a range of 40 new hard
media variants that are suitable for drawing and sketching. They are available in a
variety of brush categories including Acrylic, Blenders, Chalk, Colored Pencils, Pens,
Watercolors, and the all new Marker.
Custom hard media variants give you the ability to create
your own variants. The palette provides a preview window and several controls that users
can fine tune variants to meet their needs. These include dab profiles, sizes, transition
range, stroke width, and tilt angle.
Customizable rendering markers are all new to version 11
and are specifically designed to emulate real-world rendering markers. As with all Painter
media, they take advantage of tablet tilt so that artists can vary the width of the marker
stroke by adjusting the angle of their pen. You can even take control of Marker buildup
just like the real-world counterparts.
Redesigned Colors palette now has all of the color controls
are on one palette. They have taken the sliders from the former Color Info palette making
them easier to adjust colors right on the color palette. You can choose to show or hide
both the color wheel and the color information sliders, providing more space for the tools
you use most frequently. Also, as you hover over the Color Wheel a new tool tip provides
accurate color values for the currently selected color. The Colors Palette is resizable by
up to 800 pixels in width giving you a better view of all available colors.
Resizable Mixer palette is now resizable by up to 1600
pixels in width, thus providing more space for mixing of custom colors. As the palette is
resized, the Brush Size slider will expand in width to give you more control and accuracy.
Polygonal Selection Tool lets you take advantage of the new
Polygonal mode to produce straighter lines when making node-to-node selections. Also the
ability to switch in and out of Polygonal mode while using the Lasso tool gives you more
precision and dexterity when making selections.
Transform Tool now takes all of the transform modes and
moves them into one centralized tool. This will improve the ease and efficiency of
transforming your images. Now you can quickly and easily switch between Move, Scale,
Rotate, Skew, Distort, and Perspective Distortion modes. You can also choose whether to
transform the complete contents of a layer, or just selected content within a layer.
Document Color profiles now give you the ability to save
individual color profiles for every Painter document. Whether RIF, PSD, TIF, PNG, or JPEG,
this will ensure accurate color representation for every file when distributing your
artwork.
Keyboard color selection enables you to select your colors
by using the arrows on the keyboard to control the pointer. Now with a single tap of your
pen activates the Color Wheel and give you the flexibility to manipulate the color with
your keyboard.
Tablet tilt will let you control the width of your brush
strokes by adjusting the angle of your pen. A vertical pen angle will create a thin brush
stroke, while a slanted one will create a wider stroke giving you the perfect feel for
accomplishing something like shading an image.
Corel Painter 11 is a significant new release. With this
release, Corel continues to change what is possible when working with digital art by
enhancing the creative process in traditional art, as well as taking you beyond the
digital darkroom.
With additional speed and performance, especially the 30
percent increase in brush response over Painter X on the Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) Mac, the new
color management and its subsequent performance increase will have you working more
efficiently than ever.
When you add in the enhancements to the resizable Color
Wheel and Mixer palette, the improvements in layer selection and manipulation, the new
brushes and dry media controls, Painter 11 really is the ultimate art studio. You can also
download a free trial from Corel.
Along with what is listed above, some of the things that I
have liked in the past and continue to like in this new version include the ability to
learn and experiment with new styles, compositions, colors, and forms, and having the
ability to wipe the slate clean at any time without any loss or expense. What's more, I
like the ability to take the final output, as with the image seen above, and have it sent
out to be reproduced on canvas at larger sizes (in this case 20" x 30") and the
resolution and clarity is just impeccable. I very highly recommend this product.
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