Corel Painter X (10) Screen Shot is the latest release of Corel Corporations natural media and artistic software. I want to get one thing out of the way before I move on. There is no other product on the market that comes close to what Corel Painter X offers in the way of natural media art tools and painting as well as host of other interesting artistic endeavors including making fabric weaves, mosaic tile art pieces, converting photos to works of art as well as having one of the neatest filters for making marbled paper Marbled Paper Sample I have ever seen.

Over the last couple of versions, basically since Corel bought Painter from Meta Creations they have worked hard on not only improving the natural media capabilities but standardizing the interface so that layers and even some keyboard shortcuts work the same as other image editing programs like Adobe Photoshop. They have also worked hard at clearing up some of the little annoyances that Meta Creations never bothered with. All in all I give Corel Corporation a big thumbs up for a job well done. Corel Painter X continues this excellent work by offering some very cool and useful new features including:

RealBristle Painting System: Screen Shot The new RealBristle Painting System heightens the responsiveness of the brush for the artist and represents a major milestone for digital painting. While artists have always marveled at how closely Corel Painter simulates the look of traditional art media, Corel Painter X takes realism to a whole new level. With Corel Painter X, artists can now faithfully replicate the sensation of the interaction between the paint, canvas, and brush. Unrivaled, the RealBristle Painting System authentically reproduces the natural movement of the artist’s brush.

Divine Proportion: Screen Shot The new Divine Proportion composition tool helps artists visually arrange their canvas prior to drawing or painting. Widely used throughout history by artists, designers, and architects, divine proportion is a ratio of 1:1.61803398874989, or approximately three to five, which is generally recognized as aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Layout Grid: The new Layout Grid composition tool divides the canvas into equal sections. Similar to the Divine Proportion composition tool, the Layout Grid helps artists visually arrange the canvas or a photo prior to drawing or painting. Artists can choose from three preset Layout Grids: the Rule of Thirds, 3 × 5, or 5 × 5. In addition, users can customize the Layout Grid to virtually any configuration of their choice.

Photo Painting System: Screen Shot Sample Image Corel calls the Photo Painting System “enhanced” I call it a revolution. The Photo Painting System makes it easier than ever for photographers to create beautiful paintings from photos. With Corel Painter X, new controls provide users with more options when creating an underpainting. In addition, the new Smart Stroke Painting option uses brush strokes that dynamically adhere to the forms of the original photo. The restoration palette allows you restore some of the photos original detail providing you with a soft or hard edged brush with control over the size and opacity. Perfect for adding back in small areas of detail that really brings you art to life.

Match Palette Effect: The new Match Palette effect lets artists match the color and intensity between two images. If you want to change an image’s color scheme, you can now open an image that features your desired color scheme and use the Match Palette effect to bring the desired color scheme to the image you want to change. The Match Palette effect includes controls for color, color variation, brightness, brightness variation, and intensity.

Universal Mixer Palette: With Corel Painter X, artists have greater control over color selection when using Artists’ Oils brushes, RealBristle brushes, or any other bristle-type brush. For multicolor selection, the new Universal Mixer palette gives artists better control over color blending between the Mixer palette and the canvas.

There are also a number of performance and productivity enhancements and new features including: Universal Binary for optimized support for both Intel and PowerPC based Macintosh computers. Painter has a new workspace manager which allows you to easily switch between workspaces so you can adjust the interface for specific types of jobs making your time in Painter more productive. New dodge and burn tools Screen Shot, enhanced color management, Windows Vista support, enhanced Mac OS X support, enhanced Adobe Photoshop Support, enhanced Wacom pen tablet support, a large and well done printed user guide, Jeremy Sutton training videos, and Painter on the Net tab in the welcome book welcome page.

Nothing comes close to what Painter offers in the natural media and artistic tools category and that includes Adobe Photoshop. Corel Painter thanks to its even more standardized interface and even more remarkable natural media tools and other enhancements and features just keeps getting better. If you have a Wacom Pen Tablet like the Intuos 3 with the additional pens like the airbrush and 6D Art Pen you just can’t get any other program that makes these tools so much fun.