Corel Painter 8 Upgrade

Rating:
Summary: Great Product!
Review: I was taking a course in Computer Graphics and was introduced to Painter through the course. I had always used Adobe Photoshop so I had no idea what Painter would be like.

Fo those people who are not familair with computer graphics programs, Painter makes it easy to learn. You can learn so many things with just playing around with the various tools. Painter makes it easy for anyone to learn how to make a graphic. This is one of the best programs I have worked with over an extended period of time! Thanks so much Corel for making a product worth buying!

Rating:
Summary: Mea Culpa!
Review: I wrote a hasty review of Painter 8 after only one day of haphazard dabbling with the program, and I have to now eat my words. I've spent a few more days working with the program, and it's a much better upgrade than my initial impressions (and review)indicated.

What I didn't remember is that this is not merely an upgrade but a REVISION of the program. One must come to this without the preconceptions learned from using previous iterations of this fine product. The lack of responsiveness in the brush or pen line thickness variations was due to my not having recorded a stroke in the stroke pressure setup panel...something I had not had to do before, as I did this in the Wacom Tablet stroke pressure setup panel (under Preferences) and that had sufficed to generate satisfying results in Painter 6 and 7. (I haven't found whether the Painter 8 documentation mentions the necessity of setting up one's stroke pressure preferences anew in the program, but it is necessary to achieve satisfactory mark-making sensitivity.)

As I get more acclimated to the new interface I have to admit that Painter 8 is pretty darn nifty. I don't know if this is such a dramatic upgrade from Painter 7--aside from the drastically improved interface--but it is worthy enough for me to withdraw my earlier cavils and give this program 5 Stars.

Depending on your computer's processing power, some stroke rendering can be slow, but this was true of earlier versions of Painter, as well. This is an attribute of the complex computations required to render the particular effect, and not a unique defect with this version of the program.

Anyone who already uses Painter will love the streamlined interface. Whether the new features are sufficient to warrant an upgrade--the new interface aside--must lie within the judgement of each Painter user. For those new to the program...go, buy, use, ENJOY.

Rating:
Summary: A Near Perfect Program for creating Art
Review: It took me a few months to break down and buy this. I had Painter Classic and Painter 7, and I liked them, but they weren't what I really wanted.

Painter 8 was exactly what I was looking for. The color mixer is wonderful! I can finally get the colors I want quickly and easily. The new interface is so intuitive and not at all intrusive like Painter 7's. The new brushes are brushes I want and use. Painter 7 had a lot of the same brushes with few variations organized in a haphazard fashion.

If you enjoy the look of natural media, and you enjoy the flexiblility and forgivability of digital media, Painter 8 is for you. I am so glad I bought it. I just wish I had purchased it earlier. It is a big improvement over 7.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Upgrade...so far.
Review: Let me say that I love PAINTER...it's my favorite computer graphics program. PHOTOSHOP is more powerful for image editing, but for creating "natural" art on the computer, PAINTER blows PHOTOSHOP away. (My other favorite program is Creature House's little known gem of a vector drawing program EXPRESSION. It allows for "natural" looking media effects in a vector environment; imagine PAINTER as a vector program!)

However, after one day of playing with PAINTER 8, I am somewhat disappointed. It's redesigned interface is fine, an improvement over the old clutter, although, once having got used to it, the old interface was intuitive enough and it's "clutter" factor lessened with use. Beyond the snazzy new interface, though, I'm finding that the new brushes seem less responsive and in some cases slower to "draw" than in the two previous versions of PAINTER I've used, 6 and 7. My favorite pen and ink drawing tool, the "Scratchboard" tool, is far less sensitive than in previous iterations of this program, and even after setting it's line thickness to vary according to the pressure I place on the drawing tablet, it hardly approaches the smooth, natural look and feel of old.

Also, the Liquid Ink brushes seem much slower to "draw," and the Impasto effects seem not to always work, or, at least, they do not seem to work with every tool, which they formerly could.

Admittedly, I've only used the new version for one day, and I've just dabbled; perhaps in time I'll learn how to achieve in PAINTER 8 the responsiveness I'm used to from previous versions. Also, perhaps the next incremental upgrade will improve the performance such that Painter 8 will not feel "buggy."

I love the program; I'm disappointed in what seems almost a step back in the main point of the program...the natural performance and feel of "painting" on the computer. I may find that I open PAINTER 7 as often (or more so) than this upgrade...until I can discover what I'm doing wrong or Corel can fine-tune the responsiveness and sensitivity.

Rating:
Summary: Great paint program
Review: Painter is an amazing program I have been using it since version 4. It is the best thing out there for realistic painterly effects on a computer. The new interface in Painter 8 is a great new feature. Much better than the old way. The toolbar and menus take up much less screen space than the old pallettes.

Rating:
Summary: why you have to upgrade..
Review: Today, a creative professional can only notice how mature the graphics software industry has become, new software are offering more and more features that are using more and more computer resources, without being adding real marginal benefits. New upgrades are only to keep the products alive, on the expense of making them more cumbresome.

Painter 8 is a different story altogether!
Corel® has made a great effort to make this upgrade of a previously clunky yet powerful product, a much more versatile, standardised and user-friendly juggernault. Gone are the days where you have to hopelessly search among dozens of panels for a particular brush, style or method. A slick bar at the top dynamically changes according to the tool you're using, where you set the size, opacity, curviness..etc.
Another thing that was greatly improved is the process of choosing the brush (that used to be very annoying with the old selective dimming). The brush selector is tucked at the upper right part of the screen (also in that slick bar,) in a much more logical and standardised way.
One also has the feeling that painter 8 was given something similar to the Macormedia® MX treatment, where the palettes can be customised into different panels and the layout saved according to the project.
The mixer panel IS useful, and is very consistant with the philosophy of this new painter release: the small things that make your work faster and stress-free. The os X over all performance is much snappier, not to mention the beefed-up photoshop compatibility, and o! have i mentioned that you get both a windows and a mac version with the license price ?

In short, If you thought painter was too eccentric and boggy for you, this is the upgrade you've been waiting for. Its new slick interface made me thank God that Corel® had taken the torch from Metacreation.