Corel Paint 9 Views

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These new features are all welcome but, letsrs"s face it, they are really just minor tweaks ndash; wherehrs"s the new core power? Paintersrs"s power largely comes from its brushes and Corel is making much of version IX rs"s new ability to access all the parameters that define a brush from the numerous Brush Controls palettes (no less than 19 from Size and Spacing through to Colour Expression and Colour Variability!). Itmrs"s difficult to get too excited about this however, as this is exactly how Painter used to work before version 8 rationalized the chaos with its excellent modeless Brush Creator dialog. Rather more useful are the changes to the Tracker palette which stores the settings for the last 20 brushes used. Now you can lock brushes to stop them dropping off the Tracker list and settings are stored between sessions. Itvrs"s definitely a step forward but it would be much better if all brushes were automatically stored with their images.

I would never have believed a program that can do all Corel Painter 9 can could be so user-friendly. To use it at the most basic level (yet with pleasing results), you simply set a size of canvas, pick a brush, select a color, and paint. But as soon as you start investigating the possibilities of each brush and drawing tool, the mixing of paint on the palette, the wetting and drying of watercolor paper, the special effects, you realize what an awesome program it is for an artist.

Corel Painter 9 does a lot of amazing things and has an incredible array of brushes and drawing tools, but for me the most astounding is the Color Mixing palette. This is a digital version of the 'real thing'. Really! You select your colors and mix them on the palette, then pick up a mixed color and paint with it. And depending on what brush you're using, you'll run out of paint and have to pick up some more.

Corel Painter 9 uses the patented Natural-Media painting software to help you create art on your Macintosh OS or Windows computer. The program lets you use various types of brushes, materials and textures that are similar to the ones you would use to paint with on an actual canvas. There are also additional features to enhance your computer painting experience, such as brushes that are up to 10 times quicker than the ones found in earlier Corel Painter versions. You can paint with the different types of brushes by finding and opening them in the program.