Corel Corp. announced the availability of Corel Painter X. The latest version of Corel Painter continues its focus on giving professional artists, designers and photographers a natural painting and illustration experience that is unmatched by any other software.
Delivering the next-generation art studio, Corel Painter X blurs the line between traditional and digital art like never before. Working closely with professionals including entertainment artists, commercial designers and photographers, the Corel Painter team explored the relationship between the artist's hand and the canvas. As a result, Corel Painter X sets the standard with the introduction of unparalleled performance, new composition tools and the innovative RealBristle Painting System that provides an organic painting and illustration experience -- right down to the individual bristles on the brush.
"Throughout the development of Corel Painter X, we turned to our customers, including some of the industry's top artists, designers and photographers, to ensure that we were delivering the ultimate art studio for creating their masterpieces," said Rick Champagne, product manager for Corel Painter. "We asked them to give us their perspectives on the essence of Corel Painter and what it meant to them and their work. 'Art and Passion' was the resounding response. These inspirational themes guided us throughout our development and set the tone for the entire application. As a result, Corel Painter X is the most natural, organic and powerful version yet."
New and enhanced features include:
* RealBristle Painting System - The RealBristle Painting System heightens the responsiveness of the brush for the artist and represents a major milestone in digital painting. RealBristle brushes faithfully replicate traditional art media with individual bristles that blend and splay, as in the traditional world. Artists can experience the sensation of the interaction between the paint, canvas and brush like never before.
* Composition Tools - Corel Painter X adds new Composition Tools to the tool box, enabling artists, designers and photographers to quickly and easily compose their images. The new Divine Proportion composition tool provides guidelines that follow the Divine Proportion (also known as the Golden Ratio) to enable artists to compose their images like the Masters. The new Layout Grid composition tool provides guidelines that follow photography's Rule of Thirds, but can be customized to other desired grid patterns.
* Photo-Painting System - It's now easier than ever for photographers to create beautiful paintings from photos. Building on the strength of the Photo-Painting Palettes in Corel Painter IX.5, significant new enhancements provide users with more control and intelligence throughout the photo-painting process. Additions to the Underpainting Palette include color schemes based on various media styles, such as Impressionist, Classical, Modern, Watercolor, Sketchbook and Chalk Drawing. Users can now also choose a color scheme that matches the colors of any open image. The Auto-Painting palette has been significantly updated with the introduction of the new Smart Stroke Painting option, which applies brush strokes that follow the forms of the original photo. Smart Stroke Painting changes brush size, stroke length and pressure based on the detail and focal areas of the original image.
* Match Palette effect - Artists can now easily match the color and intensity between two images. Open an image that features a desired color scheme and use the Match Palette effect to apply it to another image. The Match Palette effect includes controls for color, color variation, brightness, brightness variation and intensity. This effect can be accessed on its own or found as part of the enhanced Photo-Painting Palettes.
* Universal Mixer palette - Artists now have greater control over color selection when using any bristle brush. For multicolor selection, the new Universal Mixer palette gives artists better control over color blending between the Mixer palette and the canvas.
* Speed - Corel Painter X delivers speed improvements in areas including brush performance, opening and saving RIFF files and rendering effects. The most dramatic speed improvements will be experienced by customers running Intel-based Macintosh computers, although all customers will experience speed enhancements in various aspects of the application.
* Universal binary for Macintosh - With support for Universal binary specifications, Corel Painter X is optimized for Intel-based Macintosh computers.
* Workspace Manager - Now it's easy to backup, share or switch between customized workspaces. For example, artists can create easily accessible, customized environments for activities like sketching, photography and painting. The Workspace Manager is also useful for educators who want to streamline Corel Painter X to suit curriculum and quickly add a customized workspace on every student's computer. In addition, custom brushes can now be quickly exported and shared with others in the community.
* Dodge and Burn tools - Dodge and burn capabilities have been improved with the addition of two new image enhancement tools to the toolbox. The Dodge tool enables artists to lighten specific areas of an image, while the Burn tool can be used to darken specific areas of an image. Dodging and burning are often used to prepare a photograph for painting.
* Color Management - The enhanced Color Management System ensures accurate color reproduction between devices and print jobs. Now, users only have to set up their Color Management options once and Corel Painter X retains those settings until further adjustments are made. With support for industry standard ICC4.0 color profiles, Corel Painter X enables artists to focus specifically on their work.
* Windows Vista support - Corel Painter X is designed to run on Windows Vista.
* Mac OS X support - Corel Painter X supports the latest operating system from Apple.
* Adobe Photoshop support - Layer behavior is very similar to Adobe Photoshop, making it simple to move files between the applications. Files saved to the Photoshop (PSD) file format open in Corel Painter, with layer masks, alpha channels and layer sets (groups) maintained. Enhancements include easier layer grouping and combining, and improved support for layer merge modes. Corel Painter X also supports many Photoshop plug-ins for Mac OS X.
* Wacom support - With Corel Painter X, artists can use the entire Wacom product line, including the Cintiq 21 UX interactive pen display and the Intuos3 pen tablet. In addition, the new RealBristle Painting System and the Wacom 6D Art Pen work together to take digital painting to an unprecedented level of realism.
* Printed User Guide - Including a Corel Painter artists' gallery, the Corel Painter X User Guide is a beautiful, color-printed manual that provides helpful information and fast solutions for new and long-time users.
* Jeremy Sutton training videos - For guidance and inspiration, customers can access a new collection of downloadable step-by-step training videos created by well-known Corel Painter Master Jeremy Sutton. Additional training videos by Jeremy Sutton are available for purchase.
* "Painter on the 'Net" tab in the Welcome book - New "Painter on the 'Net" tab provides links to Painter community resources online and monthly Tips & Tricks. In addition, the Welcome book provides quick access to recently used files, brush tracking and color management settings, while showcasing artwork from renowned Corel Painter artists.
In addition to offering full, upgrade and education versions of Corel Painter X, Corel is honoring the Painter tradition with the release of the Corel Painter X Limited Edition Can. This Limited Edition release includes the full Corel Painter X software and User Guide, plus the complete LEARNING COREL PAINTER X WITH JEREMY SUTTON DVD-ROM, the Corel Painter X collectors' poster and the Corel Painter X Composition tool.
The English version of Corel Painter X, offered in a full version, upgrade version, education edition and Limited Edition Painter Can, is immediately available for pre-order through Corel and select partners. English version box product will be available through Corel and reseller partners in late February 2007. Japanese, French, Italian and German versions of Corel Painter X will be available throughout the spring of 2007.
Suggested retail pricing for Corel Painter X in the U.S. and Canada is $429 for full, $229 for upgrade and $99 for the education edition. The Limited Edition Painter Can is available for $499. For more information about Corel Painter X, to pre-order or download the full-featured trial version (which can be purchased today as full product electronic download), please visit www.corel.com/painterx.
Corel (www.corel.com) is a leading developer of graphics, productivity and digital media software with more than 40 million users worldwide. The company's product portfolio includes some of the world's most popular and widely recognized software brands including CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, Corel Paint Shop Pro, Corel Painter, Corel DESIGNER, Corel WordPerfect Office, WinZip and iGrafx. In 2006, Corel acquired InterVideo, makers of WinDVD, and Ulead, a leading developer of video, imaging and DVD authoring software.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
