The program is built from the ground up to mimic the look and feel of actual paints, markers and more—a complete toolset that artists are accustomed to. The interactions of these tools with one another—plus the integrated features of the program’s pen tablet—help make the mediums in Painter 11 work and feel like their real-world counterparts.
The program also uses an interface similar to that of Photoshop, which helps keep the workspace familiar.
After spending a few weeks using Painter 11, I can say that the program is a powerful tool for artists and photographers. Since the program’s tools work very much like real art tools, in order to appreciate the full potential of the software a certain degree of artistic knowledge is needed. In other words, just like with the real tools, you’ll need some level of artistic talent and experience with various mediums to fully appreciate Painter 11.
There are also some automated tools that can convert photographs into paintings or drawings in a convincing manner—which may prove useful to photographers, even if they don’t plan to use the other features of the program.
A Digital Canvas
The software is dual compatible for both Mac and PC. I ran Corel Painter 11 on a Macbook Pro with 2 GB of RAM and a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
I did some research before using the program and was drawn in by the vivid, often highly detailed works created by artists using Painter 11. Many of the pieces truly resemble real paintings.
Once I started using the program myself, I found it equally as difficult as painting—which is actually a good thing.
Painter 11 is not the kind of program where you can pull a few shapes together, create some layers, and make a work of art (unless you’re making some modernist piece). Just as with real paints, you need to know how different colors interact and mix, the effect certain paints or mediums have when placed over each other, and how different paints and brushes interact.
The program has more than 900 different brushes, as well as customizable brushes that can be used. Even the way each of these interacts with different paints, chalks, markers and so on is highly realistic.
The feel and look of each tool will also change accordingly with the type of canvas you’re working with. For example, on a canvas with more defined textures the paints will show small gaps for the textures—until you paint them on a bit thicker.
