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Corel Painter X
Amongst enthusiasts and professionals engaged in graphics and
digital imaging, there are certain programs that stand out as musthave’s to add to their creative toolbox. One of these is Corel’s Painter.
It is for this reason that we immediately
perked up when Corel announced the latest
version of the program, in Painter X3. For
the uninitiated who haven’t yet experienced
Painter, the program deftly imitates a variety
of artistic media, giving one a dazzling array
of brushes and artistic media from which to
choose. This essentially gives you an art studio in your PC or notebook, especially when
the program is paired with a graphics tablet
such as the Wacom Intuos 5. Everything from
acrylics, oils, chalk and crayons, to charcoal,
pastels and even watercolour that realistically
drips down and dries on the digital canvas
can be found here.
Highlights and Enhancements
One of the most notable – and useful – new
October 2013 | TechSmart
additions is an enhanced stroke preview panel.
This shows what each stroke will look like as
you mouse over it before you actually apply
it to your canvas, a feature we found imminently useful for previsualising and planning in
which direction we wanted to take our painting.
Additionally, also on offer is a new brush search
feature, which makes it easier to search for and
find the right brush by text input (handy, given
that there are so many), and a reference image
panel. This enables users to dock an inspirational image or photo you may be working from, in
its own panel.
Corel Painter X3 essentially gives you
an art studio in your PC or notebook.
Better yet, you can also sample colours from
the image or photo for your own use.
It seems that Painter X3 does prefer more
RAM than its predecessor to run at its optimum, consider above its minimum requirement of 2 GB best.
To the point
Nonetheless, this iteration is the most intuitive
Painter yet, and there are promises of a patch
to come shortly. RRP: R4 800 or R2 700 as an
upgrade. [RN]
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