Corel Painter Opinions?

[bartmoss]

Hi Guys,

Does anybody have any opinions on Corel Painter they'd care to share?

I used an older version some years ago for the 30 days trial, and really liked it. I never bought it because they wanted 800-900 Euro back then.

Now the price on Amazon is down to under 300 (Euro||US$) and I am considering buying it.

Is Corel Painter 12 a decent version?

Is anybody actually using it, what are your long term experiences?

Would appreciate any feedback!
- Nils

[guyanonymous]

The program is pretty amazing, though I must admit, my skills with the media options are somewhat lacking. It's made to be used with and take advantage of all the benefits of a pressure sensitive tablet, so I'd consider that a must.

Before you drop down the money, have you checked out some of the other 'lesser' offerings? ArtRage and Sketchbook come mind first; both have (had?) free versions to try that had a limited number of tools to use (brushes, pens, etc). I believe ArtRage is quite inexpensive. Again, both do best with a pressure sensitive tablet.

The trial for Sketchbook is here (at the bottom): http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...&siteID=123112 (I don't remember the difference between the two sketchbook options)

ArtRage info and such can be found here: http://www.artrage.com/ ; IIRC, 2.6 is the free version, and the other two are much newer and have costs associated with them.

Both are much simpler than Painter, but, I have to admit, I enjoy using them more.

And there's still a trial for the newest version of Painter (12) (presuming you've not used it before): http://www.corel.com/corel/product/i...anguageCode=en

[bartmoss]

Thanks for your feedback. Not sure about Sketchbook, have to look into it a bit.

I did have a free version of ArtRage once that came with my tablet, and it SUCKED. It sucked so bad that I completely and categorically excluded it from any further consideration - Looking at their site, though, it looks vastly different (as in more complex) than what I had back then. I'll at least give the free demo a try.

I have a Wacoom Bamboo Something, which is definitely pressure sensitive.

[guyanonymous]

I've found that different programs have some tools that are better than others. It's been a while since I was comparing, but I preferred certain pencil tools in one, felts in another, watercolour in a 3rd sorta thing.