Painter has dominated the market for artistic bitmap editing for the past 20 years. This long history has led to huge creative power, but also a working environment that was old-fashioned, idiosyncratic and horrendously overly technical. Since Corel took over development, things have slowly improved and this latest release sees a further interface overhaul with a more modern look and feel. Perhaps the most obvious sign that Painter has been dragged into the 21st century is the revamped New Image dialog.

You can also now create and load your own presets as well as specify the image name, background colour and paper texture. When dealing with larger images, you need to be able to manage your current view. Here Painter 12 adds the ability to boost either speed or quality when zooming, and a new Navigator panel that shows a small version of the full image with a box indicating the current display.

As well as providing feedback, the Navigator panel lets you pan, zoom and rotate your image and manage settings such as the grid display, tracing opacity and drawing mode.

The biggest interface advance is the redesigned Brush Selector panel. Painter provides hundreds of natural media brushes, and choosing the right one used to be a nightmare. Now the revamped panel lets you choose a category — chalks, pastels, oils and so on — on the left and then presents a list of named brush variants to select from on the right. The panel also provides quick access to your most recently used brushes and gives you a preview of the variants as you roll over them.

In each case, the depth of the simulation is extraordinary. The Real Watercolor brushes mimic effects such as the viscosity of water, diffusion of pigment and wind direction.

Corel Painter review | Creative Bloq

 
Corel knows most Painter customers also use Adobe Photoshop, so they redesigned the interface, panels and dialogs of Painter 12 to be extremely. Our Verdict. Great for budding artists and hobbyists, Painter Lite lets you get creative with numerous brushes and effects. It’s powerful and.