Corel Painter - 2015 Reviewer's Guide

Reviewer’s Guide

Contents

1 | Introducing Corel Painter 2015 ........................................................1

2 | Customer profiles.............................................................................3

3 | What’s included? .............................................................................5

4 | Key features .....................................................................................7

Revolutionary digital brushes ..........................................................................7

Enhanced speed and performance ..................................................................9

A fully responsive experience........................................................................ 11

Mobile art that moves you............................................................................12

5 | Art Gallery......................................................................................13

Mike Thompson

Introducing Corel® Painter® 2015

Corel® Painter® 2015 is the world’s most authentic
digital art studio. It’s like no other paint program
on the market. One of its hallmarks has always

®

been an expansive collection of Natural-Media
painting tools found nowhere else, and Painter
2015 builds on this with the addition of
revolutionary new brushes. Another distinguishing
feature is the passionately supportive community of
artists who combine their talent with the power of
Painter in a range of professions. Not only do they
actively participate in Painter’s development by
offering constructive feedback, they share their
work, tools and methods, inspiring and
encouraging digital artists around the globe.

Changing what’s possible in art

Long-known as the most innovative paint program,
Painter 2015 continues the tradition of pushing the
envelope of digital art. The addition of the new,
exclusive Particle Brushes allows a wide variety of
artists to express themselves in ways never thought
possible. This revolutionary brush category creates
brushstrokes that flow, spring, and gravitate onto
the canvas from a central point, opening up a world
of creative possibilities. Particle Brushes can be
controlled with precision or allowed to run free with
chaotic, beautiful results.

The unmatched finesse of Painter’s brush collection
has always set it apart from other digital art tools. In
Painter 2015, this renowned brush responsiveness
has been taken to another level with the enhanced
Brush Tracking utility. It lets artists intuitively control
pressure sensitivity and quickly apply those new
settings to the current variant, so they can get back
to focusing on what matters most — their art.

Indeed, one of the goals of Painter 2015 is to give
digital artists the freedom to focus on their work and
forget about technology. To that end, we’ve
delivered a native 64-bit application for our Mac
users, who’ll see faster performance during everyday
operations like opening files, working with multiple
layers, and more. In addition, all our users will notice
faster zooming, panning, and rotating, thanks to the
latest round of CPU optimizations.

We’ve always responded to what our community of
passionate users has had to say. In Painter 2015,
their insights and suggestions drove a number of
innovations, including the creation of a series of
custom user interface arrangements, each for a
specific workflow. And because they also told us that
they want the ability to create art anywhere,
anytime, Painter 2015 offers full PC Tablet and Real­Time Stylus support, and a mobile app for Android.

So real, it’s unreal

Painter 2015 is the most authentic Natural-Media
painting software because of its unrivalled ability to
emulate traditional art. And when you combine that
with the power it gives artists to mix and experiment
with media and methods in ways that simply aren’t
possible anywhere else, there are no boundaries on a
creative imagination, and no limits on where it may
lead.

We think if you give it try, you’ll quickly see why it’s
garnered such an ardent following. Painter 2015
isn’t so much a paint program as it is a creative
experience, one that’s so real, it’s unreal.

Reviewer’s Guide [ 1 ]

Android Jones

Customer profiles

Photo artists

Photo artists capture a moment with their camera
and transform the image into a work of digital art.
With powerful painting tools and one-of-a-kind
image cloning features found only in Painter 2015,
photo artists have everything they need to produce
visually stunning photo art that will dazzle clients
and bolster their professional services.

Traditional artists

Traditional artists prefer time-honored techniques
and the freedom of working with a blank canvas.
With Painter 2015, traditional artists can easily
combine classic art practices with state-of-the-art

®

Natural-Media
that’s as impressive as that found on any physical
canvas.

technology to create digital art

Illustrators

Illustrators work in a variety of fields, telling visual
stories that elicit emotion and produce an intended
result. Whether they’re creating fantasy artwork for
film, television or video games, drawing manga
and comic art, or working on illustrations and
designs for web and print, Painter 2015 helps
illustrators vividly express their creative visions and
leave a lasting impression.

cost, toxins, and mess associated with traditional
art supplies.

Students and teachers

Painter is an asset for all budding artists and an
important component for art curriculum
worldwide. With digital tools that mimic the look
and feel of their real world counterparts, Painter
2015 offers a natural way for students to learn
traditional art techniques in an environment that’s
very conducive to experimentation — without the

Reviewer’s Guide [ 3 ]

Douglas Sirois

What’s included?

Main application

• Corel Painter 2015, Mac OS® and Windows®
versions

Content

• Libraries of unique brushes, gradients, nozzles,
patterns, and paper textures

Documentation

• HTML Help (Windows) and Apple Help

®

(Macintosh

) files

• Online User Guide and Getting Started Guide
(PDF)

• Welcome Screen

• youtube.com/paintertutorials

• painterartist.com

Minimum system requirements

Mac OS® version:

Windows® version:

•Microsoft
7

(32-bit or 64-bit editions), with the latest

®

Windows® 8.1 (64-bit), or Windows

Service Packs

•Intel

®

Pentium® 4, AMD Athlon™ 64, or AMD

Opteron

™

•2 GB of RAM

• 650 MB of hard disk space for application

1

files

• Mouse or tablet

• 1280

800 screen resolution

• DVD drive

®

•Microsoft

Upgrade policy:

Internet Explorer® 8 or higher

Painter users of version 7 and up
can take advantage of special discount pricing
when upgrading to Painter 2015.

•Mac OS

®

X 10.7, 10.8, or 10.9 (with latest

revision)

®

•Intel

Core™ 2 Duo

•2 GB of RAM

• 500 MB of hard disk space for application
files

•Mouse or tablet

• 1280

800 screen resolution

•DVD drive

• Safari v5 or higher

1. Additional space may be required for Microsoft .NET
Framework 4.5

Reviewer’s Guide [ 5 ]

Pascal Sibertin

Key features

Corel Painter 2015 is the world’s most authentic
digital art studio.

Revolutionary digital brushes

Painter is famous for an expansive collection of
brushes designed to inspire artists and give them
the freedom to create without boundaries. Painter
2015 continues to push the envelope of digital art
with the addition of Particle Brushes and new Jitter
Smoothing, which enhances the realism and
randomness of your brushstrokes.

New!

Particle Brushes:

brushes produce rich, chaotic strokes by emitting
particles from a central point that create lines and
patterns as they move across the canvas. This
revolutionary brush category allows a wide variety
of artists to push their creative visions further,
whether in photo art, illustration, concept art,
traditional art, and more.

There are three types of Particle Brushes — Gravity,
Flow and Springs — and each have their own set of
behaviors. You can control a Particle Brush variant
by linking its behavior to a variety of real-time input
factors, such as pressure, bearing, tilt or velocity. Or
you can let them run free, with beautiful,
unpredictable results.

You can quickly get to work with Particle Brushes by
choosing the New Brushes user interface
arrangement, which displays all palettes and
controls related to the Particle Brushes.

These new physics-inspired

Revolutionary physics-inspired Particle

Brushes produce unreal brushstrokes

that spring, flow, and glow.

Artwork by Don Seegmiller

Give it a try

Getting started with Particle Brushes

1

Particle brushstrokes really stand out on a dark

File



New

background, so to start, choose

Color

the

2 To display the palettes of the Particle Brushes

for quick and easy access, choose

Arrange Palettes  New Brushes.

chip, and choose a dark color.

Window 

, click

To see them in action, check out the

Particle Brush

playlist on the Painter channel on YouTube

.

Reviewer’s Guide [ 7 ]

Give it a try

Give it a try

There are four Particle Brush panels: one for
each of the three types of Particle Brushes and

Particles - General control panel, which

the
contains controls common to all types. When
you use the New Brushes arrangement, a series
of corresponding Info panels also display giving
you quick, concise explanation of settings.

3 In the Brush library panel, click the

brush category, and click a Flow Particle brush
variant, such as

Flow variants emit short-lived particles that
flow out from the center of the brushstroke
across the canvas and gradually fade. As they
flow, they encounter forces that change their
path, resulting in a chaotic or controlled
movement.

4 This activates the controls on the

Before experimenting with those settings,
enable the

General

colors building up to white.

5 Paint on the canvas, adjusting the

Jitter

this changes the starting position of the
particles.

You can associate all Particle Brush settings with
an expression, basing your brushstroke on a
number of real-time stylus input factors, such
as tilt, bearing, rotation, pressure, and more.

6 You can change the chaos pattern randomly for

a more organic look by enabling the

Randomize Chaos check box.

You can also modify the brushstroke based on
the edge and brightness of the flow map by
adjusting the
can change the associated flow map by
choosing

Map Libraries

map.

7 Now try a Gravity Particle brush variant, such as

Gravity Bristle, and display all the controls

specific to that type of Particle Brush by clicking
the

8 Paint on the canvas, adjusting the

Acceleration sliders between brushstrokes.

panel. This makes particles shine, with

slider in between brushstrokes. Note how

Gravity Particle panel tab.

Particle Flow Flare.

Glow check box on the Particles -

Enhance Flow Map sliders. You

Window  Flow Map Panels  Flow

, and choosing another flow

Particle

Flow panel,

Position

Velocity and

9 Experiment with the Spin Rate slider, and note

how slower spin rates allow the particles to
track the cursor closely, while higher spin rates
allow the particles to travel further away from
the cursor.

New!

Jitter Smoothing:

If you’re the type of digital
artist who just wants to choose a brush and get to
work, Painter 2015 offers a way to get stroke-to­stroke variation without having to tinker with
settings.

Painter X3 saw the introduction of Universal Jitter,
which allows you to add randomness to your
brushstrokes by integrating the Jitter expression in
a range of brush controls. The addition of Jitter
Smoothing in Painter 2015 helps you give your
brushstrokes an even more organic look. For
example, Jitter Smoothing delivers more natural­looking spacing and flow in Airbrush brushstrokes,
depth when using Impasto, and color transitions in
multi-colored strokes. You can also make
brushstroke size and opacity, grain, angle, color
variability, color expression fluctuate when using
any of your favorite variants, including the
revolutionary new Particle Brushes.

Give it a try

Using Jitter Smoothing

1

Choose

2 In the Brush library panel, click the Chalks &

Crayons
Chalk

3 Choose

Color Variability.

4 Choose

5 Make a brushstroke on the canvas.

6 On the Color Variability panel, move the

Smoothness slider to the right.

7 Continue painting on the canvas, moving the

Smoothness slider to right between
brushstrokes, giving each successive one a
more organic look.

File



New

.

brush category, and click Real Fat

.

Window  Brush Control Panels 

from Color Set from the list box.

The Velocity slider sets the base speed of all
particles, and the Acceleration slider controls
the forward movement of the particles.

[ 8 ] Reviewer’s Guide

Color Variability Jitter applied to a brushstroke

without Jitter Smoothing (top) and

with Jitter Smoothing (bottom).

Angle Jitter applied to a brushstroke without Jitter

Smoothing (top) and with Jitter Smoothing (bottom).

panning, rotating, zooming, you get an incredibly
realistic and immersive digital art experience.

In this painting, a variety of RealBristle brush variants

were used: From the Oils brush category, the Real Oils

Short and Real Round variants were used to lay in the

underpainting, and the Real Fan Short variant on the

clouds. From the Real Wet Oil brush category, the Wet

Oil variant was used on the foreground and headland

areas, and the Turp Blender to blend foreground areas.

Opacity Jitter applied to a brushstroke without Jitter

Smoothing (top) and with Jitter Smoothing (bottom).

The world's most authentic digital painting
software:

With Painter 2015, you’ll gain access to a
wondrous collection of brushes, paper textures and
media that all perfectly emulate traditional art tools.
There are endless ways to express your creative vision
with realistic watercolors, acrylics, oils, pastels, chalks,
pencils, markers, and more. You can even create
unique brushes by tailoring an existing variant to your
liking.

RealBristle™ Painting:

RealBristle brushes are one of
the things that make Painter 2015 stand apart from
other paint programs. These variants bring an
unprecedented level of realism to digital painting by
simulating the movement and feel of traditional
media when using a tablet and pen. They behave just
like their real-world counterparts, responding to
pressure, speed, tilt, bearing, and rotation. And
when you combine the RealBristle system with
intuitive Multi-Touch Wacom support that allows for

Artwork by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

Enhanced speed and performance

Across all operating systems, Painter 2015 is the
fastest and most responsive version of our award­winning software ever. A native 64-bit Mac
application and significant cross-platform CPU
performance optimizations deliver an unparalleled
painting experience that makes your art the focus,
not the technology behind it.

New!

Native 64-bit application for Mac:

the Mac OS will notice extended processing power
right away, especially during operations that
require big data transfers, such as opening files,
switching clone sources, working with multiple
layers, using large documents, and more.

Enhanced!

Cross-platform performance:

2015 delivers increased speed to both Mac and PC
users. With the latest round of CPU optimizations,
brushes perform, on average, 40% faster. You’ll
also see better performance during RAM-taxing
document operations, such as zooming, panning
or rotating documents, displaying layers, and more.

Users on

Painter

Reviewer’s Guide [ 9 ]

Enhanced!

Brush Tracking:

Because each artist
uses a different strength or pressure level in a
stroke, the enhanced Brush Tracking utility helps
calculate the appropriate settings for pressure and
velocity. The new visual power curve helps you
control universal application pressure-sensitive
memory and instantly apply the settings to the
current brush variant. There are default pressure
curves to choose from, or you can tweak the curve
and save it as a preset. You can also make practice
strokes with a variant on the canvas while you’re
calibrating the brush tracking so you can base your
brushstroke on the most realistic, accurate
information possible.

Give it a try

5 You also can modify the velocity settings by

moving the sliders in the Velocity area. The

Scale slider controls the point in your

brushstroke where it achieves maximum
velocity, and the
acceleration.

You can instantly apply those settings to the
current brush variant by enabling the

current brush variant

Enhanced!

Real-time effect preview:

Power slider sets brushstroke

Apply to

check box.

Painter 2015
takes the guesswork out of applying effects. You
can now preview effects in real-time on the canvas
so you instantly get an idea how the whole
painting will look.

Give it a try

Previewing effects

1 Open an image.

The Brush Tracking utility includes a visual

power curve so you can control universal

application pressure-sensitive memory.

Give it a try

Using Brush Tracking

1 In the Brush library panel, click the Chalks &

Crayons
Width Chalk

2 Open the Brush Tracking utility by choosing

Corel Painter 2015  Preferences  Brush
Tracki n g
Brush Tracking (Windows).

3 Using your preferred brushstroke pressure and

speed, drag in the scratch pad.
This allows the Brush Tracker to calculate the

appropriate settings for the brush.

brush category, and click Variable

.

(Mac OS) or Edit  Preferences 

2 Choose

Surface Texture

3 Choose

4 In the toolbox, click the

choose a new paper.

The new paper texture previews in real-time in
the document.

Effects  Surface Control  Apply

.

Paper from the Using list box.

Paper Selector, and

4 You can modify the pressure settings by moving

the sliders in the Pressure area. The
controls the point in your brushstroke where it
achieves maximum pressure, and the
slider sets how quickly pressure increases.

[ 10 ] Reviewer’s Guide

Scale slider

Power

A fully responsive experience

Painter 2015 is the most flexible paint program on
the market. From purchase to creation to sharing, it
responds directly to your needs.

New!

Custom user-interface palette

arrangements:

collection of new pre-defined user-interface
arrangements is designed to kick-start a variety of
digital art workflows by displaying only the relevant
palettes and tools. There’s one for illustrating,
creating photo art, and getting started with the
revolutionary new Particle Brushes. There’s even
one that displays only minimal UI, freeing up space
for tablet users. You can also choose the two
workspace layouts that you use most often and
quickly switch between them to suit the current
task or the display mode of your device using the
Quick Switch feature.

Inspired by Painter artists, this

Give it a try

• Photo Art — palettes commonly used by
photo artists, providing optimal setup for
cloning photos, textures, and paintings

Illustration — palettes commonly used for

•

creating illustrations

•

Default — workspace layout that works

well for most computers

2 Select your preferred arrangements by choosing

workspace layouts to switch between, first select
two the layouts by choosing

Arrange Palettes  Quick Switch  Layout 1,

and selecting a layout.

3 Repeat to select Layout 2.

4 To toggle between the two layouts, choose

Window  Arrange Palettes  Quick Switch 
To gg l e Layout.

Window 

The New Brushes arrangement displays everything

you need to use the Particle Brushes.

Artwork by Mike Thompson

Give it a try

Choosing a custom UI arrangement

1 Choose Window  Arrange Palettes, and

choose one of the following layouts:

Fresh new content:

You can add an extra special
touch to your artwork with new inspirational
Papers, Patterns, Gradients, Nozzles, Images,
Weaves, and Flow Maps. Some of the updates are
designed specifically for different types of digital
artists, so whether you’re an illustrator or photo
artist, you can be sure to find compelling content
to work with.

New content updates let you add a

special touch to your artwork.

•

New Brushes — palettes of the new

Particle Brushes

•

Simple — toolbox, the menu bar, and a

command bar that contains shortcuts to
commonly used commands. This layout is
ideal for small screens.

Give it a try

Accessing new content

• Do one of the following:

• Choose

Libraries

Window  Paper Panels  Paper

to access the new Papers.

Reviewer’s Guide [ 11 ]

Give it a try

• Choose Window  Media Library Panels to
access the new Patterns, Gradients, Nozzles,
Weaves, and Images.

Mobile art that moves you

Painter 2015 introduces mobile capabilities that will
free you from your studio so you can find new
inspiration anytime, anywhere.

• Choose

Flow Map Libraries to access the new Flow

Maps.

Smart photo-painting tools:

Window  Flow Map Panels 

Painter 2015 has a
variety of tools for transforming photos into pieces
of digital art. Longtime Painter users love the
traditional cloning workflow for the ability it offers
to work on fine image details. Less experienced
users can call on Painter’s leading auto-painting
tools, which streamline the process and use
SmartStroke™ brush technology to paint
brushstrokes that follow lines and forms in the
photo.

New!

Real-Time Stylus & Windows Tablet PC

support:

You can combine your Tablet PC with a
Windows Real-Time Stylus to capture whatever
inspires you on the fly. Support for the Windows
Real-Time Stylus delivers truly responsive pressure­sensitivity, and depending on the device, tilt.
What’s more, there’s no stylus driver to install, so
you can use Painter 2015 right away.

Smart photo-painting tools make it easy to

transform photos into painted artwork.

New!

Open upgrade policy:

Users of older
versions of the application, from Painter 7 right up
to Painter X3, can take advantage of special
discount pricing to move up to the power of
Painter 2015.

RealTime Stylus and Windows Tablet PC support

ensure that you can paint on the go and find new

inspiration anytime, anywhere.

New!

Painter Mobile for Android:

Corel Painter
Mobile delivers a one-of-a-kind painting experience
for the Android market. This app has a concise,
intuitive workspace and more than100 versatile
brushes. It also lets you tweak brushes, mix paint,
and use symmetry tools. When it’s time to finalize
your work, you can import it directly into Painter
2015 to add professional finishing touches or export
to widely used formats, such as JPEG, PNG, and PSD.

[ 12 ] Reviewer’s Guide

Bettie Grace Miner

Art Gallery

Yuki Matsumoto

Héctor Sevilla Luján

Einar Lunden

John Malcolm

Paolo d’Altan

Every day, artists around the world trust Painter to
help them explore their creativity and express
themselves through art. We hope you enjoy these
samples of artwork created by our Painter artists.

Reviewer’s Guide [ 13 ]

Skip Allen

Charlene Miller

Heather Michelle Chinn

Melissa Gallo

Helen Yancy

Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

[ 14 ] Reviewer’s Guide

About Corel

Corel is one of the world’s top software companies providing some of the industry’s best-known graphics,
productivity and digital media products. Boasting the most comprehensive portfolio of innovative software,
we’ve built a reputation for delivering solutions that are easy to learn and use, helping people achieve new
levels of creativity and productivity. The industry has responded with hundreds of awards for innovation,
design, and value.

®

Used by millions of people around the world, our product lines include CorelDRAW
Corel DESIGNER

®

WordPerfect® Office. For more information on Corel, please visit www.corel.com.

Corel

®

, CorelCAD™, Corel® Painter®, Corel® PaintShop® Pro, Corel® VideoStudio®, and

Graphics Suite,

Copyright © 2014 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved.

®

Corel

Painter® 2015 Reviewer’s Guide

Protected by U.S. Patents 5652880; 5347620; 5767860; 6195100; 6385336; 6552725; 6657739; 6731309; 6825859; 6633305; Patents
Pending.

Product specifications, pricing, packaging, technical support and information (“specifications”) refer to the retail English version only.
The specifications for all other versions (including other language versions) may vary.

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