User Guide
Corel Corporation
2013
Copyright 2013 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved.
Corel® Painter® X3 User Guide
The contents of this user guide and the associated Corel Painter software are the
property of Corel Corporation and its respective licensors, and are protected by
copyright. For more complete copyright information about Corel P ainter, please refer
to the About Corel Painter section in the Help menu of the software.
Protected by Patents in the United States and elsewhere.
Product specifications, pricing, packaging, technical support and information
(“specifications”) refer to the retail English version only. The specifications for all
other versions (including ot her language versions) may vary.
Information is provided by Corel on an “as is” basis, without any other warranties or
conditions, express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of
merchantable quality, satisfactory quality, merchantability or fitness for a particular
purpose, or those arising by law, statute, usage of trade, course of dealing or
otherwise. The entire risk as to the results of the information provided or its use is
assumed by you. Corel shall have no liability to you or any other person or entity for
any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages whatsoever , in cluding, but
not limited to, loss of revenue or profit, lost or damaged data o r other commer cial or
economic loss, even if Corel has been advised of the possibility of such damages, or
they are foreseeable. Corel is also not liable for any claims made by any third party.
Corel's maximum aggregate liability to you shall not exceed the costs paid by you to
purchase the materials. Some states/countries do not allow exclusions or limitations
of liability for consequential or incidental damages, so the above limitations may not
apply to you.
Corel, the Corel logo, Painter, Painter for Cinco, Natural-Media, RealBristle, and the
Balloon logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation and/or its
subsidiaries in Canada, the U.S., and/or other countries. Other product, font, and
company names and logos may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective companies.
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Contents
Welcome to Corel Painter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Using the documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Adjusting the Help window text size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Additional resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Corel Cinco for Painter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
About Corel Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
What’s new in Corel Painter X3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
What’s New in Corel Painter X3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
What’s new in Corel Painter 12 Updates 1 and 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Changes to the brush control panels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Workspace tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Corel Painter terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Exploring the Document window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Exploring the toolbox. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Displaying the toolbox. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Displaying the Media Selector bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Displaying the property bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Exploring the Navigator panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Displaying the Brush Selector bar and the Brush library panel . . . . . . . . . 32
Exploring panels and palettes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Rearranging panels and palettes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Creating and modifying custom palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Managing custom palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Working with libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Contents i
Creating, importing, exporting, and deleting workspaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Restoring the default Corel Painter settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
A short tour of Corel Painter for users of Adobe Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Creating documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Understanding resolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Opening and placing files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Creating and opening templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Switching document views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Navigating images and viewing image information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Zooming images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Rotating images and the canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Flipping images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Repositioning images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Cropping images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Resizing images and the canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Saving and backing up files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Choosing a file format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Emailing documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Closing documents and quitting the application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Using two monitors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Wacom Intuos support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Drag-and-drop features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Customizing keys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Toolbox commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
ii Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Panel commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Corel Painter menu commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
File menu commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Edit menu commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Canvas menu commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Layers menu commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Select menu commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Shapes menu commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Effects menu commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Window menu commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Screen navigation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Panel navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Panel menu commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Brush tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Selection tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Adjuster tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Shape tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Lighting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Layer selection tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Mosaics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Other commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Painting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Choosing a painting workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Exploring painting media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Working with the canvas and layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Displaying reference images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Clearing the canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Contents iii
Setting up the drawing cursor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Brush tracking and calibration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Using a stylus vs. a mouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Applying freehand and straight brushstrokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Constraining, fading, and undoing strokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Erasing image areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Aligning brushstrokes to paths and shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Letting media pool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Making 360° strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Painting with airbrushes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Adjusting spread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Recording and playing back brushstrokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Reference: Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Working with paper texture and grain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Applying paper texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Creating and deleting paper textures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Opening and managing the Paper Textures library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Inverting and scaling paper grain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Controlling brightness and contrast of paper grain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Adjusting grain direction and behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Auto-painting photos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Creating underpaintings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Auto-painting photos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Restoring detail to paintings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Image cloning and sampling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Cloning images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
iv Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Using Quick Clone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Setting cloning preferences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Working with multiple clone sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Editing, updating, saving, and exporting clone source images . . . . . . . . 157
Painting in the clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Using brush loading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Performing offset sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Applying transformations when sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Using selections and transformations when sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Filling an area with a sampled image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Working with composition tools, symmetry tools, rulers, and guides . . . . . 179
Using the Layout Grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Using the Mirror Painting mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Using the Kaleidoscope Painting mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Using Perspective Guides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Using the Divine Proportion tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Using rulers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Using guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Using Snap to Guides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Using the grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Using Snap to Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Choosing colors from the Color panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Resizing the Color panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Showing or hiding Color panel components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Using the temporal colors palette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Changing the paper color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Sampling colors from images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Contents v
Cloning color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Creating two-color brushstrokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Exploring the Mixer panel and mixing controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Displaying and resizing the Mixer panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Mixing, sampling, and applying colors from the Mixer pad . . . . . . . . . . 214
Opening images in the Mixer panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Changing and saving the Mixer color swatches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Saving Mixer panel colors to a color set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Clearing and resetting Mixer panel colors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Saving the Mixer pad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Loading color swatches and Mixer pad files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Working with color sets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Customizing the layouts of color sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Creating and exporting color sets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Editing color sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Annotating colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Setting color variability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Setting Color Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Loading multiple colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Working with color fills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Applying a color as a fill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Limiting and preventing leakage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Color management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Understanding color management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Specifying the default RGB color profile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Embedding color profiles when saving files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Specifying the default CMYK color profile for converting CMYK images to RGB 241
vi Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Previewing and soft-proofing color profiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Assigning or removing color profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Converting color profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Working with color profile policies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Working with presets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Correcting and adjusting colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Correcting colors using curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Adjusting brightness and contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Using the curve to correct colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Drawing freehand curves to adjust colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Specifying the curve values to adjust colors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Adjusting hue, saturation, and value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Adjusting selected colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Equalizing images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Matching color and brightness across images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Inverting colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Posterizing an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Applying video legal colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Dodging and burning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Importing and exporting libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Creating and removing libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Modifying the display of library panels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Moving, renaming, and deleting library resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Restoring default libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Selecting, managing, and creating brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Understanding brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Exploring brush categories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Contents vii
Searching and selecting brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Setting basic brush attributes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Displaying advanced brush controls dynamically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Organizing and displaying brushes in the Brush library panel . . . . . . . . 301
Copying and moving brush variants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Renaming brush categories and variants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Saving and deleting brush variants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Restoring default brush variants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Creating and deleting brush categories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Creating and deleting brush libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Importing and exporting brush libraries, categories, and variants. . . . . . 309
Saving a brush look . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Creating brush dabs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Adjusting brushes with brush controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Exploring Brush Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Expression settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Previewing brushstrokes and brush dabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Calibrating brush variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
General controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
General controls: Dab types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
General controls: Stroke types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
General controls: Methods and subcategories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
General controls: Source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
General controls: Multicore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Opacity controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Grain controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Stroke Attribute controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
viii Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Size controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Angle controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Spacing controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Changing dab profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Real Watercolor controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Real Wet Oil controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Computed Circular controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Hard Media controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Bristle controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
RealBristle controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Static Bristle controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
Airbrush controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
Artists’ Oils controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Impasto controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Digital Watercolor controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Water controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Liquid Ink controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Stroke Jitter controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Well controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Mouse controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Smoothing controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Image Hose controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Rake controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
Multi controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Cloning controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Color Variability controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
Color Expression controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Jitter brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
Contents ix
Choosing a Jitter brush variant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
Controlling the behavior of Jitter variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Watercolor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
Working with the Watercolor layer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
Watercolor brushes and paper texture interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Working with Real Watercolor brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
Working with Watercolor brushes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
Working with Digital Watercolor brushes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Applying and adjusting flow maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Getting started with flow maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Choosing flow maps and compatible brush variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Enabling flow maps and controlling flow resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
Customizing flow maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Hard Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Choosing a Hard Media variant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Modifying Hard Media profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Controlling the behavior of Hard Media variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Previewing Hard Media dabs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Getting started with markers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Customizing markers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Image hose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
Using the Image hose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Adjusting Image hose opacity and grain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Adjusting the size and spacing of image hose elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Indexing nozzle files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
x Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Understanding nozzles, ranks, and indexing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Creating a 1-Rank nozzle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Creating a 2-Rank nozzle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
Creating a 3-Rank nozzle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
Loading and managing nozzle files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
Creating a nozzle from a movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
RealBristle brushes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
Getting started with RealBristle brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Modifying RealBristle settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Liquid Ink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Working with Liquid Ink brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Adjusting attributes of the Liquid Ink layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Using Liquid Ink controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Impasto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Applying, displaying, and clearing impasto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Adjusting and creating Impasto brushes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
Adjusting Impasto lighting and depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
Blending impasto with other layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
Layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
Getting started with layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
Displaying the layers panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
Creating and deleting layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
Converting selections into layers or floating objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
Naming and adding notes to layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Selecting layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Copying and duplicating layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
Moving layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
Contents xi
Transforming layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
Aligning layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Locking layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Showing or hiding layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Changing layer order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Viewing layer position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
Grouping layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
Dropping layers with the canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
Painting on layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Preserving layer transparency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Adjusting layer opacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
Adding drop shadows to layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
Blending layers by using composite methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Creating and deleting layer masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
Applying layer masks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
Loading layer masks to selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
Selecting and viewing layer masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
Enabling and disabling layers masks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
Copying layer masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
Inverting layer masks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
Editing layer masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
Importing and exporting layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
Working with reference layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
Storing layers as images in the Image Portfolio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
Alpha Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Creating and copying channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Generating channels automatically. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
xii Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Importing and exporting alpha channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Selecting and viewing channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Setting channel attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
Deleting and clearing channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Editing channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Selections and Transformations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Getting started with selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
Creating path-based selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546
Creating pixel-based selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Creating selections from layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Choosing the protected area of a selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
Saving selections as alpha channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
Working with the Selection Portfolio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558
Viewing selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
Inverting selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
Softening the edges of selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
Stroking selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561
Modifying the borders of selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
Expanding or contracting selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
Adding to or subtracting from selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
Preparing selections for transformations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
Moving selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Transforming a duplicate selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Scaling and rotating path-based selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
Skewing and distorting path-based selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
Canceling transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
Common options for effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Fading effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Contents xiii
Applying recently used effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
Changing effects with open panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
Applying effects using source luminance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
Using focus and esoterica effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Applying Smart Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Applying Camera Motion Blur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Applying Depth of Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
Applying Glass Distortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Applying Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
Sharpening focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Softening focus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
Applying Zoom Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
Applying Marbling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
Automatically cloning an image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
Applying the Auto Van Gogh effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
Applying Blobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
Creating custom tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Applying Grid Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601
Applying Growth effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
Applying Highpass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603
Applying the Maze effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604
Placing elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Applying the Pop Art Fill effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
Using lighting and surface texture effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
Applying preset lighting effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612
Adding, deleting, and repositioning light sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
Adjusting light properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614
xiv Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Using paper to create texture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
Using 3D brushstrokes to create texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616
Using image luminance to create texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619
Using clone source or pattern luminance to create texture . . . . . . . . . . . 620
Creating embossed effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621
Using channels and layer masks to create texture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
Creating reflection maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624
Adjusting texture lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
Applying the Apply Screen effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628
Applying the Color Overlay effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628
Applying the Dye Concentration effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
Applying the Express Texture effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
Applying a warp effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
Applying the Woodcut effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
Applying the Distress effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641
Applying the Serigraphy effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
Applying the Sketch effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645
Dynamic Plug-ins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647
Getting started with dynamic plug-ins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648
Modifying and deleting dynamic layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Committing dynamic layers to default layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Applying the Brightness and Contrast dynamic plug-in. . . . . . . . . . . . . 650
Applying the Burn dynamic plug-in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650
Applying the Tear dynamic plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652
Applying the Bevel World dynamic plug-in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654
Applying the Equalize dynamic plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656
Applying the Glass Distortion dynamic plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657
Applying the Kaleidoscope dynamic plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659
Contents xv
Applying the Liquid Lens dynamic plug-in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661
Applying the Liquid Metal dynamic plug-in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666
Applying the Posterize dynamic plug-in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677
Applying pattern fills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677
Painting with patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 679
Creating and editing patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682
Creating seamless patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Creating fractal patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 688
Gradients. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
Applying gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
Replacing image colors with gradient colors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 696
Adjusting gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697
Creating and editing gradients. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699
Saving gradients. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703
Mosaics and tessellations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705
Creating a mosaic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706
Selecting and removing tiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709
Specifying tile and grout color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711
Adjusting mosaic tile dimensions and randomness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712
Filling an area with tiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716
Creating 3D tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717
Re-rendering mosaic tiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
Stroking and filling a selection with mosaic tiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
Adding mosaic effects to an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721
Creating tessellations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721
xvi Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Weaves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727
Applying weaves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727
Editing and saving weaves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729
Creating weave patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730
Using the Edit Weave dialog box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731
Defining warp and weft expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733
Defining warp and weft color expressions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735
Designing the tie-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736
Reference: Expression operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737
Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749
Getting started with shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750
Drawing shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751
Drawing lines and curves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753
Setting preferences for drawing shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 757
Selecting a shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
Modifying shape outlines and fills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760
Adding, deleting, and moving anchor points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762
Adjusting curvature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764
Cutting and joining shape segments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766
Converting shapes to image layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 768
Converting selections to shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769
Resizing, rotating, skewing, and flipping shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770
Duplicating shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772
Combining shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 773
Blending shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775
Saving a shape outline as a selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777
Acquiring and exporting Adobe Illustrator shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778
Adding text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779
Contents xvii
Adding text to images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779
Formatting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780
Aligning text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780
Adjusting text kerning and leading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781
Stretching, rotating, and skewing text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 782
Adding drop shadows to text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783
Applying effects to text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783
Applying curves to text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 784
Converting text layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 786
Dropping text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787
Working with animation and digital videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 789
Choosing an animation workflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790
Creating frame-by-frame animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 792
Opening a Corel Painter movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 794
Importing QuickTime and AVI files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 794
Selecting movie frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 796
Editing frame content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 796
Applying effects to a single frame. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 796
Previewing animations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 797
Using onion skinning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 797
Animating with layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 798
Adding, deleting, and erasing frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800
Repeating frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800
Inserting movies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 801
Rotoscoping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 802
Applying scripts to movies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803
Exporting movies as QuickTime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 805
xviii Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Exporting a movie as an AVI movie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 806
Importing and exporting numbered files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 808
Exporting animated GIFs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 809
Using scripts to automate tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 813
Getting started with scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 813
Displaying the Scripts panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814
Recording and playing scripts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 815
Enabling and playing background scripts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 817
Creating resolution-independent scripts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 818
Editing, renaming, and deleting scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819
Converting scripts to movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820
Importing and exporting scripts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 822
Importing and exporting script libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 822
Creating and deleting script libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823
Printing images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 825
Specifying the page layout and image size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 825
Printing your work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 826
Saving a file in EPS format for printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827
General notes on printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 828
Notes for users of Adobe Photoshop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831
Comparing terminology in Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop. . . . . . . 831
Comparing tools in Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . 832
Frequently asked questions from users of Adobe Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . 833
Setting preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 837
General preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 837
Interface preferences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839
Performance preferences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 840
Contents xix
Shapes preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 842
Cloning preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843
Connection preferences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 844
Web. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847
Choosing web-safe colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847
Working with posterize using color set. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 848
Choosing web-friendly brushes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849
Creating transparent GIFs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 850
Creating animated GIFs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 852
Creating rollovers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 853
Creating image maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 855
Creating server-side image maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857
Creating web page backgrounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 858
Creating web buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 861
xx Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Welcome to Corel Painter
Corel® Painter® X3 is the ultimate digital art studio. Its inventive drawing tools,
realistic brushes, cloning capabilities, and customizable features let you expand your
creative output in exciting new ways. When you use the pressure-sensitive brushes of
Corel Painter, they become fluid extensions of your hand, so the resulting brushstrokes
are unrivaled in texture and precision. What’s more, features such as the ability to
build your own Natural-Media® brushes and customize how brushes interact with the
canvas give you countless ways to develop your artistic ideas. Corel Painter takes you
far beyond what’s possible in a traditional art environment.
This section contains the following topics:
• Using the documentation
• Additional resources
•Registration
•Corel Cinco for Painter
• About Corel Corporation
Using the documentation
The server-based Help gives you access to a full range of up-to-date topics in a
searchable format. You need to have an active internet connection to access the serverbased help. However, if you are working offline, you can access the local help file that
is installed with Corel Painter.
The Help is also provided in PDF format, which is installed on your computer. In
addition, you can refer to the Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide, which provides
general overviews about Corel Painter features, presents the most commonly used
procedures, and includes Insights from the Experts.
Welcome to Corel Painter 1
Documentation conventions
The following table describes the conventions used in the Help.
Convention Description Example
Mac OS and Windows
commands
Modifier keys (Command,
Option, Ctrl, Alt)
Menu commands (Choose X
menu
menu item)
Header bar A header bar is located at the
Commands for Mac OS and
Windows sometimes appear
within the same procedural
step, with the operating
systems specified in
parentheses.
Names of modifier keys for
Mac OS and Windows
sometimes appear within the
same procedural step, with
the operating systems
specified in parentheses.
You choose a menu name by
clicking it, and then you
click to choose a menu item
from the list.
top or side of some
workspace components, such
as the toolbox, property bar ,
and panels.
Hold down Command
(Mac OS) or Ctrl
(Windows).
Command + I (Mac OS) or
Ctrl + I (Windows)
(For the Mac OS, press
Command + I; for
Windows, press Ctrl + I.)
Choose File
Quick Clone.
Panel tab The panel tab appears at the
top of a panel. You can click
a panel tab to expand that
panel.
2 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Convention Description Example
Panel options menu Clicking the panel options
menu button displays a popup menu with additional
commands.
Flyout Flyouts are containers shared
by certain tools in the
toolbox. You can open a
flyout by clicking and
holding down the tool on the
flyout that is displayed.
A note contains information
that is important to the steps
that precede it. Often, a note
describes conditions under
which the procedure can be
performed.
A tip contains suggestions
related to the procedure.
Some tips present alternative
methods of performing the
steps, or information about
other benefits and uses of the
procedure.
By clicking and holding
down the Layer Adjuster
tool in the toolbox, you can
display a flyout that includes
the Transform tool.
This command is available
only if you have turned off a
selection.
You can choose a brush
category and variant in the
main application or in the
Brush library panel.
To access the Help
• Choose Help Corel Painter X3 Help (Mac OS) or Help Topics (Windows).
To use the Help
1 Choose Help Corel Painter X3 Help (Mac OS) or Help topics (Windows).
2 Perform a task from the following table.
Welcome to Corel Painter 3
To Do the following
Browse through Help topics Click the Contents tab, and click a topic in
the left pane.
Use the index Click the Index tab, and scroll through the
entries to find a topic.
Search the full text of the Help (Mac OS) Type a word or phrase in the
Search box in the upper-right corner of the
Help window, and press Return.
(Windows) Click the Search tab, type a
word or phrase in the box, and click Go.
Note that the search feature does not
support quotation marks. If you enclose the
word or expression in quotation marks, the
search will not produce any results.
Adjusting the Help window text size
You can adjust the size of the te xt that displays in the Help window by adjusting the
zoom level in your browser. Adjusting the zoom level quickly increases the size of all
web page elements, including text and images. You can adjust zoom levels in Internet
Explorer , Chrome, Firefox, and Apple Help. Some browsers may offer additional
controls for customizing the font size of the display text. For more information, see the
Help for your browser.
To adjust the size of text in Firefox and Chrome
• In the browser, do one of the following:
• To increase the zoom level, press CTRL and + (Windows) Command and +
(Mac).
• To decrease the zoom level, press CTRL and - or Command and - (Mac).
To adjust the size of text in Internet Explorer
• In the Internet Explorer browser, do one of the following:
• To increase the zoom level, press CTRL and +.
• To decrease the zoom level, press CTRL and -.
4 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
To adjust the size of text in Apple Help
• In the Apple Help viewer, do one of the following:
• To increase the zoom level, press Command and +.
• To decrease the zoom level, press Command and -.
Additional resources
You can access additional Corel Painter resources online to learn more about the product
and connect with the Corel Painter community.
Resources To access
Corel Painter page on the Corel website http://www.corel.com/painter
Corel Painter Factory http://www.painterfactory.com/
Corel Painter on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/corelpainter
Corel Painter on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/corelpainter
Registration
Registering Corel products is important. Registration provides you with timely access
to the latest product updates, valuable information about product releases and access to
free downloads.
If you skipped the registration process when installing Corel Painter X3, you can
register at www.corel.com/support/register.
Corel Cinco for Painter
Corel® Cinco™ for Painter® is a companion app that lets you control Painter remotely
from your iPad by opening and using any custom palettes that you created in Corel
Painter. You can download Corel Cinco for Painter from the Apple App Store.
Corel Cinco for Painter lets you display only one custom palette at a time, but you can
quickly switch between palettes. Corel Cinco for Painter displays five palette controls
per screen. If your custom palette includes more than five controls, you can swipe the
screen to display the additional controls.
Welcome to Corel Painter 5
The icons of the controls are conveniently positioned to match the shape of your
hand so that each finger can quickly tap a control.
Working with Corel Cinco for Painter allows you to extend your workspace and reduce
onscreen clutter. It can also replace traditional shortcut keys.
To allow Corel Cinco for Painter to connect with Corel Painter, you need to enable the
option in the Painter Preferences dialog box.
To allow Corel Cinco for Painter to connect with Corel Painter
1 Do one of the following:
• (Mac OS) Choose Corel Painter X3 menu Preferences Connections.
• (Windows) Choose Edit Preferences Connections.
2 Enable the Allow Companion Application to Connect to Painter check box.
3 Type a name in the Service Name box to give your copy of Corel Painter a unique
name.
We recommended that you do not enable the Allow Companion
Application to Connect to Painter check box before the companion
application is available.
6 CorelPainter X3 Getting Started Guide
You can also specify an Authentication Code to ensure that only a legitimate
user can access your copy of Corel Painter from a remote application.
About Corel Corporation
Corel is one of the world’s top software companies providing some of the industry’s bestknown 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®
Graphics Suite, Corel® Painter®, Corel® PaintShop® Pro, Corel® VideoStudio® and
Corel® WordPerfect® Office. For more information on Corel, please visit
www.corel.com.
Welcome to Corel Painter 7
What’s new in Corel Painter X3
Corel Painter takes you far beyond what’s possible in a traditional art environment.
This section contains the following topics:
• What’s New in Corel Painter X3
• What’s new in Corel Painter 12 Updates 1 and 2
• Changes to the brush control panels
What’s New in Corel Painter X3
In this section, you will find information about the new and enhanced features of
Corel Painter X3.
A platform for inspiration, creativity,
and reflection
Brush search Helps you find the perfect brush by
performing a search. Simply type in the
name of the brush variant or a combination
of brush properties, such as jitter or bristle,
to narrow down the search. To find all of the
new brush variants that were added in
Corel PainterX3, type in “X3” in the Search
bar.
For more information, see “Searching and
selecting brushes” on page 295.
What’s new in Corel Painter X3 9
A platform for inspiration, creativity,
and reflection
Reference Image panel Lets you display an inspirational image in an
easy to use, dockable panel. You can zoom,
pan, and sample colors from the reference
image while maintaining focus on your
digital painting.For more information, see
“Displaying reference images” on page112.
Enhanced stroke preview Offers a more detailed preview of the
brushstroke that will appear on the canvas in
real-time. The preview now visually
represents brush parameters such as mixing,
erasing, blending, and jitter. The brush
preview displays in the Brush library panel,
Brush search results panel, and the Stroke
Preview brush control panel.
For more information, “Previewing
brushstrokes and brush dabs” on page 319.
Inspirational Mixer Pads Lets you choose colors from a collection of
original mixer pads that were created for you
by expert Corel Painter artists.
For more information, see “Displaying and
resizing the Mixer panel” on page212.
The innovator in digital art
Jitter brushes Produces more realistic brushstrokes by
introducing an increased amount of
randomness. The Jitter brush variants are
found under various brush categories.
For more information, see “Jitter brus hes” on
page 407.
10 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
The innovator in digital art
Universal Jitter Allows you to control the randomness of
various brush features, such as size, angle,
and opacity. You can now use Jitter in
conjunction with a different expression.
For more information, see “Controlling the
behavior of Jitter variants” on page 409.
Minimum controls Allows you to introduce a range of variation
to a selected expression. You can apply
minimum values for brush controls such as
Size and Opacity.
For more information, “Expression settings”
on page 317.
Additional Flow Maps, Patterns, and Papers Includes a greater variety of Flow Maps,
Patterns, Papers that you can use in your
paintings.
Easier to learn and use
Smart Brush Settings with added media
panel (Advanced Brush Controls)
Provides you with a more intuitive way of
modifying the advanced brush controls of a
selected brush.
For more information, see “Displaying
advanced brush controls dynamically” on
page 301.
Perspective Guides Allows you to accurately draw in one, two or
three-point perspective by using preset
guides. The Perspective-Guided Strokes
constrain your strokes to direct them
towards the vanishing points. This feature
replaces the Perspective Grid feature.
For more information, “Using Perspective
Guides” on page 186.
What’s new in Corel Painter X3 11
Easier to learn and use
Enhanced Cloning Reintroduces the traditional side-by-side
cloning workflow and lets you view the
crosshair cursor on your source image to
increase painting accuracy. In addition, you
now have the ability to edit the source
image. For example, you can apply various
effects to the source image.
For more information, see “Cloning images”
on page 149 and “Editing, updating, saving,
and exporting clone source images” on
page 157.
Transform across layers Allows you to apply transformations to
multiple layers and layer groups
simultaneously.
For more information, “Transforming layers”
on page 495.
Set maximum colors for color sets Lets you specify a maximum number of
colors when creating new color sets.
For more information, see “Creating and
exporting color sets” on page 223.
Show Onion Skin layers Allows you to display underlying frames
when working with movies.
For more information, see “Using onion
skinning” on page 797.
Performance
Memory Extender Lets you take advantage of more of your Mac
systems’s available RAM by letting you
control how much RAM you want to
designate to Painter. This features was
introduced in Painter 12.2.1.
For more information, see “Performance
preferences” on page 840.
12 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
What’s new in Corel Painter 12 Updates 1 and 2
If you are migrating to Corel Painter X3 from Corel Painter 12, you may not be aware
of the features and enhancements that were added to Corel Painter 12 Updates 1 and
2. These features and enhancements are also available in Corel Painter X3.
Corel Painter 12 Update 1 Features
Ability to import and export brush libraries,
categories, and variants
Creating and removing brush libraries Allows you to more easily create and delete
Creating and removing brush categories Allows you to store brush variants in custom
Saving brush variants Allows you to quickly save the custom brush
Allows you to import and export brush
libraries, categories, and variants so you can
better manage brush resources.
For more information, “Importing and
exporting brush libraries, categories, and
variants” on page 309.
custom brush libraries.
For more information, “Creating and
deleting brush libraries” on page 307.
brush categories. You can also remove
custom brush libraries when you no longer
need them.
For more information, “Creating and
deleting brush categories” on page 306.
variants that you create.
For more information, “Saving and deleting
brush variants” on page 304.
Moving brush variants Allows you to easily drag variants between
categories.
For more information, “Copying and moving
brush variants” on page 303.
What’s new in Corel Painter X3 13
Corel Painter 12 Update 1 Features
Deleting Workspaces Allows you to delete custom Workspaces
from within the application.
For more information, see “Creating,
importing, exporting, and deleting
workspaces” on page 46.
Color mixing enhancements Allows you to open images as mixer pads
and save mixer pads to the PNG file format.
For more information, see “Opening images
in the Mixer panel” on page 216 and “Saving
the Mixer pad” on page 219.
Panel resizing Lets you vertically resize most panels within
a palette.
For more information, see “Rearranging
panels and palettes” on page 39.
Navigator panel enhancements Lets you hide the image information area or
the controls of the Navigator panel.
For more information, see “Navigating
images and viewing image information” on
page 63.
Corel Painter 12 Update 2 Features
Flow Maps Introduces an additional textured surface for
working with Real Watercolor and Real Wet
Oil brushes that help you direct the flow of
paint.
For more information, see “Applying and
adjusting flow maps” on page 419.
Vertical docking of panels Allows you to vertically dock panels in the
document window.
For more information, see “Rearranging
panels and palettes” on page 39.
14 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Corel Painter 12 Update 2 Features
Support for Corel Cinco for Painter Allows Corel Painter to connect to Corel
Cinco for Painter , which is a companion iPad
app that integrates seamlessly into your
current workflow to enhance productivity.
For more information, see “Corel Cinco for
Painter” on page 5.
Wacom Multi-Touch support Enables enhanced multi-touch support for
Wacom Intuos 5 touch tablets. You can now
simultaneously pan, rotate, and zoom the
canvas.
For more information, see “Wacom Intuos
support” on page 82.
Changes to the brush control panels
A number of brush controls panels were more logically organized to better reflect the
structure of the Corel Painter brush engine. The following table maps the Corel P ainter
12 brush control panels to the new Corel Painter X3 brush control panels.
For more information about the brush control panels that include the new Jitter
controls, see “Controlling the behavior of Jitter variants” on page 409.
What’s new in Corel Painter X3 15
Corel Painter 12 brush control panels Corel Painter X3 brush control panels
Dab Profile panel
Stroke Preview panel (New)
Dab Preview panel (New)
Dab Profile panel (Modified)
General panel
General panel (Modified)
Stroke Attributes panel (New)
Opacity panel (New)
Grain panel (New)
16 Corel PainterX3 Getting Started Guide
Corel Painter 12 brush control panels Corel Painter X3 brush control panels
Size panel
Size panel (Modified)
Bristles panel (New)
Multi panel (New)
Spacing panel
Spacing panel (Modified)
Smoothing panel (New)
What’s new in Corel Painter X3 17
Workspace tour
The Corel Painter workspace has been designed to give you easy access to tools, effects,
commands, and features. The workspace is organized by using a series of menus,
selectors, panels, and interactive palettes.
This section contains the following topics:
• Corel Painter terms
• Exploring the Document window
• Exploring the toolbox
• Displaying the toolbox
• Displaying the Media Selector bar
• Displaying the property bar
• Exploring the Navigator panel
• Displaying the Brush Selector bar and the Brush library panel
• Exploring panels and palettes
• Rearranging panels and palettes
• Creating and modifying custom palettes
• Managing custom palettes
• Working with libraries
• Creating, importing, exporting, and deleting workspaces
• Restoring the default Corel Painter settings
Corel Painter terms
Before you get started with Corel Painter, you should be familiar with the following
terms.
Workspace tour 19
Term Description
Canvas The canvas is the rectangular work area inside the document
window. In addition, the canvas serves as the background layer of
the image. However, unlike other layers, it is always locked. The
size of the canvas also determines the size of the image that you
create.
Pixels-per-inch (ppi) The default unit of measurement for resolution in Corel Painter.
Pixels-per-inch (ppi) is equivalent to dots per inch (dpi).
Layer Layers are independent image elements that stack on top of the
canvas. You can manipulate the content of a layer without
altering the canvas. Layers let you experiment with different
compositions and effects without risking an unwanted,
permanent edit.
Brush category Brush categories are groups of similar brushes and media.
Brush variant Brush variants are specific brushes and brush settings within a
brush category.
Dab types The dab type controls the way a brush applies color to the
painting surface. In Corel Painter, there are numerous dab types
that fall under two dab type groups: rendered and dab-based,
also known as pixel-based.
Rendered dab type The rendered dab type produces continuous, smooth-edged
strokes. For example, Camel Hair and Airbrush use the rendered
dab type.
Dab-based dab type The dab-based dab types produce brushstrokes that are made up
of tiny dabs of color that are closely spaced together so they
appear smooth.
Panel A panel is a single tabbed container that displays commands,
controls, and settings for a specific feature. Panels reside in a
palette. For example, the Color panel contains controls that
allow you to choose colors.
Palette A palette is a container for one or multiple panels.
Paper Paper allows you to control both the color and texture of the
canvas.
20 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Term Description
Clone source The clone source determines the image, or image area, that you
want to reproduce through cloning. A document can include
multiple clone sources.
Clone document The clone document is created by copying the original clone
source image which allows you to reproduce a painterly version of
the source image. A copy of the clone source is embedded in the
clone document. In addition, you can add multiple clone sources
to a clone document.
Image sampling Image sampling lets you copy part of one image and reuse it
elsewhere in the image or in another image. You can sample an
image by using the Rubber Stamp tool, a Cloner brush that
supports offset sampling, or a Cloner brush that supports multipoint sampling. Sampling is similar to cloning, but, unlike
cloning, it does not create a separate document that stores clone
sources.
Composite method A composite method, which is similar to blend modes in Adobe
Photoshop, lets you change how a layer blends with an
underlying image.
Workspace tour 21
Exploring the Document window
The document window is the area outside the canvas that is bordered by scroll bars and
application controls.
Circled numbers correspond to the numbers in the following table, which
describes the main components of the application window. (Artwork by Karen
Bonaker)
Part Description
1. Menu bar Lets you access tools and features using pull-down menu
options
22 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Part Description
2. Brush Selector bar Lets you open the Brush library panel to choose a brush
category and variant. It also allows you to open and manage
brush libraries.
3. Property bar Displays commands that relate to the active tool or object. F or
example, when the Fill tool is active, the fill property bar
displays commands for filling selected areas.
4. Advanced Brush
Controls
Lets you quickly access the advanced brush controls for any
default brush variant. It also displays an enhanced stroke
preview of the currently selected brush variant.
5. Brush Search bar Lets you quickly search the content of the currently selected
brush library to find brushes that match a specific description.
6. Navigator panel Lets you navigate in the document window, change the
magnification level, and access various document viewing
options, such as Tracing Paper and Drawing Modes
7. Color panel Lets you choose main and additional colors for painting in
Corel Painter documents.
8. Mixer panel Lets you blend colors together to create new colors. You can
also open inspirational mixer pads designed by expert Corel
Painter artists. (The inspirational mixer pad in the image was
created by artist Skip Allen.)
9. Color Set Libraries
panel
Displays the colors in the current color set so you can organize
groups of colors.
10. Layers panel Lets you manage the hierarchy of layers and includes controls
for creating, selecting, hiding, locking, deleting, naming, and
grouping layers
11. Channels panel Lets you manage channels and includes controls for creating,
hiding, inverting, deleting, loading, and saving channels
12. Clone Source panel Lets you open and manage clone sources.
13. Reference Image
panel
Workspace tour 23
Lets you display an inspirational image in the document
window while maintaining focus on the canvas.
Part Description
14. Toolbox Lets you access tools for creating, filling, and modifying an
image
15. Canvas The canvas is the rectangular work area inside the document
window whose size determines the size of the image you
create. The canvas acts as the image background and, unlike a
layer, it is always locked.
Exploring the toolbox
You can use the tools in the toolbox to paint, draw lines and shapes, fill shapes with
color, view and navigate documents, and make selections. Under the toolbox is a color
selector , plus six content se lectors that let you choo se papers, gradients, patter ns, looks,
and nozzles.
The following table provides descriptions of the tools in the Corel Painter toolbox.
Tool Description
Color tools
The Brush tool lets you paint and draw on the canvas or a layer.
Brush categories include pencils, pens, chalk, airbrushes, oil paints,
watercolors, and more. When the Brush tool is selected, you can
choose specific brushes from the Brush library panel. For more
information, see “Selecting, managing, and creating brushes” on
page 279.
The Dropper tool lets you pick up a color from an existing image.
The property bar shows the values of the color. When you select a
color with the Dropper tool, that color becomes the current color in
the Color panel. For more information, see “Sampling colors from
images” on page 208.
The Paint Bucket tool lets you fill an area with media, such as a
color, gradient, pattern, weave, or clone. The property bar shows
options for the areas that you can fill and the media that you can use.
For more information, see “Working with color fills” on page 229.
24 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Tool Description
Color tools
The Eraser tool lets you remove unwanted areas from an image. For
more information, see “Erasing image areas” on page 123.
Selection tools
The Layer Adjuster tool is used to select, move, and manipulate
layers. For more information, see “Displaying the layers panel” on
page 483.
The Transform tool lets you modify selected areas of an image by
using different transformation modes. For more information, see
“Preparing selections for transformations” on page 565.
The Rectangular Selection tool lets you create rectangular
selections. For more information, see “Getting started with
selections” on page 544.
The Oval Selection tool lets you create oval selections. For more
information, see “Getting started with selections” on page 544.
The Lasso tool lets you draw a freehand selection. For more
information, see “Getting started with selections” on page 544.
The Polygonal Selection tool lets you select an area by clicking
different points on the image to anchor straight line segments. For
more information, see “Creating path-based selections” on page 546.
The Magic Wand tool lets you select an area of similar color by
clicking or dragging in an image. For more information, see
“Creating pixel-based selections” on page 549.
The Selection Adjuster tool lets you select, move, and manipulate
selections created with the Rectangular, Oval, and Lasso selection
tools and selections converted from shapes. For more information, se e
“Preparing selections for transformations” on page 565.
The Crop tool lets you remove unwanted edges from an image. For
more information, see “Cropping images” on page 73.
Workspace tour 25
Tool Description
Shape tools
The Pen tool lets you create straight lines and curves in objects. For
more information, see “Drawing lines and curves” on page 753.
The Quick Curve tool lets you create shape paths by drawing
freehand curves. For more information, see “Adjusting curvature” on
page 764.
The Rectangular Shape tool lets you create rectangles and squares.
For more information, see “Drawing shapes” on page 751.
The Oval Shape tool lets you create circles and ovals. For more
information, see “Drawing shapes” on page 751.
The Text tool creates text shapes. Use the Text panel to set the font,
point size, and tracking. For more information, see “Adding text” on
page 779.
The Shape Selection tool is for editing Bézier curves. You use the
Shape Selection tool to select and move anchor points and adjust
their control handles. For more information, see “Selecting a shape”
on page 759.
The Scissors tool lets you cut an open or closed segment. If the
segment is closed, after you click on a line or point, the shape path
becomes open. For more information, see “Cutting and joining shape
segments” on page 766.
The Add Point tool lets you create a new anchor point on a shape
path. For more information, see “Adding, deleting, and moving
anchor points” on page 762.
The Remove Point tool lets you remove an anchor point from a
shape path. For more information, see “Adding, deleting, and moving
anchor points” on page 762.
The Convert Point tool is used to convert between smooth and
corner anchor points. For more information, see “Adjusting
curvature” on page 764.
26 Corel PainterX3 Getting Started Guide
Tool Description
Photo tools
The Cloner tool gives you quick access to the last Cloner brush
variant you used. For more information, see “P ainting in the clone” on
page 159.
The Rubber Stamp tool gives you quick access to the Straight
Cloner brush variant, and lets you to sample areas within an image or
between images. For more information, see “Performing offset
sampling” on page 163.
The Dodge tool lets you lighten the highlights, midtones, and
shadows in an image. For more information, see “Dodging and
burning” on page 270.
The Burn tool lets you darken the highlights, midtones, and s hadows
in an image. For more information, see “Dodging and burning” on
page 270.
Symmetry tools
The Mirror Painting mode lets you create a perfectly symmetrical
painting. For more information, see “Using the Mirror Painting
mode” on page 182.
The Kaleidoscope mode lets you transform basic brushstrokes into
colorful and symmetrical kaleidoscope images. Fo r more informat ion,
see “Using the Kaleidoscope Painting mode” on page 184.
Composition tools
The Divine Proportion tool lets you plan compositions by using
guides based on a classical composition method. For more
information, see “Using the Divine Proportion tool” on page 192.
The Layout Grid tool lets you divide your canvas so that you can
plan your composition. For example, you can divide your canvas into
thirds vertically and horizontally to use the compositional rule of
thirds. For more information, see “Using the Layout Grid” on
page 179.
Workspace tour 27
Tool Description
Composition tools
The Perspective Guides tool lets you display guides using one, two
or three-point perspective. For more information, see “Using
Perspective Guides” on page 186.
Navigation tools
The Grabber tool lets you scroll through an image quickly. For more
information, see “Repositioning images” on page 72.
The Magnifier tool lets you magnify areas of an image when you are
performing detailed work, or reduce areas to get an overall view of an
image. For more information, see “Zooming images” on page 65.
The Rotate Page tool lets you rotate an image window to
accommodate the way you naturally draw. For more information, see
“Rotating images and the canvas” on page 68.
Selectors
The Color selector lets you choose main and additional colors. The
front swatch displays the main color, and the back swatch displays the
additional color. F or more information, see “Choosin g colors from the
Color panel” on page 202.
The Paper Selector opens t he Papers panel. From the Papers panel,
you can choose a paper texture to alter the canvas surface and achieve
more realistic results when applying brushstrokes. For more
information, see “Working with paper texture and grain” on
page 133.
The View Mode selector allows you to switch between Full Screen
and Windowed. For more information, see “Switching document
views” on page 62.
Displaying the toolbox
The toolbox is open by default, but you can close it. In addition, to minimize the space
required to display the toolbox, tools of similar function are grouped together and they
are accessible from flyout menus. The button for only one of these tools is displayed at
28 Corel PainterX3 Getting Started Guide
a given time on the toolbox. A flyout menu is indicated by a triangle in the lower-right
corner of the button. You can open a flyout to access all of its tools.
You can also reposition the toolbox by moving it in the application window. In addition,
you can change the toolbox display. For example, you can change the toolbox
orientation.
To open or close the toolbox
• Choose Window Toolbox.
You can also close the toolbox by clicking the close button on the toolbox
header bar.
To access tools grouped in flyouts
1 In the toolbox, click and hold the tool icon whose flyout you want to open.
A flyout menu of the entire group of related tools appears.
2 Click the tool that you want to use.
The tool you’ve chosen appears in the toolbox.
To move the toolbox
• Drag the toolbox header bar to a new location in the application window.
To change the toolbox display
1 Choose Edit Preferences Interface.
2 Choose an option from the Toolbox Layout list box.
Displaying the Media Selector bar
The Media Selector bar gives you quick access to the libraries for the following
Corel Painter media: patterns, gradients, nozzles, weaves, and looks. The Media
Selector bar is open by default, but you can close it at any time.
Workspace tour 29
The Media Selector bar (displayed horizontally). From left to right:
Pattern Selector, Gradient Selector, Nozzle Selector, Weave Selector,
Look Selector.
You can also reposition the Media Selector bar by moving it in the application window .
In addition, you can change the Media Selector bar display . For example, you can change
the Media Selector bar orientation or increase the size of the buttons.
To open or close the Media Selector bar
• Choose Window Media Selector.
You can also close the Media Selector bar by clicking the close button on the
header bar.
To move the Media Selector bar
• Drag the Media Selector bar header to a new location in the application window.
To change the Media Selector bar display
1 Choose Edit Preferences Interface.
2 Choose an option from the Media Layout list box.
Displaying the property bar
In Corel Painter, the property bar displays options for the currently selected tool. By
default, the property bar displays in the application window docked below the menu
bar, but you can close it. You can also move the property bar or dock it to the application
window or to other panels.
The property bar for the Grabber tool.
30 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
From the property bar you can access and change tool options and settings. T ool settings
are retained when you switch from one tool to another. You can also use the property
bar to restore the default settings of the selected tool.
To open or close the property bar
• Choose Window Property Bar.
You can also close the property bar by clicking the close button on the header
bar.
To move or dock the property bar
•Perform a task from the following table.
To Do the following
Move the property bar Drag the property bar’s header bar to a new
location.
Dock the property bar Drag the header area of the property bar,
and place it under the menu bar. The
property bar snaps into place.
To reset the default tool settings
•Click the Reset Tool button on the property bar.
The Reset Tool button on the property bar has the same icon as the selected tool in
the toolbox.
Var ious Reset Tool buttons for the Grabber property bar.
Exploring the Navigator panel
The Navigator panel is a convenient tool for managing many aspects of a document.
You can use the Navigator panel to better orient yourself in the document window and
modify the document window display. For example, when you’re working at a high
Workspace tour 31
zoom level, or with a large image, you can use the Navigator panel’s small canvas
preview to display the entire image without having to zoom out. You can also move to
a different image area without having to adjust the zoom level. In addition, you can
change the zoom level or rotate the canvas from the Navigator panel.
The Navigator’s canvas preview allows you to view the entire image even
when you’re zoomed in.
The Navigator lets you enable various tools such as the drawing modes, Impasto
information, tracing paper, grids, and color management.
The Navigator panel also displays document information such as the X and Y
coordinates and the cursor position to help you navigate the image. You can also view
document width, height, and resolution. For more information, see “Navigating images
and viewing image information” on page 63.
Displaying the Brush Selector bar and the Brush library panel
The Brush library panel lets you choose a brush from the currently selected brush
library. It also allows you to organize and display brushes in various ways. F or example,
you can create a new brush library, open a previously stored brush library , and view the
most recently used brushes. The Brush library panel displays the content of only one
brush library at a time.
32 CorelPainter X3 Getting Started Guide
You can access the Brush library panel by clicking the Brush Selector on the
Brush Selector bar.
In the Brush library panel, brushes are organized into categories, which contain brush
variants. Brush categories are groups of similar brushes and media. Brush variants are
specific brushes and brush settings within a brush category . F or example, in the Pastels
category, there are pencil, chalk, soft, and hard pastel brush variants. You can change
the display of the categories and variants. For more information, see “Organizing and
displaying brushes in the Brush library panel” on page 301.
The Brush library panel allows you to browse all of the brush categories and
variants for the currently open brush library.
To hide or show the Brush Selector bar
• Choose Window Brush Selector.
You can also close the Brush Selector bar by clicking the close button on the
header bar.
To move the Brush Selector bar
•Perform a task from the following table.
Workspace tour 33
Exploring panels and palettes
The interactive panels in Corel Painter are single tabbed containers that let you access
content libraries, commands, controls, and settings. Panels are stored in palettes. You
can store one or multiple panels in a palette. For example, you can reconfigure the
panels that you most often use in one palette. You can also arrange panels and palettes
in the application window to quickly access the tools and controls that you use most
often or to maximize screen space. For example, you can display all color-specific panels
in one color palette, or display panels individually.
This palette includes three color-related panels: Color, Mixer, and Color
Set Libraries. You can access a panel’s content by clicking its tabs.
Corel Painter also includes the Brush controls palette, which is a preset palette that
groups all panels that contain brush-related settings. You can copy an individual brush
control panel to the workspace, but you can’t remove any of the brush control panels
from the palette.
Exploring panels
Corel Painter includes several panels that you can group together to create a custom
palette.
34 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Panel Description
Brush Control panels
The brush control panels are included in the
Brush Controls palette. They include the
following panels: General, Stroke
Allows you to customize brush variants. For
more information, see “Adjusting brushes
with brush controls” on page 315.
Attributes, Opacity, Grain, Dab Profile,
Size, Bristles, Spacing, Smoothing, Angle,
Static Bristle, Computed Circular, Well,
Rake, Multi, Mouse, Cloning, Impasto,
Image Hose, Airbrush, Water, Liquid
Ink, Digital Watercolor, Artists’ Oils,
Real Watercolor, Real Wet Oil, Stroke
Jitter, RealBristle
™ Hard Media, Color
Variability, Color Expression, Brush
Calibration, Dab Preview, and Stroke
Preview.
Advanced Brush Controls panel Generates a grouping of brush control panels
that are relevant to the currently selected
brush. For more information, see
“Displaying advanced brush controls
dynamically” on page 301.
Color panels
Color Lets you choose main and additional colors
for painting in Corel Painter documents. Fo r
more information, see “Choosing colors from
the Color panel” on page 202.
Mixer Lets you mix and blend colors as you would
on an artist’s palette. For more information,
see “Exploring the Mixer panel and mixing
controls” on page 210.
Color Set Libraries Displays the colors in the current color set so
you can organize groups of colors. For more
information, refer to “Working with color
sets” on page 220.
Workspace tour 35
Panel Description
Paper panels
Papers Lets you apply and edit paper textures
Paper Libraries Lets you open and manage paper libraries.
You can also choose a paper texture.
Media library panels
Patterns, Gradients, Nozzles, Looks, and
Weaves library panels
Let you open and manage media libraries.
You can also choose media.
Image Portfolio and Selection Portfolio Contain all images or selections in the
current library. You can view the items as
thumbnails or in a list as well as preview the
current item. For more information, see
“Storing layers as images in the Image
Portfolio” on page 63 and “Working with
the Selection Portfolio” on page558.
Media control panels
Patterns, Gradients, and Weaves control
panels
Lets you apply and edit patterns, gradients,
and weaves
Flow Map panels
Flow Map panel Lets you apply and manipulate flow maps.
For more information, see “Applying and
adjusting flow maps” on page 419.
Flow Map Libraries panel Lets you open, manage, and navigate flow
map libraries. For more information, see
“Choosing flow maps and compatible brush
variants” on page 421.
36 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Panel Description
Navigator , Clone Source, and R eference
Image panels
Navigator panel Lets you navigate the document window.
You can also vie w document information,
such as width and height; X and Y
coordinates and the cursor position; contextsensitive information based on a selected
tool; and unit information, such as pixels,
inches, and resolution. For more
information, see “Exploring the Navigator
panel” on page 31.
Clone Source panel Lets you open and manage clone sources. For
more information, see “Cloning images” on
page 149.
Reference Image panel Lets you display an inspirational image in
the document window while maintaining
focus on the canvas. For more information,
see “Displaying reference images” on
page 112.
Layers and Channels panels
Layers Lets you preview and arrange all layers in a
Corel Painter document. You can use
Dynamic Plug-ins, add new layers (including
Watercolor and Liquid Ink layers), create
layer masks, and delete layers. In addition,
you can set the composite method and
depth, adjust the opacity, and lock and
unlock layers. For more information, see
“Layers” on page 479.
Workspace tour 37
Panel Description
Layers and Channels panels
Channels Lets you preview thumbnails of all the
channels in a Corel Painter document,
including RGB composite channels, layer
masks, and alpha channels. From the panel,
you can also load, save, and invert existing
channels, and create new channels. For more
information, see “Alpha Channels” on
page 529.
Auto-Painting panels
Underpainting Lets you adjust tone, color, and detail in a
photo in preparation for auto-painting. This
panel is used in the first step of the photopainting process. For more information, see
“Creating underpaintings” on page 141.
Auto-Painting Lets you specify a range of settings that
control how brushstrokes are applied. This
panel is used in the second step of the photopainting process. For more information, see
“Auto-painting photos” on page144.
Restoration Lets you fine-tune a painting by providing
brushes that help you restore detail. This
panel is used in the third step of the photopainting process. For more information, see
“Restoring detail to paintings” on page 147.
Composition panels
Divine Proportion Lets you customize the Divine Propor ti on
guide — a tool that helps you plan a layout
according to a classic composition method.
For more information, see “Using the Divine
Proportion tool” on page 192.
38 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Panel Description
Composition panels
Layout Grid Lets you customize the Layout Grid — a tool
that helps you divide your canvas so that you
can plan your composition. For more
information, see “Using the Layout Grid” on
page 179.
Text and Scripts panels
Text Lets you perform all text-related tasks, such
as choosing fonts, adjusting opacity, and
applying drop shadows. For more
information, refer to “Adding text” on
page 779.
Scripts Lets you access all commands and settings
related to scripts. For example, you can
open, close, play, and record scripts from the
Scripts panel. For more information, see
“Using scripts to automate tasks” on
page 813.
Rearranging panels and palettes
You can rearrange the display of panels to better match your workflow. For example,
you can group task-related panels together in one palette. At any time, you can further
customize these palettes by adding or removing a panel, repositioning a panel, or
moving a panel to another palette.
You can easily display a panel when you need it, and you can quickly close a panel when
you’re done. If you want to save screen space, but keep the panels and palettes displayed
(in the application window), you can collapse or resize them.
Palettes and panels float in the workspace. Docking attaches the panel or palette to the
vertical edge of the application window. Undocking detaches them from other parts of
the workspace, so you can move them. To perform docking, you need to grab a panel’s
tab or a palette’s header bar.
Workspace tour 39
Most panels in Corel Painter contain option menus from which you can access a series
1
2
3
of related commands. For example, you can use the options menu in the Paper controls
panel to capture, make, and invert paper textures.
A typical palette features a header bar (1), panel tabs (2), and a
Panel options button (3).
By default, the Color panel is open and is grouped in a palette with the
Mixer and Color Set Libraries panels.
To group panels into palettes
•Perform a task from the following table.
To Do the following
Group panels into a palette Drag a panel by its tab to another open
panel to create a group.
Add a panel to a palette Drag the panel tab to the palette.
Remove a panel from a palette Drag the panel tab out of the palette.
Reposition a panel in a palette Drag the panel tab to a new location in the
palette.
40 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
To hide or show a panel or palette
• Perform an action from the following table.
To Do the following
Hide or show a panel from a menu
Hide an open panel
Hide an open palette
Choose Window
Click the Close button on the panel tab.
Click the Close button on the header bar .
[Panel name].
When you choose Window Show Panels, only the panels that were open
when you chose Hide Panels are displayed.
You can restore a previously hidden palette by choosing Window, and
choosing the name of a panel that is contained in the palette.
To expand or collapse a panel
• Double-click the panel tab.
To resize a panel or palette
•Perform a task from the following table.
To Do the following
Resize a panel or palette proportionally Point to the lower right corner of the panel
or palette. When the cursor changes to a
double-sided arrow, drag the panel or palette
to resize it.
Resize a panel or palette vertically Point to the lower edge of the panel or
palette. When the cursor changes to a
double-sided arrow, drag the edge of the
panel or palette to resize it.
Resize a panel or palette horizontally Point to the right edge of a panel or palette
header. When the cursor changes to a
double-sided arrow, drag the edge of the
panel or palette to resize it.
Workspace tour 41
To dock or undock a palette
•Perform a task from the following table.
To Do the following
Dock a palette Drag the palette header bar, or the blank
space to the right of the tabs, to the vertical
edge of the application window. The palette
snaps into place when it lines up with the
edge.
Undock a palette Drag the blank area to the right of the panel
tabs away from the edge of the application
window.
Dock a panel Drag the panel tab to the vertical edge of the
application window. The panel snaps into
place when it lines up with the edge.
Undock a panel Drag the panel tab away from the
application window.
If there’s not enough space along the vertical edge of the application window
(for example, if you have a lot of expanded palettes), you may not be able to
dock a panel or a palette. Collapse one or multiple panels to create sufficient
space for docking.
You cannot dock panels or palettes with toolbars.
To access additional panel options
• In the panel, click the Panel options button , and choose an option.
Creating and modifying custom palettes
Corel Painter lets you create custom palettes that contain only the features that you
want so you can quickly access them. For example, you can place items from the Brush
library panel or any of the Media library panels in a custom palette. If the item that you
want is represented on a panel with an icon, you can create a custom palette simply by
holding down Shift and dragging the icon out of a panel to the application window . This
method works for brush variants, paper textures, media, such as gradients and patterns,
42 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
and nozzles, looks, and scripts. You can also add commands from the main menus or
panel options to custom palettes.
Items that appear on a custom palette are references (aliases or shortcuts) to the original.
This means that if you change the original — for example, by modifying and saving a
brush variant — the custom panel button loads the newest version. However, if you
delete the original, Corel Painter won’t be able to find the item again to load in the
custom palette.
Custom palettes behave like the standard panels. For more information about working
with panels, see “Rearranging panels and palettes” on page 39.
To create a custom palette
1 Choose Window Custom Palette Add Command.
2 Choose New from the Add To list box.
3 With the Add Command dialog box open, do one of the following:
• Choose a menu item from a default Corel Painter menu.
• Choose a menu item from the Other menu to add additional controls to a
custom palette.
• Choose a menu item from the Panel Menus menu to add a panel, or any of the
items included in a panel’s options flyout menu, to a custom palette.
• Choose a menu item from the Tools menu to add a toolbox tool to a custom
palette.
4 In the Add Co mmand dialog box, click Ok.
You can also create a custom panel by pressing Shift and dragging a button to
the application window.
You can add brush variants that are stored in different brush libraries to the
same custom palette. When you choose a brush variant from the custom
palette, the brush library in which the brush variant is stored is automatically
loaded in the Brush library panel. This allows you to quickly switch between
brush libraries.
To open or close a custom palette
•Perform a task from the following table.
Workspace tour 43
To Do the following
Open a custom palette
Close a custom palette On the custom panel header bar, click the
Choose Window
[Custom Panel Name].
Close button.
Custom Palette
To add items to a custom panel
•Perform a task from the following table.
To Do the following
Add a button from a panel Hold down Shift and drag a button from one
panel to the custom panel.
Add a menu item
Tools from the main toolbox cannot be added to a custom panel.
Choose Window
Command. Choose the custom panel from
the Add To list box, and with the Add
Command dialog box open, choose a menu
item, and click OK.
Custom Palette Add
Managing custom palettes
You can manage your custom palettes in the Custom Palette Organizer. CorelPainter
names custom palettes “Custom 1”, “Custom 2,” and so on. For ease of use, you can
rename them.
Corel Painter keeps your custom palettes from one session to the next. Y ou can also save
a custom palette to a file. If you save it to a file, you can remove it from Corel Painter,
and then load it again later. You can delete obsolete custom palettes or those you don’t
use very often.
To rename a custom palette
1 Choose Window Custom Palette Organizer.
2 Choose a palette from the Custom Palette list.
44 Corel PainterX3 Getting Started Guide
3 Click Rename.
4 In the Palette Name dialog box, type a name in the New Palette text box.
To save a custom palette
1 Choose Window Custom Palette Organizer.
2 Choose a palette from the Custom Palette list.
3 Click Export.
4 In the New Palette File dialog box, type a name in the File Name text box.
5 Choose the drive and folder where you want to save the file.
It’s a good idea to store all saved palettes in the same folder.
To import a custom palette
1 Choose Window Custom Palette Organizer.
2 In the Custom Palette Organizer, choose a palette from the Custom Palette list.
3 Click Import.
4 In the Open Palette File dialog box, choose the file where the custom palette is
saved.
5 Click Open.
Only custom palette files created with version 8.1 or later are supported by
Corel Painter. Custom palettes created with version 7 or earlier cannot be
loaded.
To delete a custom palette
1 Choose Window Custom Palette Organizer.
2 Choose a palette from the Custom Palette list.
3 Click Delete.
Working with libraries
A library is a storage place that helps you organize and manage a collection of similar
items, such as brushes or paper textures. For example, the default paper textures are
Workspace tour 45
contained in the Paper Textures library , which is loaded by default when you open
Corel Painter. As you customize paper textures and other resources, you can save them
to your own libraries. Libraries are available for brushes, gradients, layers, lighting,
looks, nozzles, paper textures, patterns, selections, scripts, and weaves. For more
information, see “Libraries” on page 273 and “Importing and exporting brush libraries,
categories, and variants” on page309.
The Paper Libraries panel lets you choose, organize, and apply paper textures.
Creating, importing, exporting, and deleting workspaces
Corel Painter lets you completely customize your workspace to suit your workflow
needs. You can customize Brush libraries, Paper libraries, and Portfolios and save
these changes to use later. In addition, you can easily create multiple workspaces, each
with different libraries and portfolios. You can even share these customized workspaces
with others by importing or exporting them. However, if you are importing a
workspace that was created in an older version of Corel Painter, only libraries and
custom palettes are preserved in Corel Painter X3.
You can also delete any obsolete workspaces.
To create a new workspace
1 Choose Window Workspace New Workspace.
2 Type a n ame in the Workspace Name text box.
3 From the Based On list box, choose the workspace on which you want to base the
new workspace.
4 Click Save.
46 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
The application switches to the new workspace.
To switch to a different workspace
• Choose Window Workspace [Workspace Name].
To import a workspace
1 Choose Window Workspace Import Workspace.
2 Choose the workspace file that you want to import.
3 Click Open.
To export a workspace
1 Choose Window Workspace Export Workspace.
2 Choose the workspace that you want to export.
3 Click Save.
To revert to the default workspace
• Choose Window Workspace Default.
Corel Painter lets you modify the default workspace, so this workspace may
eventually differ from the factory default workspace. If you restore the factory
default workspace, you will lose all customizations unless you save the
workspace. For more information, see “Restoring the default Corel Painter
settings” on page 48.
To delete a workspace
1 Choose Window Workspace Delete Workspace.
2 From the Workspace list box, choose the workspace that you want to delete.
3 Click Delete.
If you are trying to remove the active workspace, you may be prompted to choose a
new active workspace.
Workspace tour 47
Restoring the default Corel Painter settings
You can restore the Corel Painter workspace to its default factory settings. The restoring
process removes all modifications and customizations that you made to the application
— including the following:
• All libraries (Brushes, Papers, Scripts, Nozzles, etc)
•Custom palettes
• Palette Layout(s)
• Color Sets
• All preferences (Preferences dialog box)
• Customized keyboard shortcuts
• Brush tracking and calibration settings
•Recent brushes
• Color Management presets
• Perspective Guides, Layout, and Divine Proportion presets
Before restoring the Corel Painter default workspace, we recommend that you export
any libraries that you want to preserve. For example, if you created custom brushes, you
can export the brush library. For more information, see “Importing and exporting
libraries” on page 273.
To restore Corel Painter to its default factory settings
1 Hold down Shift and start Corel Painter.
A warning appears, asking you to verify that you want to erase all of the
modifications that you have made to Corel Painter. Restoring the default factory
settings copies the original workspace settings from the installation to the user
folder.
2 Choose whether you want to restore the current workspace or all workspaces.
48 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
A short tour of Corel Painter for users of Adobe Photoshop
by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis
Corel Painter is known for its responsive, realistic brushes, multitude of rich textures,
and fabulous special effects, which cannot be found in any other program. The biggest
difference that you will notice between Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter is the
warmth and texture of the Natural-Media brushes and paper textures of Corel Painter.
You’ll find brushes with realistic bristles that lay down oily paint and dry-media
brushes, such as variants in the Chalk and Pastels categories, that are sensitive to
textures on the canvas. Now, let’s get started!
Before we begin the tour, you need to make sure that you are displaying the default
panels and palettes. To display the default settings, choose the Window menu, and
choose Arrange Palettes Default.
Property bar
At the very top of the screen, you’ll see the property bar , which is similar to the Options
bar in Photoshop. The property bar changes contextually, depending on the tool that
you choose from the toolbox.
The property bar with the Grabber tool selected from the toolbox.
Brush Selector bar
On the far left of the property bar is the Brush Selector bar, which lets you open the
Brush library panel. The Brush library panel contains the amazing brush categories and
brush variants of Corel Painter, such as the Real W atercolor Brushes categor y and its
variants.
A short tour of Corel Painter for users of Adobe Photoshop 49
The Brush Selector bar (left) lets you choose a brush category and a brush variant (right).
Color panel
On the upper right corner of your screen you’ll see the large, beautiful Color panel,
which lets you choose colors. You can choose colors by using the Hue Ring and the
Saturation/Value Triangle. However, if you prefer to mix color by using numbers, you
can adjust the three sliders that are located under the Hue Ring. By clicking the panel
options button on the right side of the Color panel, you can set the sliders to display
either Red, Green, and Blue, or Hue, Saturation, and Value.
Also located on the Color panel is the Clone Color button, a useful control that lets
you paint with color from a source image. On the left of the Color panel are the Main
Color swatch or Additional Color swatch . The color swatches in Corel Painter
operate differently than the Foreground and Background Color squares in Photoshop.
To change the color, you can double-click either the Main Color swatch or the
Additional Color swatch and then choose a new color on the Hue Ring. Or you can
click in the Saturation/Value Triangle to choose a new tint or shade. You can use the
additional color to create gradients or to use brushes that paint more than one color.
Unlike the Background Color in Photoshop, the additional color does not affect the
canvas.
Before moving on with the tour, click the Main Color swatch to select it.
50 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Color panel
Hue Ring
Saturation/Value
Triangle
Additional Color swatch
Main Color swatch
In Corel Painter, you can resize the Color panel by dragging the handle in the lowerright corner of the panel to resize it. Resizing the Color panel lets you select colors more
accurately.
Textures
A basic paper texture is automatically loaded when you start Corel Painter. You can
access additional rich paper textures by clicking the Paper Selector from the toolbox, or
from the Paper Libraries panel (Window menu Paper Panels Paper Libraries).
Layers and mask channels
In Corel Painter, you can open Photoshop files that contain pixel-based layers and layer
masks. You can access and edit the layers and layer masks by using the Layers panel,
much like in Photoshop. The files you open in Corel Painter have multiple channels
intact.
A short tour of Corel Painter for users of Adobe Photoshop 51
Layers panel
Photoshop Layer Styles
If you are using native Photoshop layer styles, such as the Drop Shadow layer style,
make sure that you preserve the original Photoshop file in your archive before you
convert the layer style information. That is, save the file with the live layer styles in the
Photoshop (PSD) file format, and then save a new copy of this file. In the new file,
convert the layer style information into pixel-based layers b efore importing the file into
Corel Painter.
To convert a layer that has a Drop Shadow layer style, select the layer, and then choose
Layers Layers Style Create Layer. A word of caution: Some aspects of the effects
cannot be reproduced with standard layers.
File formats
Corel Painter gives you the flexibility of opening Photoshop (PSD) files that are saved
in RGB, CMYK, and grayscale modes while preserving pixel-based layers and mask
channels (also referred to as alpha channels). You can also open TIF F file s in
Corel Painter, but only one mask channel is preserved. Layered TIFF (TIF) files that you
create in Photoshop are flattened when you open them in Corel Painter. When you
work exclusively with RIFF (RIF), which is the native file format for Corel Painter, you
retain Corel Painter specific elements when saving files. For instance, special paint
media layers, such as Watercolor layers, require the RIFF format to retain the live “wet”
capabilities. However, if you open a Photoshop file in Corel Painter but plan on
reopening the file in Photoshop, you should continue to save the file to the Photoshop
format.
52 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Now roll up your sleeves, grab your stylus, and continue to explore Corel Painter.
About the author
An award-winning artist and author, Cher Threinen-P endarvis is a pioneer in digital art.
She has been widely recognized for her mastery of Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, and
the Wacom pressure-sensitive tablet and has used these electronic tools since they were
first released. Her artwork has been exhibited worldwide, her articles and art have been
published in many books and periodicals, and she is a member of the San Diego
Museum of Art Artist Guild. She has taugh t Corel Painter and Adob e Photoshop
workshops around the world and is the principal of the consulting firm Cher Threinen
Design. Cher is the author of The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book, Creative
Techniques in Digital Painting, Beyond Digital Photography, and all nine editions of The
Painter Wow! book. Visit Cher's web site at: www.pendarvis-studios.com.
A short tour of Corel Painter for users of Adobe Photoshop 53
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents
The Corel Painter application provides a digital workspace in which you can create
new images, or alter existing images, by using the Natural-Media tools and effects.
Your working image, known as a document, is displayed in a document window. This
document window includes navigation and productivity features to help you work
efficiently.
As you create an image, you can save your document in various file formats, such as
RIFF (the native Corel Painter format), JPEG, TIFF, and PSD (Adobe Photoshop).
Corel Painter also lets you open or import images saved in many other file formats.
This section contains the following topics:
•Creating documents
• Understanding resolution
• Opening and placing files
• Creating and opening templates
• Switching document views
• Navigating images and viewing image information
•Zooming images
• Rotating images and the canvas
•Flipping images
• Repositioning images
•Cropping images
• Resizing images and the canvas
• Saving and backing up files
• Choosing a file format
• Emailing documents
• Closing documents and quitting the application
• Using two monitors
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 55
• Wacom Intuos support
•Drag-and-drop features
Creating documents
To start an image from a blank canvas, you must create a new document. This allows
you to specify the canvas settings, such as width, height, and resolution. You can also
specify the canvas color and texture. The size of the canvas determines the size of the
image when it is printed. To quickly get started, you can choose from a list of preset
canvas settings. However, you can also specify custom settings, which you can save as a
preset for future use.
You can resize the canvas (left) to prepare an image for printing (right).
Canvas size and resolution
When setting the canvas size and resolution, you can choose options that correspond to
the image’s destination, however, you may want to choose a larger image size to
preserve more image details. For example, you can set the resolution of a new image at
300 pixels-per-inch (ppi), the width to 16 inches, and the height to 20 inches. This large
size makes it easier to maintain image quality when you need to produce a smaller
version of the image. For more information, see “Understanding resolution” on page 58
and “Resizing images and the canvas” on page 73.
Pixels-per-inch (ppi) is equivalent to dots per inch (dpi).
56 Corel PainterX3 Getting Started Guide
To create a new document
1 Choose File New.
2 Type a filename in the Image Name text box.
3 From the Canvas Preset list box, choose one of the following options to
automatically determine the size, resolution, color of the canvas, and the paper
texture:
• Painter 11 default
• Painter default
• Portrait
You can also
Change the unit of measurement for the
document
Change the document size Type values in the Width and
Change the number of pixels-per-inch (ppi)
or pixels per centimeter that make up an
image
Change the resolution type Choose a resolution type from the list
Change the color of the canvas Click the Color chip, and choose a
Change the texture of the canvas Click the Paper chip, and choose a
Choose a unit of measurement from
the list box located to the right of the
Width and Height boxes.
Height boxes.
Type a va lue in the Resolution box.
box located to the right of the
Resolution box.
paper color from the Color dialog
box.
paper texture from the Paper
Textures panel.
In the New dialog box, setting the document’s pixels-per-inch is equivalent to
setting its dots per inch (dpi). For more information, see “Understanding
resolution” on page 58.
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 57
To create a custom canvas preset
1 Choose File New.
2 Choose the settings that you want to save as a canvas preset.
3 Click the Add button .
4 In the Add Preset dialog box, type a name in the Preset Name text box.
A custom canvas preset is not a template. Unlike a template, it does not allow
you to store any content. A custom canvas preset allows you to store only
canvas dimensions, resolution, color, and texture.
You can delete a canvas preset by choosing the preset name from the Canvas
Preset list box and clicking the Delete button .
Understanding resolution
When you work with images in a digital workspace, it is helpful to understand the
concept and applications of resolution. Resolution refers to how Corel Painter measures,
displays, saves, and prints images — whether as small squares of color called “pixels” or
as mathematical objects called “vectors.”
A document’s resolution affects both its appearance on your computer screen and its
print quality . You can specify a document’s resolution when you create a new document,
save, or export a file.
Resolution and screen appearance
Most monitors have a resolution of 72 pixels-per-inch (ppi). The Corel Painter display
default is 72 ppi, which means that each pixel in the Corel Painter image occupies one
pixel on your monitor. The display resolution does not affect the document’s actual
number of pixels-per-inch — it affects only how the image is displayed on the monitor.
For example, a 300-ppi image is displayed on-screen at approximately four times its
actual size. Because each pixel in the Corel Painter image occupies one pixel on your
monitor, and the monitor’s pixels are approximately four times the size of the image’s
pixels (72 ppi versus 330 ppi), the image must appear four times larger on-screen in
order to display all of the pixels. In other words, your 300-ppi document will be printed
at approximately one-quarter of its on-screen size. To view the image at its actual size,
you can set the zoom level to 25%.
58 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
If you set the dimensions in pixels and then change the number of pixels-per-inch
(resolution), this change will affect the size of the printed image. If you set your
document size in inches, centimeters, points, or picas and then change the resolution,
the dimensions of the printed image will not be affected.
Pixels-per-inch (ppi) is equivalent to dots per inch (dpi).
Resolution and print quality
The resolution of output devices (printers) is measured in dots per inch, and in the case
of halftones, lines per inch (lpi). Output device resolutions vary, depending on the type
of press and paper used. In general, a photograph is output at a crisp 150 lpi if printed
on glossy magazine stock, and at 85 lpi if printed on newspaper stock.
If you are using a personal laser or inkjet printer, set your document size in inches,
centimeters, points, or picas at the dots-per-inch setting specific to your printer. Most
printers produce excellent output from images set at 300 ppi. Increasing the file’s
pixels-per-inch setting does not necessarily improve the output and may create a large,
unwieldy file.
If you are using a commercial printer or a more sophisticated output device, the
dimensions of the image should always be set to the actual size that you want the image
to appear in the printed piece. A good rule of thumb is to set the number of pixels-perinch to twice the desired lines per inch. So, at 150 lpi, the setting should be twice that,
or 300 ppi; at 85 lpi, the setting should be 170 ppi. If you have questions about the
resolution of specific output devices, it’s a good idea to check with the print service
provider.
Opening and placing files
You can open files that were created in Corel Painter or in other applications. For
example, you can open a file from another graphics application and use Corel Painter to
add brushstrokes, tints, or paper textures.
You can also place a file in an existing Corel Painter document. The placed image
becomes a new reference layer in the document — you can transform (resize, rotate, or
slant) it on-screen by dragging its handles. A placed file maintains its link to the source
file until you commit it to the standard layer format.
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 59
You can scale a file before placing it in a document.
For more information, see “Working with reference layers” on page 526.
Supported file formats
Corel Painter lets you open the following file formats:
• RIFF (RIF) — native Corel Painter format
• TIFF (TIF)
•PNG
• CMYK TIF (TIF) — Because Corel Painter works with RGB colors, the CMYK
TIF files that you open or import in the application are converted to an RGB color
profile.
• Adobe Photoshop formats (PSD) — Corel Painter preserves layers, layer masks,
alpha channels, and composite methods. Layer effects and adjustment layers are not
supported and should be merged or flattened in Adobe Photoshop.
• Windows Bitmap (BMP)
•PC Paintbrush (PCX)
• TARGA (TGA)
• GIF — Corel Painter does not convert GIF animations to frame stacks.
•JPEG (JPG)
• Frame stacks (FRM) — Corel Painter animation files
• QuickTime (MOV), Video for Windows (AVI), and numbered files. For more
information, see “Opening a Corel Painter movie” on page794 or “Importing and
exporting numbered files” on page808. For more information, see “Opening a
Movie” or “Working with Numbered Files” in the Help.
60 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
Corel Painter does not support LZW compressed TIFF file format. Only
uncompressed TIFF files can be opened in Corel Painter.
To open a document
1 Choose File Open.
Corel Painter displays the folder of the last file you opened.
2 In the Open dialog box, locate the file that you want to open.
For each image, Corel Painter lists the dimensions (in pixels), file size, and file
format. Files saved in Corel Painter include thumbnails for browsing.
3 Click Open.
The File menu also offers you a shortcut to previously opened documents .
You can find your file in the recently opened files list by choosing File
Recent, and clicking the filename to open the file.
To browse for a document (Mac OS)
1 Choose File Open.
2 Click Browse.
The Browse dialog box shows thumbnails for all the RIFF files in a folder.
3 Double-click the filename, or select a file, and click Open.
To place a file
1 Choose File Place.
2 Select an image file, and click Open.
The Place dialog box appears.
3 Perform a task from the following table.
If the placed image contains a mask and you do not enable the Re tai n Alpha
check box when placing, the image mask is discarded.
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 61
Creating and opening templates
If you regularly work with documents that contain similar dimensions, formatting, and
resolution, you can create document templates so that you don’t have to start each
document from scratch. When creating a template, you can add content to the canvas
and save it as part of the template.
To save a document as a template
1 Create a file with the sizing, formatting, and resolution attributes you want.
2 Choose File Save As.
3 In the Save (Mac OS) or Save Image As (Windows) dialog box, save the file to one
of the following folders in your user folder:
• (Mac OS) CorelPainterX3\Support Files\Templates
• (Windows 7) AppData\Roaming\Corel\Painter X3\Default\Templates
If you want the template to display under File Open Template, you need to
close and then reopen Corel Painter.
In a multiuser environment, only users with Administrator status can add
files to the Templates folder.
In Windows, you need to ensure that all hidden files are displayed in order to
access the AppData folder.
To open a document template
• Choose File Open Template {template name}.
You can also open a template by choosing Help Welcome, and then
choosing a template from the Open an Image Template list box.
Switching document views
Corel Painter offers two document viewing modes: Windowed and Full-Screen.
Windowed mode is the default viewing mode for documents, which displays all
standard tools in the workspac e. For example, the property bar, Brush selector bar,
toolbox, and a few additional panels are readily accessible.
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Full-Screen mode lets you hide your computer’s desktop and view the document
window without scroll bars. When Full-Screen mode is enabled, the document
window is centered over a solid background. All of the Corel Painter features work
when you use Full-Screen mode.
You can also change the default document view mode for the application. For more
information, see “Interface preferences” on page 839.
To switch viewing modes
• From the toolbox, click the View Mode button to toggle between Full Screen
Mode and Windowed Mode.
You can also
Toggle the viewing modes Press Command + M (Mac OS) or
Ctrl + M (Windows).
Reposition the canvas anywhere on the
screen
Hold down the Spacebar and drag.
You can also switch viewing modes from the Navigator panel.
Navigating images and viewing image information
You can use the Navigator panel to better orient yourself in the document window. For
example, when you’re working at a high zoom level or with a large image, you can use
the Navigator panel’s small canvas preview to display the entire image without having
to zoom out. You can also move to a different image area without adjusting the zoom
level. In addition, you can highlight which area is currently displayed in the document
window.
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 63
The Navigator’s canvas preview allows you to view the entire image even when
you’re zoomed in.
The Navigator also lets you view the X and Y coordinates and cursor position to help
you navigate the image. In addition, you can view document information, such as width
and height; and unit information, such as pixels, inches, and resolution.
You can customize the appearance of the Navigator panel by hiding the image
information area or the controls.
To display the Navigator panel
1 Choose Window Navigator.
2 Perform a task from the following table.
To Do the following
Move to a different area of the image
without adjusting the zoom level
Indicate in the Navigator’s canvas preview
window the area that is currently displayed
in the document window
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In the Navigator panel, click a different area
of the canvas preview.
Click the Navigator options button ,
and choose display Show Navigator Frame.
To Do the following
Zoom to a specific magnification level in the
document window
Rotate the image in the document window Open the Rotate Canvas list box, and adjust
Open the Zoom Canvas list box, and adjust
the zoom level slider.
the rotation slider.
From the Navigator panel, you can also enable various tools by clicking the
Open Navigator Settings button , and choosing an opti on. The available
tools include the drawing modes, Impasto, tracing paper, grids, and colo r
management.
To hide or show the information area or controls of the Navigator panel
•In the Navigator panel, click the Navigator options button , and disable one of
the following options:
• Navigator Frame — In the Navigator canvas preview window, hides the frame
that shows the area that is currently displayed in the document window
• View Controls — Hides the Navigator controls, such as canvas preview so that
you can view the entire image without having to zoom out. You can also move to
a different image area without adjusting the zoom level.
• Info — Hides the X and Y coordinates, cursor position, and document
information, such as width and height, and unit information, such as pixels,
inches, and resolution
Zooming images
You can change the level of magnification by zooming. You can zoom in and out by
using the Magnifier tool, resetting magnification, or zooming to fit the screen. Y ou can
even zoom in and out while working with other tools.
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 65
The Magnifier tool lets you zoom in and out by clicking in the document window.
To zoom in
1 In the toolbox, click the Magnifier tool .
The Magnifier cursor shows a plus sign (+), which indicates that you are
increasing the magnification (zooming in).
2 Click or drag in the document window.
Each click increases the magnification to the next level, as defined in the Scale box
at the bottom of the image window.
When you drag, Corel Painter chooses the magnification level that most closely
conforms to the selected area and centers the screen view on that area.
You can also zoom in using the follo wing keyboard shortcuts:
• (Mac OS) Hold down
•(Windows) Hold down
Command, and press + (plus sign).
Ctrl, and press + (plus sign).
To zoom out
1 In the toolbox, click the Magnifier tool , and hold down Option (Mac OS) or
Alt (Windows).
A minus sign (–) appears on the Magnifier cursor, which indicates that you are
decreasing the magnification (zooming out).
2 Click in the document window.
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Each click reduces the magnification to the next level, as defined in the Scale box
at the bottom of the image window.
You can also zoom out using the following keyboard shortcuts:
• (Mac OS) Hold down Command, and press – (minus sign).
•(Windows) Hold down Ctrl, and press – (minus sign).
To zoom to a specific magnification level
• Choose Window Navigator, and type a value in the Zoom canvas box.
If you prefer, open the Zoom Canvas slider, and adjust the zoom level.
To reset magnification to 100%
• Double-click the Magnifier tool in the toolbox.
You can also reset magnification to 100% by clicking the Reset tool on
the property bar or the Reset Zoom to 100% button in the Navigator
panel.
To zoom to fit the screen
• Choose Window Zoom to Fit.
Corel Painter generates a view of the entire document to fit your document
window.
You can also zoom to fit the screen by clicking the Fit Screen button on
the property bar.
To set zooming performance preferences
1 Click the Magnifier tool in the toolbox.
2 Click one of the following buttons on the property bar:
• High Quality Display — smooths objects when zooming
• Area-averaging — increases screen drawing speed when zoomed out
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 67
You can also specify zooming preferences by clicking Edit Preferences
Performance, and enablin g opti ons in the View Options area.
Rotating images and the canvas
You can rotate an image on the screen to accommodate the way you draw naturally . You
can also rotate the canvas to change the image orientation.
Rotate an image to accommodate the way you naturally draw.
Rotating an image onscreen is meant for drawing purposes only; whereas rotating the
canvas modifies the appearance of the image. For example, if you print an image that
you rotated onscreen, the rotation is not reflected in the printed image. However, if you
rotate the canvas of the image, the rotation is reflected in the printed image.
You can rotate an image or the canvas by a predefined amount, or you can choose the
amount of rotation. You can also reset the original orientation of an image.
To rotate an image
1 From the toolbox, click the Rotate Page tool .
If you prefer using a keyboard shortcut, hold down Option + Spacebar (Mac OS)
or Spacebar + Alt (Windows).
The cursor changes to a hand with a pointing finger .
2 Drag in the document window to rotate the image.
The new rotation angle appears on the property bar.
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You can also
Constrain rotation to 90° increments Hold down Shift while rotating.
Rotate an image by specifying a rotation
angle
Type a rotation angle in the Rotation Angle
box on the property bar or in the Navigator
panel.
You can also rotate an image from the Navigator panel by typing a value in
the Rotate canvas box or by opening the Rotate Canvas slider and adjusting
the rotation.
To reset the original orientation of an image
1 In the toolbox, click the Rotate Page tool .
2 Do one of the following:
• Click once in the document window.
• Double-click the Rotate Page tool .
• On the property bar, click the Reset Tool button .
You can also reset image rotation from the Navigator panel by clicking the
Reset Rotation button .
To rotate the canvas
1 Choose Canvas Rotate Canvas.
2 Perform a task from the following table.
You can also
Rotate the Canvas layer 180 degrees
Rotate the Canvas layer 90 degrees clockwise
Rotate the Canvas layer 90 degrees
counterclockwise
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 69
Choose Canvas
Choose Canvas
Choose Canvas
CCW.
Rotate Canvas 180.
Rotate Canvas 90 CW.
Rotate Canvas 90
You can also
Rotate the Canvas layer by a user-defined
amount
Choose Canvas
Rotate Canvas
Arbitrary, and type a value in the Angle
box.
If your document has layers of different types, you are prompted to commit
all of them to default, pixel-based layers.
Flipping images
You can flip the canvas and all of its associated layers together, or you can flip a layer,
selection, or the canvas individually. You can flip all or parts of an image horizontally
(from left to right) or vertically (from top to bottom).
Original image.
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Image flipped horizontally.
Image flipped vertically.
To flip the canvas and layers together
1 Choose Canvas Rotate Canvas.
2 Choose one of the following:
• Flip Canvas Horizontal
• Flip Canvas Vertical
If your document has layers of different types, you are prompted to commit all of
them to a default, pixel-based layer.
To flip the canvas, a layer, or a selection individually
1 Perform a task from the following table.
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 71
To flip Do the following
The canvas Click the Canvas in the Layers panel.
A layer Click one or multiple layers in the Layers
panel.
A selection Click a selection tool from the toolbox, and
drag in the document window to select an
area.
2 Choose Edit, and choose one of the following:
• Flip Horizontal
• Flip Vertical
Repositioning images
You can reposition an image in the Corel Painter workspace in order to view, or work
on, a different area of an image. You can also view a different area of an image when
you’re zoomed in.
To reposition a document
1 In the toolbox, click the Grabber tool .
The cursor changes to the Grabber tool.
2 Perform a task from the following table.
To Do the following
Scroll through the image Drag in the document window.
Center the image Click once in the document window.
You can also activate the Grabber tool by holding down the spacebar.
To reposition a document while zoomed in
1 Choose Window Navigator.
2 In the Navigator panel, click a different area of the preview area.
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If the Navigator frame is displayed, you can drag the frame to a different area of
the canvas preview.
Cropping images
You can remove unwanted edges from the image with the Crop tool . Y ou can adjust
the aspect ratio of the cropped image and choose to maintain the aspect ratio. You can
also remove unwanted areas of an image by resizing the canvas area. For more
information, see “Resizing images and the canvas” on page 73.
To crop an image
1 In the toolbox, click the Crop tool .
2 Drag inside the image to define the rectangular area that you want to keep.
You can adjust the rectangle by dragging a corner or any of its edges.
3 When you’re ready to execute the crop, click inside the rectangle.
To constrain cropping to a square
1 In the toolbox, click the Crop tool .
2 Hold down Shift, and drag to define the area for cropping.
3 Click inside the square.
To adjust the aspect ratio of the cropped image
1 In the toolbox, click the Crop tool .
2 On the property bar, type values in the Crop Ratio Width and Crop Ratio
Height boxes.
Resizing images and the canvas
You can change the physical dimensions of an image by resizing the canvas and the
image together, or by resizing the canvas area only. It is important to understand the
distinction between the two resizing techniques.
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 73
When you resize the canvas and image together, the image dimensions and resolution
change, but the image appearance doesn’t change. For example, if you resize a 300 ppi
image to 150 ppi, the image size is smaller, but it looks the same.
The image was resized by modifying the resolution.
Alternatively, when you resize only the canvas area, both the image dimensions and
appearance change. For example, if you increase the size of the canvas, a border appears
around the image. If you decrease the size of the canvas, the edge of the canvas is
trimmed. In addition, the image resolution is affected.
74 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide
The canvas area is resized in order to apply an empty border around the edge of an image.
It is also important to note that the size of the onscreen image is affected by the pixel
height and width of the image, the zoom level, and the monitor settings. As a result, an
image may be displayed as a different size onscreen than when it is printed. For more
information, see “Understanding reso lution” on page58 and “Creating documents” on
page 56.
To resize the canvas and image content together
1 Choose Canvas Resize.
To avoid distortion by maintaining the width-to-height ratio of the image, enable
the Constrain File Size check box.
2 In the New Size area, type values in the Width and Height boxes.
If you enable the Constrain File Size check box, you need to type values only in
the size box; the other values are adjusted automatically.
If you choose pixels or percent as the unit and enter a value, the Constrain File
Size check box is automatically disabled.
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 75
Increasing the image dimensions significantly may cause the image to appear
stretched and pixelated.
To resize the canvas area
1 Choose Canvas Canvas Size.
2 In the Canvas Size dialog box, specify the number of pixels you want to add to any
side of the canvas.
To reduce, or trim, the canvas size, specify negative values.
Saving and backing up files
You can save a file in its current format or in a different format. You can also track the
changes that you make to a file by saving multiple versions of the file, also known as
iterations. In addition, you have the option of creating backup files every time you save
a document.
When you save an iteration of a file, an updated version of the file is saved with a version
number added to the filename. For example, if you saved the original file as Image. RIF
and then save an iteration of the file, the latest version of the file is saved as
Image_001.RIF. For each subsequent iterative save that you perform, the number
added to the filename increases by 1, for example, Image_002.RIF and Image_003.RIF .
Iterative saving is useful if you need to revert to an older version of a file, or simply to
track your progress over time.
To save a file in its current format
• Choose File Save.
To save a file with a different name or in a different format
1 Choose File Save As.
2 In the Save (Mac OS) or Save Image As (Windows) dialog box, use the controls to
specify a location, file name, and format.
To perform an iterative save
• Choose File Iterative Save.
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The location of the last file saved is stored and used for iterative saves unless you
specify a new location.
You can also perform an iterative save by pressing Command + Option + S
(Mac OS) or Ctrl + Alt + S (Windows).
To create a backup file when saving
1 Do one of the following:
• (Mac OS) Choose Corel Painter X3 menu Preferences.
• (Windows) Choose Edit Preferences.
2 In the Preferences list of categories, click General.
3 Enable the Create backup on Save check box.
Choosing a file format
When you save a file, you must choose a file format. The following section contains
information about some of the supported file formats.
Saving RIFF files
RIFF is the Corel Painter file format, which retains special information about your
document. For example, a RIFF file maintains all layers.
RIFF files are best used as “work-in-progress” files. It is recommended that you always
save files in RIFF format, and then save to GIF, JPEG, TIF, or another file format when
a file is ready for production.
Corel Painter lets you compress files and save disk space with a lossless compression
method. When saving in RIFF format, you can minimize the file size on your hard disk
by ensuring that the Uncompressed option is disabled by default.
Saving JPEG files
Corel Painter supports the JPEG file format. Unlike GIF , the JPEG file format displays
a full range of colors.
The JPEG file format lets you compress your file on a scale of Fair to Excellent, where
quality is directly proportional to file size. These quality settings will let you achieve
compression ratios ranging from less than 10:1 to greater than 100:1. JPEG is a “lossy”
file format, meaning that a compressed JPEG file will not be identical, pixel-for-pixel,
Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents 77
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