Corel Painter X, painting and illustration program, with Photoshop compatibility, available later this month.

Corel Introduces Painter X

Painting & illustration software package Painter X has been announced by graphics publisher Corel.

Corel, who also publish graphics tools such as Paint Shop Pro, Graphics Suite and Corel Designer, have announced the release of a new version of Painter X.

Painter X is a cross between a Photoshop style image manipulation program and an artists' digital painting program. Its strengths have always been in its ability to simulate a huge variety of 'natural' painting and drawing tools, such as paintbrushes, charcoal, crayons and pencils.

New features

Corel have announced that Painter X contains a number of new features, that enhance the program's ability to replicate traditional painting media. This includes the RealBristle Painting System which includes the ability to replicate individual bristles that blend and splay.

There are also a number of new composition tools which allow photographers to create painting style effects out of original photographs. There have also been additions to the Underpainting Palette, including painting styles such as impressionist, classical, modern, water color, sketchbook and chalk drawing. There is also the addition of two tools which Adobe Photoshop users will be familiar with, the Dodge and Burn tools.

Another new feature is the color match palette, which helps designers and artists to match the color and intensity between two separate images. There are also enhanced color management features with support for ICC 4 color profiles.

Corel also claims that the new release has enhanced the speed and productivity functions of the program. This will be welcomed by long time users of the program, as one criticism of Painter has always been its sluggishness, even with high end computers.

Adobe Photoshop compatibility

Painter X uses layers in a similar way to Adobe Photoshop, which Corel claims makes moving files between the two software products easy. Files saved to the .PSD file format can be opened with layer masks, alpha channels and layer groups preserved. Painter X also supports many Photoshop plugins.

Corel Painter X will be available for Windows Vista and Mac OS X, installing as a Universal Binary for Macintosh Intel or PowerPC computers.

The cost of Corel Painter X will vary between US$429 for the full version, US$229 for an upgrade and US$99 for an education edition. For 'collectors' there is also a limited edition version in a painting can which will retail for $499.

Corel Painter

7 February 2007

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