Expert’s Rating
Pros
Cons
Our Verdict
Some mass have natural artistic power , while others , despite their creative leanings , do not . I am a member of the latter chemical group : I can barely trace my own hand , yet the idea of being able to paint or draw is nonetheless fabulously enticing .
Corel ’s Painter Essentials 3 make it simple for the artistically challenge to make beautiful digital drawings and painting from their photographs . Yet , the political program is also powerful enough to gratify experienced artists who may be making their first raid into digital artistic production .
Neophyte’s delight
Painter Essentials , built on the foundation of Corel ’s pro - flat house painting app , Painter IX ( , February 2005 ) , let you vary your digital picture to make them reckon as if you painted them by hand . To accomplish this , the program make a written matter or “ clone ” of your original image , redact it on a hidden layer within a young document , and place another pellucid layer on top of that to act as digital tracing paper . The cloning operation also create a pallet of colouring taken directly from your photograph , which you’re able to habituate as “ paint ” for creating a Modern trope .
Once the cloning cognitive operation is complete , you’re able to select a medium , such as pigment , pastel , or pencil , and then opt the clash and chance event style that you want to use for your picture . From there , you use Painter Essentials ’ Auto - Painting palette to automatically create your young mental image . There are many variable that you may select and change , include how haphazardly the program applies each new stroke to the canvass ; as a result , no two renderings of a single image ever has to look exactly the same .
Painter Essentials 3 ’s drawing and painting tools let you apply a variety of diverse aesthetic styles to your image . ( snap image to open full screenshot )
I found this process to be surprisingly rewarding . After about 10 minutes , I was play with the program ’s many brush and way variables as well as experimenting with brushing stroke . basically the program ’s automated process became an verbalism of my aesthetic desire , yet I did n’t have to deal with any of the insecurity associated with doing the same thing by hand .
Painter Essentials 3 also go well as a digital sketchpad . While the Auto - Painting palette is great for initiate , the program ’s freehand draw tools permit artist of all degree to create new images from scratch . you could draw with your black eye , but Painter Essentials 3 crop well with a drawing tablet because it simulates the tactile sensation of freehand drawing and painting .
Some downsides
One negative is the limited number of undos : Painter Essentials allows you to undo only the last five keystrokes . Any program gear to novice user should have more undos than that to allow for increase experiment . And more undos believably would n’t be a unfit musical theme even for more - forward-looking artists .
I also found the program ’s cropping execution a bit leftover . Most consumer exposure - editing program , such as Apple ’s iPhoto (; April 2005 ) and Adobe ’s Photoshop Elements (; February 2005 ) , require you to take the area that you want to crop and then choose a Crop bid from a menu . But in Painter Essentials , you apply the Crop tool to make your selection and then click once within that area . This worked well once I got used to it .
Macworld’s buying advice
Painter Essentials 3.0 is an extremely hefty program that give beginning creative person the power to make beautiful artwork , as well as the freedom to try out in way of life they may never have dreamed potential . The programme is also powerful enough for more - receive creative person to explore an image ’s potential .
[ Jeffery Battersby is an amateurish photographer , aspiring artist , and a frequent contributor toMacworld . ]
