Corel Painter 11 Education Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)Corel Painter is in a category all its own. While photo manipulation software comes in all sorts and layout programs abound for every skill set, Painter is a unique program that allows real art to be made directly in a digital format.
This could easily be quite a cheesy goal and a sub-par result meant more for play than serious work. Could be, but Painter does the task so well it is really astounding.
I could have said the exact same words, and have, about Painter IX, a program I have owned since it was released.
I've found that program unsurpassed in all kinds of creative goals for both web and print use, for both serious work and for creative exploration.
I was familiar with Painter IX, and yet I'm still a bit blown away by Painter 11.
It's an easy transition. Everything looks the same and so there's no major transition from the older to the newer. The main difference is in feel. Painter 11 just feels more natural. It has better response, better control, better overall simulation of the various media. Even on the Intuos3, I could always feel a strong bit of distance, and artificiality, on Painter IX. In Painter 11 I just feel so much more connected to the canvas on the screen.
Some have noted some issues with their graphics pad. I've not seen any problems at all. Perfect and easy use, even better than Painter IX in every respect.
Often, new programs try to add so much they become slower, or more complicated, or otherwise a step down in performance for the steps up in function. Painter 11 adds a whole list of new brushes and capabilities, all functioning perfect as I try them out. It does this while speeding up all the various interactions. Everything just seem so smooth. So not only are the brushes and pens feeling so much more natural, the whole experience is sharpened and quick.
The integration with the Adobe products is likewise quite good. One thing I've appreciated about the various Corel products is their ability to 'play well with others'. Instead of trying to mark out its territory by ignoring the major players, Corel enables functions that takes seriously the probable software use of real designers and artists.
Painter has always been a program in its own class, and that sometimes means a company doesn't continue to innovate with it. Corel keeps pushing the edge, making a five star product much better, by making better what it already did great and adding quite useful capabilities on top of this.
Extremely pleased with Painter 11. Well worth the cost, and if you have an older version it is indeed worth an upgrade.
Some reviewers have noted this version seems slower. I just can't see what they mean. Indeed, not only does this program feel quite a bit faster it also seems to work well on a variety of systems. My main computer is a XPS710 with a quad core processor, a nice video card. Of course Painter flies on that one. But, surprisingly, it also works quite smoothly on my laptop, a Dell e1405, that has no separate video processor, is one of earliest dual-core, and only has 1gb of memory. If I do particularly processor intensive tasks it does lag a bit, but significantly less than my Adobe programs. It works better than Painter IX did on the same computer.
As far as operating systems, I've run this on Vista premium (my main computer), XP media edition (my laptop), and Vista home (my wife's laptop). Runs great on each.
As far as the difference between academic and regular editions. There isn't any. Just the price. Like with a lot of software, Corel offers a discount for those who can verify they are in school or work at an academic institution. One great education benefit of this software is a great, and cheap way, to learn art skills. All the paint and art supplies are free! Not exactly the same as physically doing art, but a really, really great way to learn the basics and explore techniques.
If you're worried about how well it works, Corel has a full-featured 30 day demo you can download.
So no worries. Try it then buy it. It's an amazing product!

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Please note: Proof of eligibility required to purchase Corel Painter 11 Education Edition--only accredited schools, faculties, full- or part-time matriculated students, and academic supervisory organizations are eligible to purchase Corel Education software. Expand your creativity with Painter 11, the most inventive digital painting software on the market. By adding Painter to your workflow, you gain a full art studio that gives you the tools to create unprecedented artwork. Digital art tools let you experiment with color theory, composition and brush strokes, without the toxins, mess and expenses associated with traditional art. Support for the entire Wacom product line, including industry-leading Cintiq interactive pen displays and Intuos drawing tablets, gives you the most responsive digital painting experience so your hand and brush work fluidly as one. Customizable paper textures give your art added artistic undertones, plus a level of texture and detail that no other digital painting or photo-painting tools can produce. Painter is changing what's possible in art. Now it's your turn.

The World's Most Powerful Natural-Media Software
Enhance the Creative Process
Enhanced Artistic Media reproduce the texture of their real-life counterparts and intensify color with each stroke
Pen and drawing tablet (recommended), combined with Painter's RealBristle brushes, recreate the natural interaction between hand and canvas
New Hard Media Controls let you create your own hard media variants, or choose from new hard media variants in the Brush Library

Go Beyond the Digital Darkroom
Improved color recognition for files imported from Adobe Photoshop, and individual color profiles per document, make your colors more precise
Photo-painting tools with SmartStroke technology let you creatively transform reality
Customizable surface texturing gives your art a level of fantasy and detail that other photo and painting software can't deliver

Learn from Unlimited Experimentation
Digital art tools let you experiment with color theory, composition and brush strokes without the toxins, mess and expenses associated with traditional art
New Hard Media controls give you the flexibility to play around to find the exact look you desire
Smart composition tools, such as Divine Proportion and the Rule of Thirds and Fifths, help you visually arrange your canvas to create perfect compositions

Features
What's Included
Content Libraries of unique textures, gradients, nozzles, patterns, stock photos and brushes, including the new RealBristle dry media brush category
Documentation
Getting Started Guide
HTML User Guide and Getting Started Guide
HTML Help files

Training
Online tutorials and testimonials

Enhance the Creative Process
New--Hard Media Controls Create your own hard media variants, or choose from new hard media variants in the Brush Library, so you have more creative control over your media. Customizable profiles, dab sizes, transitions and stroke width previews let you play around to create the exact look you want.
New--RealBristle Dry Media Marker, pen, pencil and chalk media reproduce the look and feel of their real-life counterparts in a way that no other software can!
Marker--intensify color with each new marker stroke so you can color in one continuous shade or create a buildup of color
Pen--choose to create fine pen strokes, or thick strokes and ink deposits, by changing the velocity of your stroke. The faster you go, the thinner the line; the slower you go, the thicker the line
Pencil & Chalk--control shading by changing the angle of your stylus on the drawing tablet. Choose whether to draw with the tip or shade with the side of the nib-just like in real life

Enhanced--Selection Tools A new Polygonal mode for the Lasso tool, plus overall improvements to marquee tools and the Magic Wand, let you make more nimble selections the first time around.
Enhanced--Wacom Support Support for the entire Wacom product line, including Cintiq interactive pen displays and Intuos pen tablets, gives you most responsive digital painting software and the best digital art experience.
RealBristle Painting System Replicate the sensation and interaction between traditional paint and canvas with your pen and tablet. This represents a major milestone for digital painting by making brushes totally responsive to your hand and canvas, creating the most realistic painting experience.
Customizable Brushes Create your own brushes in the type, size or pattern of your choice, so you can make custom brush strokes and create artwork that is truly unique.
Go Beyond the Digital Darkroom
New--Color Management Create better color matches with new individual color profiles for every document and improved color recognition for files imported from Adobe Photoshop. This enhances your workflow because you save time by having fewer color corrections to make.
Enhanced--Adobe Photoshop Support Maintain colors and layers when transferring files between Photoshop and Painter. This saves time when importing and exporting artwork between the two programs, because corrections are less necessary.
Photo-painting Tools Transform photos into paintings by hand, or let SmartStroke brush technology in the Auto-Painting Palette paint a photo for you. It follows the lines and contours in the picture just like a real artist would. This lets you take the best of both worlds--photography and painting--to create new forms of art.
Customizable Surface Texturing Give your art added artistic undertones, plus a level of texture and detail that no other digital painting software and photo-painting tools can produce. You can choose paper textures for your canvas, or create and customize your own textures to produce really unique artwork.
Learn from Unlimited Experimentation
Enhanced--Mixer Palette & Swatches Extra mixer swatches appear when you enlarge the newly resizable Mixer Palette. Increase the size of the Palette to put more colors at your disposal and have a clearer view of your chosen color. Reduce the size when you no longer need to mix colors so the Palette takes up less space on screen.
Smart Composition Tools Divine Proportion and the Rule of Thirds and Fifths help you visually arrange your canvas before sketching or painting to create perfect compositions.
Flexible Digital Art Tools Experiment with color theory, composition and brush strokes to your heart's content, and produce exciting results-without the toxins, mess and expenses associated with traditional art.
Universal Mixer Palette For multicolor selection, this palette gives you better control over color blending between the Mixer palette and the canvas, so your colors are more precise.
Underpainting Palette This palette includes color schemes based on various artistic styles, such as Impressionist, Classical, Modern, Watercolor, Sketchbook and Chalk Drawing, so you can create art like your favorite muses. You can also match your Underpainting Palette to that of any open image for consistency.
Match Palette Effect Match the color and intensity between 2 images. Just open an image that features your desired color scheme and use the Match Palette effect to bring that color to the image you want to change.
Increase Speed & Stability
Enhanced--Performance Painter 11 is optimized to provide artists with the fastest version of Painter ever. Depending on system hardware, brushes perform up to 30% faster, creating a more true-to-life painting speed.
New--Transformation Capabilities Switch between different Transform modes from one centralized tool, and choose whether to transform the complete contents of a layer, or selected content, for greater speed, flexibility and precision.
New--Resizable Color Palette Adjust colors manually with sliders on the Color Palette. Enlarge the Color Palette up to 800 pixels for a clearer view of your selected color. You can now also fine-tune the color wheel with your arrow keys so it takes less time to find the perfect color.
New--Color Management Interface The fresh and simplified interface makes it easier to control color profiles when creating new files, or when opening Painter and other file types.
Windows Vista Support Painter 11 supports the latest operating system from Microsoft.
Mac OS Support Painter 11 supports the latest operating system 10.5 from Apple.
Multiple Platform Support Painter 11 includes both Mac OS and Windows versions on the same CD.

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