Software : Corel Painter X Win/Mac

Rating: - Great software, digital painting at its best.
I'm a Photoshop user but had read so many great reviews and tried the trial version of PainterIX and just had to buy this. I'm very happy with it. For me it was a very quick learning curve from PS to Painter. Painter is much more "painterly" than PS and the brushes and paints really do react very much like the real deal. Coming from studio painting using acrylics for my underpainting and oils on top I found that Corels' oil pastels actually gave me a very similar look and feel once I learned how to tweak the brushes to my liking. In my opinion the most important things to learn to really get what you want from Painter are learning how to adjust the brushes to your liking, learning to use "papers" as textures instead of the brushes as textures (that's how PS works), and getting used to the color wheel. But I found the color wheel indispensable once I got used to it. I actually found myself wishing I had the color wheel in PS when working in it.
Oh yeah, and if you don't have a tablet yet, I suggest the wacom intuos3 6x11. IN FACT, you may want to check on Corel's website. They almost always have a bundle deal where you can buy Painter and get a Wacom tablet at a discounted price instead of buying them separately (sorry Amazon...maybe Amazon has a bundle price too though...?).
I can't even imagine trying to use this software with a mouse. Spend the extra little bit to get the cd version of the software. It comes with a great book that covers a lot of Painters features, including their new "real bristle" technology, as well as some goodies on the cd.

Overall if you're looking for a more "painterly" end product I think Painter is the way to go. You may also want to look on [...] for some great dvd tutorials on using Painter. I bought Ryan Church's and Puddnheads tutorial dvd's and although their styles and workflows are very different I learned a great deal by watching and working along with the dvd's and I'm sure I saved myself a great deal of time rather than just trial and error.

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Rating: - AWESOME SOFTWARE CAN DO ANY ART MEDIA -- AND THERE'S NO PAINT MESS TO CLEAN UP!
This incredible software can do digitally any art media. Immense variety of brushes and tools from pastels to inks and all kinds of textured canvases make any former hands on art media methods a thing of the past.

I have always liked to draw and paint, when I installed Painter X I started dabbling and tinkering, not knowing anything at all and was able -- after about 35 minutes -- to replicate a favorite Maynard Dixon western painting. You can see it in the image gallery.

The huge options and abilities of Painter X are covered nicely in the product description.

I am especially interested in creating animation cells using sequential photos that I have enhanced with detailed art and then putting them into iMovie of Final Cut Express on my Mac laptop.

So far, the painting and airbrushing and pen & ink enhancements are dazzling using Painter X. I have barely tapped into the power and potential of this software and am looking forward to expanding this review and posting additional paintings in the image gallery.

Currently I am using a Wacom tablet with about a 4x5 drawing area. I plan to get a larger tablet or a laptop monitior on which I can draw directly.

I am not aware of any software for the price that comes close to what can be done with Painter X.

Highest recommendation.

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Rating: - No Support for Education Version
I guess if you can get Painter X to work when installed it is a good product. If you can't (Vista, 8 Gig memory, 2T disk, Cintiq21), you have to pay for support by the call (for education version which is same base program w/o some of the bells and whistles). I kept trying and got it installed and working but pallettes would not move out of center of screen or dock anywhere but the center. Any attempt to change brush size/characteristics abended program. I am glad I was EDUCATED about Corel before buying the full price version.

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Rating: - Very cool
I must admit I do love PS better, but once you learn the program it is really great! The different tools available are excellent.

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Rating: - WOW!!
This product is the best graphic program ever. It works great in my operating system VISTA. The only limitations of Corel Painter X is the artists creativity.