Features:

  • ENHANCED PERFORMANCE; noticeably faster brushes and up to 50% faster rendering when zooming, panning, and rotating
  • NEW DARK USER INTERFACE THEME; launch a refreshing, professional interface that makes your artwork the focus
  • NEW APPLICATION ICONS AND CONTROLS; features over 650 re-designed icons to make things easier on the eyes, simple to understand, and more efficient to use
  • NEW BRUSHES AND PATTERNS; gain inspiration with 36 remarkable new brushes and 5 new Patterns custom designed for concept artists and video game designers, but any artist will love them
  • ENHANCED COLOR WORKFLOW; see your selected color choices more clearly with new grabbers in the Color Wheel or pin the Temporal Color Selector for easy access. Use shortcuts to reliably sample with the eyedropper
Worth it.

A feature rich and powerful program that any artist should at least try.

Painter Opened Up This Amateur to a Whole New World

I got this as an amateur illustrator that wanted to practice and learn more about the craft. This art suite software has completely opened my world to a whole new set of options for my canvas. I've always done my illustration and drawing on paper, so it took a little bit of getting used to a digital canvas. But now I'm able to illustrate using a tablet that I can constantly manipulate and correct mistakes that I've made. This thing comes with almost 1,000 brushes that I haven't even begun to explore with. All of these years I've been spending tons of money on physical supplies, and then only to be left with one copy that I've had to have professionally scanned. Now I can create an endless amount of work at the cost of only the software, and I can share it with whomever I want. It's really allowed me to expand my somewhat limited talent and has opened me up to explore a variety of new drawing styles and methods. Now all that I need to do is somehow create extra time to spend on this new endeavor. Overall this is an absolutely brilliant art suite that has really come a long way since the original painter software.

Corel makes excellent products

A dream for the artists who love painting. Almost limitless possibilities.

The black interface is a terrific idea

By no means am I a professional user of Painter. I dabble, when I have time. I love to dabble in Painter, and I've owned a copy of the software since 2015. Not every year, but some years, I bought that year's upgrade. This year, I've gotten this standard edition. Each time, I've been amazed by the yearly improvements. With this 2019 edition, they have outdone themselves. The black background, rather than white, on the interfaces, is a truly great change. Pretty amazing how the black seems to drift into the background as I work. Plus there are all kinds of little simple changes here and there, that enhance (that really is the perfect word here) the workflow. There is a huge amount of detail to work with in this software, so I can't say that this is an easy program to learn. But it definitely is intuitive and is very common-sense oriented--and gets more so with each new edition. It is easy enough to learn, that you can be doing basics the first hour of playing around with it. Read the down-loadable instruction booklet, watch loads of video tutorials, get a few books on what you want to zone in on and you can be going full-speed in a relatively short amount of time. If you have not already tried Painter, and you like to draw, paint, fiddle with photos, you really should give this program your time and attention. If you have an earlier version of Painter, this is the year to upgrade. Corel offers loads of support through podcasts and video tutorials. And there are some good how-to books out there. Corel online support is for the birds, though. (I tried to find out which Surface Pen that Corel recommended and failed to find a proper answer.....) And once you buy Corel, they will offer you special deals on upgrades and other software. (I guess you can consider this feature good or bad, depending.)

Great Old-School Product

Painter has been around forever, and has always had a pretty great reputation. It has a lot in common with photoshop, only focused on creating of paintings/drawings instead of photos. It can simulate different types of painting, like watercolor, acrylic, and oil. And then of course a really sophisticated brush system and color system. It's not strictly for painting though, as it also has features for letting you simulate drawing, including pencil and charcoal drawing. Pretty neat! With a tool as powerful as Painter, it has a pretty steel learning curve. If you're familiar with photoshop, the menus and options will look fairly familiar, but still, I found myself relying on tutorials from places like lynda.com to get me going. I've taken some painting classes in college and in high school, and done a little painting on my own since, so getting into digital painting is a natural progression. Working with a mouse, works fine, but getting a tablet (like a Wicom tablet), will give it a much more natural and tactile feel, if you have non-digital painting and/or drawing experience. Corel painter is a no-brainer if you want to get into digital art. It's pricey, but it's here to stay, which means your money and time investment is safe for years to come.

Mind blown

Hi, I've been an illustrator all of my life, and for the past couple of decades, was a student and user of the Adobe suites, particularly Photoshop. About a decade ago, I began scanning my line art and applying color with Photoshop, eventually creating brushes, patterns and palettes that worked best for publication; I can do all of that with pretty much ease. They also have to pass muster of editors and art directors along the way, be correctable and delivered in a format that is on time and press-ready. But there's the traditional painter/illustrator/artist in me who wants to not just keep going but to turn it up all the way. So, I've got PAINTER 2019 here and starting a new chapter. The multitude of options are pretty much limitless. There is excellent support, and yes, the speed is much better than what I've been using (OK, I will admit HATING Illustrator and not getting the best out of my own vision. My good friend is an illustrator who works in Coral's Painter; I had an excellent guide and working artist to refer to. Mind is blown; there isn't anything I can't do here. Working on an Apple Mac Pro; have a color proofer for digital prints. Did I mention I did a few comics and a slew of illustrations for many years? Yeah. I knew a guy who did fantastic girlie pinup type illustrations, but he could not commit to going past the limits of what he could do in Photoshop; so does a very talented buddy as well. But I watched PAINTING and took the first tutorial; here is the feel of paint, and the process of building the piece, my first pastoral work. It was/is my first step past what's comfortable into what is self-demanded. My Wacom is a perfect friend here. I have no real idea what's next except that after many years of getting close, so far, Coral's latest Painter on a fast Mac is tremendously refreshing. I am completing my first novel, and the thought of approaching a couple of friends to do the cover(s) was on my mind; the reality here is now that I'll do it myself and get it 100% right. For the price ($375ish) and the infinite amount of support as well as help and samples, shared stuff with other pros and all in this great package, it's a little early, but you'll be seeing my best work soon... and that's after a lifetime at a board, canvas and electronic palette. Face Front, true believer; buy it and look me up; no limits. Let's change the landscape of graphic expectations. –Mark Braun, comic artist, cartoonist and Alex Ross' Phil Sheldon in MARVELS, Ted Kord in KINGDOM COME, etc.

It's a full version

I'm not here to write about this software how cool you can do with it. I'm a photographer wants to make my photographs into painting. (Still learning) I download from Corel website trial version for 30 days and I really like it. Even though I've very little background with painting but Auto Painting works like magic. Sure enough, I want to purchase before 30 days but it's $299 so it's holding me back a bit since I'm not a true Painter artist. And I found this on Amazon for $179 PC/Mac disc FULL version. Even PC or Mac download versions were $249 or something it's now $429.99 (at the time I'm writing this review) I don't know why it's way cheaper? Maybe they made too many discs and not too many ppl buy it? Maybe they don't have an optical drive anymore? Anyway, I found someone wrote at Q&A saying it's a full version. Yes!!! I trust Amazon and the worse case, I can return it. Not sure I can do that with software. Sure it's! it's a full version and I installed on PC & Mac they both works.

Painter 2019 is like a digital drawing toolkit, and much more

Drawing is my passion and hobby, and I worked as a graphic designer for many years. I still do my own graphics, and use different software. But I ordered Painter 2019 because I'm currently doing illustrations, and I heard so much about this program, but I've never used it before. After giving it a try, I admit that I'm impressed. It's like a hybrid of a digital drawing toolkit, and Photoshop. Yes, the interface is very similar to Photoshop, which I've been using for more than ten years. And Painter opens Photoshop (PSD) files preserving most of its original features. Also, if one used a tablet or a drawing pad, Painter is the most complete tool. It has such a vast selection and customization of tools, and brushes, that it took me a whole afternoon to try most of them. On the Corel Painter website there are multiple free tutorials and guides of how to use the program, and extra content is available for download. A fantastic tool for digital artists.

Noticeably Quicker than Last Years Version

I have been a big fan of Painter since the original “Paint Can” version by Fractal Designs for about 25 years. It has always been the absolute best pain program for amateurs and professionals. I admire the fact that they continually strive to improve it and add new functionality. Last years version added a ton of new stuff but this year seems to be more of a change in the interface aimed at making it easier to use and quicker. It claims to have dramatically improved processing speed, which is something I had hoped it would do. Even with a current PC with lots of memory it run the 2018 version rather slow when running processor demanding actions. Some of the filters demand a lot of processing power that can take a while to complete. I can attest to the fact this version is noticeably quicker on both my laptop and my tablet. They have also made some changes to the way it looks. Some may like the new but I am undecided. This is a premium piece of software and the price for the full version is quite high but I believe it is fair for what you get. I do however think the upgrade price for owners of the previous version should be lower. Have to shell out couple hundred dollars every year is a bit too much for non-professionals. I do understand that it takes money to put out a program such as this but perhaps non-professionals who do not use it to make money could be given a break so more and more beginners could see what it is like to use a real quality paint program. If you are not a previous owner eligible for an upgrade the full price may seem a bit steep but I assure that is worth it and I recommend it. If you have last years version its a harder call. I have notice they periodically lower the upgrade price to as low as $100, which is very reasonable and I do recommend the upgrade if you can catch one if these sales.

endless possibilities

I want to make it very clear starting out that I am not a professional or even a skilled digital artist- I just like to dabble and play. My 13 year old daughter is more serious about it than I am, and is heavy into anime and animation in general, and we both use this software for our specific desired outcome. I use it to manipulate reference photos and experiment with them, through adding shapes, texture, flattening them, changing colors, lines, and generally completely distorting them to move into an abstract composition, which I then paint on canvas. The more I use this software, though, the more I see that it will soon be very possible for me to compose and execute a finished piece *without* canvas and paint in the "real world"- there are so many capabilities within this software that I will be able to easily achieve the painterly and expressive results I want within a fully digital format. I guess I'm just not ready to give up the tactile feel of paint, but the results of using this software alone to create art and pretty darn beautiful. For my daughter, she's able to use this with her Wacos accessories and create flawless sketches which she works into finished pieces. I spent the first hour or so with this software trying every brush and color and seeing what it could do, my daughter simply began creating instantly, and had a really remarkable illustration done within several minutes. This software has *so* many different functions and so many tools and possibilities that I can't begin to describe it. The interface is similar to Photoshop, so it's comfortable to use if you are familiar with Photoshop. I have tried Illustrator a bunch of times (Adobe's "art" program) and never got the hang of it- this software works so much more intuitively for me. I feel like I can use it without being skilled at the software itself- with Illustrator I feel like in order to get a tiny bit of the functionality of that program, I need some sort of tutorial or course. With this, it's pretty much load-and-play.

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