Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant unique program
Review: Overview.This is a serious program and not for the faint hearted, but has great potential for anyone who needs or wants a program that seems to offer things that are not available in any other program. Mac and Windows platforms are supported. Features. Contains elements of other graphics programs such as Corel Graphics Suite 11, or Adobe's graphics programs, but adds much more. The learning curve is steep, but if you started using an industry standard program of any sort, you would expect that. The choices you are offered in the way of colours, brushes, textures, papers, etc is quite staggering. Layers are supported and importing images and masks from other programs such as Photoshop, saves any alpha channels in the layers. You can then export the masks and selections back to those programs. The best manual that I have seen come packaged with a program consists of 430 pages of full colour images and detailed descriptions. You may not even need a second manual as you do with most programs of this calibre. The book consists of 20 sections, and these are very detailed. Also included is a list of keyboard shortcuts on a separate sheet which is very handy. Corel seem to supply these with all their programs and I consider them a great, but simple enhancement to any program. Some good lessons are included in the two Cd ROMS that come with the package, and there are more lessons online. Painter 7 is not just for painting as it contains Web features such as slicing images, and creating rollovers, and saving for the Web. Animation and video are also covered, and with scripting, an effect that you create for one frame of your movie, can be applied to the entire movie. Avi, QuickTime, and animated gif files are all supported. Masking can be applied to entire videos. Vector drawing tools are supplied and Bezier curves utilised before stroking paths in a variety of ways, not just a straight colour. All brushes are customizable, and if you own an airbrush stylus for a drawing tablet, then the angle of the airbrush can be replicated on screen. You can still set angles for this manually if using a mouse though. Not only the brushes, but just about everything you use in this program allows customising, so you don't have to use any of the presets if you don't want. Creating your own brushes and dabs and colour profiles are just part of the enhancements. This version also introduces new Water Colour Technology, Enhanced Colour Management allows changing from CMYK to RGB and back again without too much change in colour. Text is easy to use and manipulate and alter, and curved text, blends and surface textures are all supported and can be altered individually on their separate layers. Description. Painter 7 is a painting program, not a paint program like Photoshop and Corel PHOTO PAINT, which are bitmap image manipulation programs, and is not just a vector based drawing program like Corel DRAW! or Illustrator either. It combines elements of these, then goes in a different direction, thus creating it's own niche. Water colours are incredibly realistic, as are oils and inks, and brush strokes which can be altered as you use them give a virtual artist's studio on your computer. Bottom Line. For an artist, this program offers the ability to paint or draw in any medium, on any common surface texture, using either a mouse or graphics tablet. It gives real-time effects such as moisture penetration that you would get if using standard paints, brushes, pastels etc. For an artist, I would definitely recommend looking at this as a means of mixing skills that have been picked up and adapted from other graphics programs, even if this is not quite like any other high end computer program. There doesn't seem much that you can't do with this program in a two dimensional sense, apart from creating .swf files. What it does do is really great though. Added to other top end commercial graphics programs you can do wonderful things.
Rating:
Summary: Painting My Life Away
Review: This is one incredible program! The best way to describe it is that it's an entire art studio (plus a photo editor and web publisher) on a disc. From chalk and crayon to paint and even water color (!) this program handles it all. I've been amazed with the high quality images I've been able to create. The dregee of subtlty I'm able to achieve when blending and smearing is incredible. I've already posted some things on the web and have just foud out that the program also lets you create basic animation! These animations can be created in the frame rate of your choosing and be exported as Quicktime,AVI (windows only) or GIFs for posting on the web. That's taking things to the next level! Professional and serious artists will get the most out of this software since it follows many of the same rules that apply to using actual paints and papers (watercolors run and require 'drying' time). But other users should be able to pick up the basic techniques and be able to create some terrific art. The interface with OS X is easy on the eyes and very responsive. If your looking for the best painting program available, well your search has ended. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination.
Rating:
Summary: Painting My Life Away
Review: This is one incredible program! The best way to describe it is that it's an entire art studio (plus a photo editor and web publisher) on a disc. From chalk and crayon to paint and even water color (!) this program handles it all. I've been amazed with the high quality images I've been able to create. The dregee of subtlty I'm able to achieve when blending and smearing is incredible. I've already posted some things on the web and have just foud out that the program also lets you create basic animation! These animations can be created in the frame rate of your choosing and be exported as Quicktime,AVI (windows only) or GIFs for posting on the web. That's taking things to the next level! Professional and serious artists will get the most out of this software since it follows many of the same rules that apply to using actual paints and papers (watercolors run and require 'drying' time). But other users should be able to pick up the basic techniques and be able to create some terrific art. The interface with OS X is easy on the eyes and very responsive. If your looking for the best painting program available, well your search has ended. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination.
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