Painter 8 Creativity: Digital Artist's Handbook

Rating:
Summary: Good but not what I was looking for
Review: Painter Creativity - Digital Artist's Handbook
By Jeremy Sutton

This book written for version 8 of Corel "Painter" is exceptionally good. I am a user of Painter, but I feel had I never seen the program before, I could take this and work my way from beginning to end and know enough about the program by the end to be fairly proficient in its use. It is written from the student's standpoint and takes you through the basics carefully and gives a solid foundation. It is a "must have" for all Painter 8 users. In my opinion Jeremy Sutton is THE expert of this wonderful program and this, his latest book, is a joy to have in my library.

Rating:
Summary: Review of Painter Creativity Digital Artist's Handbook
Review: Painter Creativity - Digital Artist's Handbook
By Jeremy Sutton

This book written for version 8 of Corel "Painter" is exceptionally good. I am a user of Painter, but I feel had I never seen the program before, I could take this and work my way from beginning to end and know enough about the program by the end to be fairly proficient in its use. It is written from the student's standpoint and takes you through the basics carefully and gives a solid foundation. It is a "must have" for all Painter 8 users. In my opinion Jeremy Sutton is THE expert of this wonderful program and this, his latest book, is a joy to have in my library.

Rating:
Summary: Good for Beginners, But Not the Best
Review: There's nothing particularly wrong with this book, but it's just not the best on the shelf. As a "power user" of Photoshop and Painter, I make my living at computer illustration. As a teacher of pixel based applications, I am asked what books work and which ones aren't quite as good. I keep my library full of "how-to" books on all types of graphics applications, gleaning what I can from all sources.

This is a decent book for people who aren't going to be totally immersed - dabblers. It is a bit difficult to navigate, with small pictures and lots of text. (I really like books that lay open on their own as I work with the application in real time.) In classes I'm interested in hands on, visual examples accompanied with the building blocks of what makes an application tick. I want the meat of 1) the purpose of the app 2) the structure of the app and 3) the tools of the app. I want it on a comprehesive scale with professional examples I can work into my own art style, bringing me efficiently to a place where I am running the application more than the application is running me.

The greatest strength of the book is to make one -feel- like one can overcome Painter's very tough learning curve, but it's greatest weakness is that it's doesn't truly equip the reader beyond just the mere basics. Mr. Sutton's engaging personality comes through for a fun read. Still, while I might feel great, I want my art to be better and my confusion abated. For some students the emotional confidence is vitally important, and for those people this is a decent place to start, but to really get one's teeth into the application there are better titles available.

Two stars may be a bit harsh for the book for the casual Painter user, but heck, I also gave Paul McCartney's "Live in the USA" DVD 2 stars. Tough customer?

Rating:
Summary: Good but not what I was looking for
Review: This book is great for certain excercises, but it is not what I was looking for. This book is great for those interested in expressive or moderately abstract work through painter. However if you are interested in a more realistic style this book is not what you are looking for. For example, the author talks briefly about how colors interact in natural environments and natural color theory, but spends a whole chapter on using colors in abstract methods. That is fine and dandy unless you wanted something to help you learn how to take advantage of things like Painter 8's mixer pallate to create accurate colors to life. Similarly, each chapter touches briefly on skills of observation etc but focuses on abstraction. For what I am looking for, the book has some good material, but has been a dissapointment overall. If you are looking to find your niche in creativity and style this book is for you. If you feel you have found your area of interest and that is not in abstraction than this book is not for you.