[Dustin Brown]

I've used Photoshop since 3.0 and I love it, but I'm curious about Painter 7. Id like some of you Painter users out there to give me the long and skinny on what makes Painter so good. I'm not interested in features it has in common with Photoshop, I want to know what sets it apart from the rest. Under what circumstances would you choose to use Painter over Photoshop, and vice versa.

Thanks!
Dustin

[tilokani]

a few things i like about painter is that it mimics the tools so well. such as the water colours for example, they're very close to traditional watercolours, the inks look like inks, etc.. but a problem with it are the toolbars, they take up too much space in my opinion. i do my work in photoshop 7, which i prefer over painter, basically also since photoshop is more convenient, as in you can create your own brushes, add delete them at will. the filters in painter are a joke, even though filters aren't used in photoshop either, photoshop i think has sharper colours, more tools, also, Photoshop is used by more varied people, painter is mostly for the artist, while photoshop has the efficiency for graphic designers, web page designers, artists, etc.. that's basically all i know...

[Lunatique]

The best thing about Painter is its brush engine.

You can design your own brushes and tweak how you want them to behave--all of this at a level Photoshop can't even BEGIN to touch.

For example, you can create a brush, design how much paint it should carry, how much it blends with the paint already on the canvas, how thick or sparse the bristles are, how thick the paint is..etc.

[Dustin Brown]

Thank you both for your replies. Just so you know, I have read through the archives on this subject but I wanted some fresh perspectives as well to better help me to contrast the two in my head.

Any additional comments are welcome!
Dustin

[vurx]

hi!

photoshop is an image manipulation monolith, there is nothing that can touch its abilities. you can create graphics from scratch with it as well but its mainstay is taking existing pictures and changing them in some way.

painter is geared towards image creation. a lot of work has gone in to making the materials that you use as realistic as possible and it does an amazing job. a common complaint, however, is the gimpy interface. it takes a while to learn your way around the program and all the panels take up about half of the screen.

i use both tools in tandem, thanks to the powers that be painter supports psd files

-- vurx

[The Magic Pen]

Corel Photo Paint has all the same strengths as photoshop and many many of the best features in painter including the brush engine, but for some reason nobody uses it ..

[Jin]

Hi,

I like Painter for all of the reasons mentioned above.

The single thing I would never want to lose are Painter's drawing and painting tools (In Painter, referred to collectively as Brushes).

There's almost no limit to the kinds of custom brush variants the user can create, or to the setting adjustments the user can make, temporarily, to an existing brush variant. The setting adjustments mentioned in previous messages are only some of them.

For instance here are a few more (sorry if I repeat anything mentioned earlier):

A brush can be made to paint with Impasto depth and lighting, either positive or negative depth and with the proper setting adjustments, one stroke can be made to "plow through" another stroke.

A brush variant can be made to paint the beginning of a stroke, then "dry out", and become a blending brush, all without lifting the pen off the Canvas or Layer. Color saturation and blending ability can be controlled with pen pressure.

A brush can be made to pick up color from an underlying Layer.

Any brush can be turned into a Cloner and take color information from the current Pattern, another image, or another location in the same image.

Pattern Pen variants can be used to paint a Pattern (or any open image specified as the Clone Source) into a selection or anywhere in the image. They can be used to paint on a perspective plane.

Painter 7 Water Color technology allows us to lift any image to a Water Color Layer, then wet the entire Water Color Layer and the effect is based on whatever Water Color variant and Paper texture are chosen.. and whatever additional setting adjustments are made by the user to the Water Color variant and the Paper texture. Among other uses such as giving any image the look of a watercolor painting, this technique can allow a low resolution image to be rescaled to a higher resolution and pixelated edges made to "disappear" as the Water Color diffuses into the Paper texture.

Liquid Ink brushes have the unique quality of being "vector like" and when the image is rescaled to a higher resolution, Liquid Ink retains crisp anti-aliased edges. Liquid Ink can be made to splatter paint on the image. The Liquid Ink Resist variants can be used to paint a resist onto the Liquid Ink Layer, either before or after Liquid Ink paint is applied. Existing Liquid Ink colors can be softened (and blended), existing Liquid Ink edges can be softened, or both can be done at once with a single brush variant. As Liquid Ink Layers are dynamic, both the amount of thickness given to the brush strokes and density of the brush strokes can be adjusted at any time.

There's way too much more to say about Painter's brushes.. it takes years to learn everything about them.. but only a few minutes to begin enjoying them.

Painter's "filters" are found in the Effects and Canvas menus, and whether they're a "joke" or useful is really a subjective judgment. It depends on what the user is looking for (and used to finding), and can sometimes also depend on their skill level and experience with Painter. There are a lot of Effects and Canvas menu options that Painter owners use frequently, others not so frequently. Among them are, Fill; Tonal Controls (color.. Photoshop generally does this better than Painter); Surface Controls - Apply Lighting, Apply Surface Texture, Dye Concentration, Color Overlay, Express Texture, Woodcut and Serigraphy Effect; Focus - including several Blur and Sharpen options, Glass Distortion, and others; Esoterica - Marbling, Blobs, Growth, Custom Tile, and others; Objects - Create Drop Shadow and Align. In the Canvas menu, Make Mosaics and Make Tesselation.

Most Photoshop filters and many other filters can also be used in Painter.

Painter Scripts feature can be used to record a script of a painting, then the Script played back into movie frames and saved as a QuickTime or AVI file, or an animated GIF. Scripts can also be used to record frequently used sets of operations, the Script icon placed in a Custom Palette, and used as needed.

Everyone agrees that Painter's palettes are a bit overwhelming and space hogging. However, there are a lot of ways to manage them and leave the Painter screen clear for work, opening palettes with a single click on an icon or a keystroke only when they're needed.

The best of both worlds would be to own both Photoshop and Painter and use each program for what it does best.

More than you wanted to know, probably.. or if there was something special and I didn't mention it.. less than you wanted to know. Hope it helps, anyway.

[-HoodZ-]

i like painter its just that i need to get used to it...cuz right now my stuff looks like crap....practice....practice...pra **...

[spooge demon]

I feel like painter is a machine designed by genius aliens with a sense of humor. I know that it can do amazing things, but it is just as likely to blow my arm off.

I find that I undo each stroke about 10 times before I coax it to do something like what I had in mind. But it also does things that I never would have thought of, so you have to be patient and listen to it.

The number of interactive variables makes it powerful, but also very difficult to control. It takes a lot of time to get somewhere with it. Many times I change a variable and nothing happens!

Up to version 7, pen pressure never worked, it was very slow and every session ended with a crash (on a mac). It is better in all those respects now.

Jin, it is really nice to see you spending so much time promoting it. Your enthusiasm has helped me get going with it and put up with the really steep beginning of the curve. Thanks!

[Jin]

spooge,

Thanks so much for saying that! I often wonder how welcome I am here since I'm neither anywhere near the general age group, nor am I working toward the kind of art you all do. I'm retired from almost 28 years working as a tech illustrator and graphic artist in Silicon Valley, as of last December a great grandma.. and have 5 grandkids. I can't tell you how glad I am to be retired and have time to do things that mean something to me personally.. time to follow my heart instead of doing things just to earn a living whether or not I liked doing them!

I'm here for a couple of reasons:

1. Painter is obviously my love when it comes to digital art software and I love sharing it... have been for several years. Though I have taught Painter online for a fee, and plan to do so again, the vast majority of my free time for the past several years has been spent helping others to learn and enjoy Painter on most of the Painter related lists, newsgroups, and forums.. and sharing tutorials and other Painter information at PixelAlley.. for free.

2. There's a lot to learn and enjoy here at Sijun. It's a great resource for any artist, either digital or traditional.. or both.

Thanks for putting up with me.

[Torstein Nordstrand]

You're a great asset, Jin. I always read your posts, no matter how long they are

I've just started messing with Painter, and I must say it's a fun adventure (if you like, peak at my newest experiments in the Finished section's "Self-portrait" thread). I use a dual monitor setup, and by streching the program window over to the other screen the interface doesn't feel as cluttered anymore. If the Procreate guys would make an intuitive interface, and really acknowledge the fact that most new users have some basic Photoshop experience before they try Painter out, Painter would rule the 2D digital artworld

That said, why the devil can't I rotate my whole canvas 90 degrees? And what's with the terrible low-quality zoom-resampling?! Grr... things like that keeps Painter down...

So I second the statement that PS and P in tandem is the way to go. For now!

[Lunatique]

Spooge- I went through a period of total confusion with Painter too, but after getting some pointers from Pat and Jin, I came up with the simplest brush control setup.

In edit/preferences/palettes/brush controls, the only thing I keep are General, Size, Expression, and Well. The rest I just get rid of. I also turn all the Impasto stuff off so I don't have to deal with it slowing things down. I just take all the impasto brushes I use and change the impasto in brush control from Draw To [depth] to [color] instead. After that, I just get rid of the Impasto section from the brush control altogether.

There are also other stuff you can turn off or get rid of in the palette section in edit/preferences.

Here's what my current setup looks like. I can access everything I need from this setup:

[B0b]

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Magic Pen:
Corel Photo Paint has all the same strengths as photoshop and many many of the best features in painter including the brush engine, but for some reason nobody uses it ..

---

Painter 7 is made by corel

oh and M$ own corel.. (so any of those users out there who use Corel Linux and Corel WordPerfect cos they don't want to use a M$ product... MOCK! )

[ September 23, 2002: Message edited by: B0b ]

[beat]

the color wheel is the most intuitive way ( for me, so far ) to pick up my colors - I can't live without it. failed at photoshop for that single reason. Brushes and all that are good, of course. I'll read carefully your post ( lunantique, jin ) ...gotta get rid of all the unnecessary crap on my work space, too.

[Torstein Nordstrand]

Painter 7 is now in the hands of Procreate though it used to be Metacreations', who adopted it from Corel. Probably has an even longer history.

Spooge: Pen pressure still blinks out from time to time, especially when another program activates itself in the background. Still, most times the simple ALT+TAB, ALT+TAB returns sensitivity. Ehrm, I mean switching to another program and back again (for you fruit users out there, who probably don't have the same Win interface?)

Beat: I agree, the colour wheel is great, but it's a real drag to pick the darkest tones... one pixel to the side and you've got a vastly different visual. In Photoshop I use the HSB sliders for colours. They're pretty neat.

Lunatique, you can probably remove the palette on the bottom, since you've already got size and opacity sliders available on Brush Controls. Right now, I don't have enough control to really know what I should discard from the palettes, you know? Like, should I really just forget about hair clumpiness? I should probably spend some time reading the manual, and some years tweaking settings to know what I'm really looking to achieve... Thanks anyway

[-HoodZ-]

Jin your appreciated here...you have tons of info on a program that frustates the hell out of me ive been practicing with the program for a few days and hopefully i have something to post maybe this week

[ September 23, 2002: Message edited by: -HoodZ- ]

[eyewoo]

Jin... WOW! Being in my (early) sixth decade, I thought I was the old fart in these here digital hallways... but I think you may have been on the planet longer than I.

I admire your tenacious love of Painter... I've tried it off and on, version 4 througfh 6, and have never been able to warm up to it. Perhaps I should upgrade and try 7... Other than the interface, my main problem with the program is in the way it handles layers - this kind'a layer and that kind'a layer... with senility kicking in, it just gets so confusing... ha ha ha, just kidding on the senility... but not the confusion...

[ September 23, 2002: Message edited by: eyewoo ]

[Lunatique]

Torstein- I keep the control on the bottom because it's got the freehand/straight line, and the foreground/background color switch.

[ September 23, 2002: Message edited by: Lunatique ]

[Markus]

YAY JIN!
Great comments, great Painter reference site! I didn't catch this thread until now (obviously), but you nailed all the important stuff. Thanks for posting.

The only comment I'll add is the advantage of "keyboard shortcuts" and "custom palettes" -- between custom palettes and keyboard shortcuts 95% of the dialog-box clutter can be reduced, leaving your screen free and clean; even more than Photoshop, imho. All your commands are one click or one keystroke away, including layer commands. The only control I keep open is the color-picker, everything else is a keystroke or pen-click away while I'm in the drawing.

[Jin]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Torstein Nordstrand:
You're a great asset, Jin. I always read your posts, no matter how long they are

I've just started messing with Painter, and I must say it's a fun adventure (if you like, peak at my newest experiments in the Finished section's "Self-portrait" thread). I use a dual monitor setup, and by streching the program window over to the other screen the interface doesn't feel as cluttered anymore. If the Procreate guys would make an intuitive interface, and really acknowledge the fact that most new users have some basic Photoshop experience before they try Painter out, Painter would rule the 2D digital artworld

That said, why the devil can't I rotate my whole canvas 90 degrees? And what's with the terrible low-quality zoom-resampling?! Grr... things like that keeps Painter down...

So I second the statement that PS and P in tandem is the way to go. For now!

---

Torstein,

Thanks for your kind comment... and.... you're not the first to tease me (or complain) about my lengthy messages.

While I agree Painter's palettes are a pain, particularly before we learn how to manage them, I have to say that for me, Photoshop is equally non-intuitive with its palettes. I think it has a lot to do with what we learn first, then how well we learn to manage palettes, etc. There really are several ways to make Painter's palettes behave so we can work comfortably:

F and F-Shift keys programmed to perform various main menu and palette menu commands

Ctrl/Command+ 1 (and other numbers to toggle palettes open and closed)

Saved Palette Layouts for various kinds of projects

Custom Palettes containing library icons and menu command buttons

In Painter 7, taking advantage of the option to display (or not display) Palette sections in the Art Materials, Objects, and Brush Controls palettes

Unfortunately, Painter doesn't allow us to rotate the Canvas independant of whatever is above it (Layers, Shapes, etc.). However, for ease when working at odd angles, we can use the Rotate Page tool to rotate the image temporarily, then click in the image to return it to its upright position.

The Zoom problems (including pixelated displays) seem to have arrived with the developers attempt to give us improved Zoom capabilities (still very buggy!): Continuous Zoom, etc. The Painter 7 Update was supposed to have fixed these problems but it only fixed a little of the collection of bugs in the Zoom feature.

If you want to request changes/improvements in Painter 8, write directly to Corel Painter Program Manager Tanya Staples at:

[email protected]

Over in the Painter Can forum at In Depth Discussions, and on some of the other Painter lists/newsgroups, we've been sending in requests and problem reports for quite a while now, and Tanya says it's a great help to them.

[Malachi Maloney]

Damn, I haven't used Painter since PainterClassic and I'm amazed at how similar all the pallets look in version 7. They're virtually identical.

[Jin]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Torstein Nordstrand:
Painter 7 is now in the hands of Procreate though it used to be Metacreations', who adopted it from Corel. Probably has an even longer history.

---

Painter was invented by Mark Zimmer, owner of Fractal Design in Soquel, CA and first sold in 1991.

Later, Fractal Design and another company (the name of which I can't recall at the moment) formed Metacreations. The developers Mark Zimmer, Tom Hedges, and John Derry were there from the beginning at Fractal Design, then through Metacreations' ownership of Painter and the other graphics products.

In December 1999, shortly after Painter 6 was released, Metacreations announced it would be selling its graphics software and was looking for a buyer (buyers?). In Spring 2000, Corel bought Painter, Bryce, and KPT FX.

Also in Spring 2000, the three developers (Mark Zimmer, Tom Hedges, and John Derry) left Metacreations to form their own company,fractal.com at http://www.fractal.com (where you can read about them and see what they look like). They contracted to work with Corel through development of Painter 7 (which had already begun at Metacreadions).

I don't know, yet, if they're working on, or are going to work on, Painter 8 as well, but would be surprised if they don't.

Corel still owns Painter, including all versions as well as Painter Classic, and after their purchase of Painter, they only sold and supported Painter 6. With release of Painter 7, the only version they sell and support is Painter 7.

Procreate is a division of Corel that manages their graphics software, so if you should, for instance, call Corel Corporation at 1-800-772-6735, you can connect to Procreate for Painter Customer Service or Tech Support. It's the same if you write to Corel Painter Program Manager Tanya Staples at [email protected]. Though she works for Corel, it's the same company and she's working with Painter.

quote

Quote:

Beat: I agree, the colour wheel is great, but it's a real drag to pick the darkest tones... one pixel to the side and you've got a vastly different visual. In Photoshop I use the HSB sliders for colours. They're pretty neat.

Have you tried using the Art Materials palette's RGB Color section sliders to choose colors more accurately? I know it's not the best solution, but it's a step in the right direction, at least.

Also, there are some neat ways to mix colors, then pick anywhere in the mix and add the color to a custom Color Set to keep and use with continuing development of your image. A few tutorials at PixelAlley that might help some of you with creating custom Color Sets:

Using Color Sets http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/colorsets-pg1.html

Creating Custom Color Sets http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/custom-color-set.html

Mixing Two Colors on a Brush to Paint Hair http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/mixing2colors_on_brush_to_paint_hair.html

In the Painter Can forum at IDD the following threads include tutorials for various ways of mixing colors (click the Search link at the top of the page, type "Color Mixing, and look for these thread names):

Quick Color Mixing Method - All Painter Versions

Best way to mix color anyone? (includes two or three methods)

quote

Quote:

Lunatique, you can probably remove the palette on the bottom, since you've already got size and opacity sliders available on Brush Controls. Right now, I don't have enough control to really know what I should discard from the palettes, you know? Like, should I really just forget about hair clumpiness? I should probably spend some time reading the manual, and some years tweaking settings to know what I'm really looking to achieve... Thanks anyway

Until a Painter user knows the program well, I'd recommend keeping the majority of palette sections available (displaying). The only two I don't have displaying are Weaves and Net Painter since I never use Net Painter any more and only rarely use Weaves. A couple of example reasons (among many) are:

If you shut down the General section of the Brush Controls palette and depend on using the Controls:Brush palette, you're losing the ability to change Dab Type, Stroke Type, Method, Subcategory, and Source (of color information).

If you shut down the Size section, you lose the ability to see a preview of the brush dab, choose the brush dab profile, set the Min Size, Size Step, and Feature (this slider adjusts density of bristles and consequently can be used to affect both appearance and speed of the brush stroke).

In addition to the other ways I mention in my previous message, to manage palettes, here are another three:

Hold down the Shift key and click any right pointing triangle on the left side of the Art Materials, Objects, or Brush Controls palette sections' name bars to close all palette sections. Shift-Click again to open all palette sections. To open only one section, simply click the appropriate right pointing triangle. If you get too many open at once, remember to hold down the Shift key again and click one of the palette's left side triangles to close all sections again.

To arrange your palette sections with the most used sections at the top, click the section's name bar and hold while dragging it to the top of the palette (or downward in the palette). They can be rearranged using this method any time you want.

[Jin]

HoodZ,

Thanks!

eyewoo,

You're right. I've been on this planet longer than anyone! (or so it feels at times).

About confusion:

Practice helps.. in fact it's the only way to become unconfused when combined with asking a lot of questions.

About "senility":

Breaking out of old habits helps. Allowing ourselves to be continually challenged helps. Being always open to, and actually, learning helps. Being inquisitive and determined to find out whatever.. helps.

In other words, keep the old brain working!

Lunatique,

In addition to using Torstein's suggestion, Shift-X to switch Primary Color and Secondary Color, use the "B" key for freehand painting and the "V" key for straight lines.

Markus,

Glad you found the interface pages helpful.

Thanks for reiterating what I've been trying to get across!

Using what's available for managing Painter palettes can both leave the Painter screen open for working and make working in Painter comfortable, convenient, and efficient.

Malachi,

While, at a glance, Painter Classic palettes and full Painter version palettes appear to be nearly identical, full Painter version palettes offer vastly more functionality. This goes for main menus as well. In full Painter versions there are not only more commands available in the same menus, there are additional menus as well, providing a great deal more functionality than in Painter Classic.

There's barely more than a surface comparison possible between Painter Classic and full Painter version, except that Painter Classic does have some nice brushes and also has the Clone/Clone painting feature.

P.S. You'll all be happy to know that I need to go take care of some pressing personal business and won't be hogging this thread for a while.. at least for a few hours.

Love,

[Torstein Nordstrand]

Don't worry, I can handle valuable information in unlimited doses from you any time. My instincts know that the JIN-signature brings valuable information. Must be frustrating having so much knowledge, and all of us walking around with blinds, mumbling irritated about Painter's shortcomings. I shouldn't just rely on you for tips and lengthy reports, I should investigate myself.

I tried the RGB-palette, but unfortunately found it equally bothersome. I might have to tinker some more with it though, it just forces me to think yet another way about colour mixing values.

Again, thanks a bunch!

[Lunatique]

Ooh, with the B and V, I can close one more window! Thanks, Jin!

[Torstein Nordstrand]

Eyewoo: Painter is confusing for people at all ages... even us in our mid twenties

Lunatique: To switch foreground and background colour, you can hit 'Shift-X'.

...which is another of those little things that pops up to remind us that Painter isn't completely willing to cooperate When I'm switching all the time between P and PS, I find myself mixing the shortcuts that are similar (in PS switching back-/foreground is just 'X').

[Malachi Maloney]

Thanks for the info, Jin.

Yea, I assumed that the newer versions of Painter obviously have more options, not to mention the use of layers and such.
I guess it's mostly that color wheel. Every time I see it, I think PainterClassic.


~M~

[Storm Crow]

OKay, since this has become a Q&A about Painter, I have one question.

1. Does Painter 7 support Dual-monitors?

[Torstein Nordstrand]

It does indeed, though not very efficently. With PS you can move palettes outside the main program window. Well, not so with Painter. So you'll have to unmaximize Painter and drag the side of the program window over to your second display. Then you can put palettes there. One sec... here ya go:

[Storm Crow]

Thank you!! You answered my question perfectly.

Now it should make things a bit nicer working on two monitor in Painter as well as PS.

(Nice picture by the way!)

[ September 24, 2002: Message edited by: Storm Crow ]