[Bomu]

A lot of digital artists use Painter, although I've never used it myself. I thought I'd have a go, but which one do I choose? There's a MetaCreations Painter, a Corel Painter and a Procreate Painter and probably more- which is "the one"?

Cheers

[Asurfael]

well i'm using the metacreations one, it's ok for me. Corel painter is good too i've heard, and I *think* that's the most commonly used one. Not sure about it. But i think any of those would work.

[balistic]

The Procreate one is the Corel one . . . Procreate is a division Corel started to work on the apps the purchased from Metacreations (Bryce and Painter). The newest version of Painter is 7.

[BooMSticK]

Yes, as Balistic say, Corel bought rights to the Painter name from Metacreations just after Metacreations launched Painter 6. Corel has only done version 7 (under the procreate label) and the updates to Painter 6. Painter 6 and lower numbered versions is all Metacreations.
,boom

[Bomu]

I see... so they're all the same software.

Any one know where I could find a serial for painter 7? There's nothing illegal about a number is there? ^_~

[Jin]

Hi,

There's something very illegal about using a Painter serial number when you don't own Painter. Buy the software, whatever version, and have the full software, a clear conscience, and be eligible for upgrade pricing and tech support.

If you want to try Painter, there's a free 30 day demo version of Painter 7 available at:
http://www.procreate.com/go/painter_trial/

Though all of the versions mentioned above, Metacreations, Corel, and Procreate, are the same software, the versions are not at all the same.

Painter 7 is the only version currently sold or supported by Corel/Procreate. Its Water Color technology is all new and different from earlier versions, and quite amazing. It also has two new kinds of brushes, Liquid Ink and Tinting, each of which has a large number of variants (as does the Water Color Brush Category).

Liquid Ink, according to Painter developer John Derry, is "vector-like". You can re-scale a Liquid Ink image up to a higher resolution and it will re-render with crisp anti-aliased edges.

Both Water Color brushes and Liquid Ink brushes work on their own Layer types: Water Color Layers and Liquid Ink Layers. Double clicking on the Liquid Ink Layer name (in the Layers list) opens the Layer Attributes dialog box where the Amount slider controls Depth of the brush strokes and the Threshold slider controls density of the brush strokes, on that Liquid Ink Layer.

The Canvas (background) can be lifted to a Water Color Layer, then if you choose a particular Water Color brush variant and Paper, then apply Wet Entire Water Color Layer, the image will take on a watercolor painting look. The appearance depends on the particular Water Color brush variant and Paper combination, as Water Color brushes interact with the Paper texture.

There are two new Effects included in Painter 7 as well, Distress and Serigraphy Effect. The Woodcut feature was introduced with the Painter 6.1 patch.

Lots more to know about Painter 7, and even if you don't try the free 30 day demo, you can read about it and see some screen prints on the following pages:
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/news/painter7/
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/news/story.asp?newsFeature=30207
http://www.macaddict.com/issues/0111/rev.painter7.html