Corel Painter 11 Expert Reviews

Painter has been around the computer graphics world almost as long as Photoshop and has always been the absolute leader in the realm of simulating natural media (paintbrushes, pencils, inks, and so on)-and retains the title to this very day. While ...

Faster paintbrush response. Excellent natural media tools. Useful interface tweaks

Unimpressive as an upgrade to previous versions. High upgrade cost

If you've just purchased your first graphics tablet or want the most capable natural media painting tool on the Mac, Painter is still your primary choice, but as an update to a venerable and important computer graphics program, Painter 11 doesn't ...

In this newest version of Painter, users will see a marked increase in speed along with 40 new Natural-Media brushes, more intuitive brush customization, resizable Colors and Mixer palettes, PNG support, and a ton of other time-saving features.

Faster performance ; new Real brushes ; enhanced selections and transformations ; improved color management ; resizable color palettes ; PNG support ; e-mail within the program

Large size brushes still slow to load

By adding this level of functionality, Corel proves that it not only listens to the feedback of its community of artists, art students and teachers, designers, and photographers, but it seeks to make them more productive as well

The best just keep getting better, and in the case of Painter 11, it even got a little faster, too. In this newest version of...

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By shunning the temptation to be all things to all users, some programs manage to retain their purity, focusing on what they do best. Corel Painter 11 is one of these applications, and as such it is an invaluable artist's tool. It isn't for ...

More brush tools. Support for color profiles, PNG files. Resizable color wheel. Helpful online tutorials

No 64-bit version yet. For beginners, learning will take time

One of the most advanced artist's toolboxes available in this medium adds a few more tools, including customizable crayons and pastels. Not revolutionary, but a well-honed update.

As close as it gets to painting on screen

Colour build effect ; stroke width linked to stroke speed ; easier collaboration with Photoshop

No new major features ; tools take some learning ; needs a good, big graphics tablet

Not a lot of innovation in this release, and it's expensive for newcomers

Super-realistic new hard media tools, better Photoshop support

Interface remains cluttered, priced for professionals (not amateurs)

Corel Painter 11 is a worthwhile upgrade overall - and a must if you have a Wacom Intuous or Cintiq tablet and use its virtual pencils, chalk, pastels and other nonpaint tools to do sketching.

Evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, updates for this veteran graphics application

Improved performance ; new 'hard media' tools for sketching

The complex interface is showing its age

A powerful and versatile graphics program, but it will take time and effort to master

Corel Painter is the leading natural media painting program for Windows and over the years its feature-set has expanded with each new version. Its range of brushes, markers and other drawing tools makes very good use ...

The new features in Painter 11 are good to have and may make you more productive, particularly if you regularly move between Painter and Photoshop, but it still feels more like Painter X.5. At £137, the upgrade is reasonably priced and, even for new ...

A criminally thin upgrade that adds almost nothing to Painter's existing creative power.

For producing digital artwork that emulates natural media - oils, acrylics, pastels chalk and the like - no application has ever matched Corel's Painter. Its strength as a niche program lies in its ability to emulate these materials in their real ...

As it is, this is not an upgrade that's going to be snapped up by existing users. For commercial artists, the most useful new feature - colour management - is a fundamental requirement, albeit one they've lived without until now. The rest doesn't add ...