Corel's new version of Corel Painter, scheduled for release in early May, was developed in close cooperation with a variety of professional artists. Many of its new features will help artists to digitally replicate natural media. For example, artists will be able to experiment with more than 400 new brushes and design their brushes interactively.
Just as a artist mixes paint on a palette, a new Mixer feature lets digital artists interactively mix their own colors. The Sketch Effect feature converts photos to pencil drawings, while giving artists control over the amount of paper grain, heaviness of the pencil line and level of detail.
The Digital Water Color feature is recommended for hand painting line drawings, touching up photographs, and creating simple watercolor washes.
Corel Painter 8 also provides enhanced support for opening and saving Adobe Photoshop files, including layer sets, masks and channels. The redesigned Layer Maks feature makes it possible to hide and reveal areas of a layer without making permanent changes. And, alpha channels can be used to create and store masks to modify, separate and preserve specific areas of an image.
The full version of Corel Painter 8 will have a suggested retail price of $299. Current Corel Painter users will be able to upgrade for $149. A special edition for educational institutions will be offered for $99. (Corel: www.corel.com/painter8)