Using Wacom Pen tablet with Corel Painter

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Corel Painter - Water Rake Variant

One of my favorite oil-painting brushes in Corel Painter is not filed under Oils but hiding in the Blenders brush category—the Water Rake variant. As a Blender brush, the Water Rake blends colors in an image in the form of oil-paint strokes.

You can also use it to paint color. To do so, set the Resat slider in the Property Bar to 33%, choose a color in the Colors palette and paint. The brush stroke resembles an oil painting technique.

How to Save Custom Brush Variants in Corel Painter

Among the many questions new Corel Painter users ask is:

"How can I save brushes?"

Below is an edited version of my response to a new Painter user who asked this question recently:


With the brush variant you want to save selected:

1. Go to the Brush Selector menu and choose Save Variant.

2. Type a unique name not already used by Painter.

3. Click the OK button. Now your custom brush variant is saved.


With the original brush variant selected (the one to which you made brush control adjustments):

Go to the Brush Selector menu and choose Restore Default Variant.

Now the original brush variant is returned to its default state.


Suggestion:

Go to the Help menu and choose Help Topics. Then read the chapters listed on the Contents tab, starting at the top and progressing down the list of chapters. Read them in this order because they're arranged so the most basic information for newcomers to Painter is listed first.

Use the Favorites tab to bookmark pages you'll want to return to later.

Make a habit of reading Help Topics at least a few minutes each day.

This will help you feel more comfortable and confident with Painter faster than waiting for answers to questions posted in forums or newsgroups.

Sometimes you may either have trouble finding something in Help Topics or not understand the information provided. When that happens, post a question in the forum or newsgroup you visit and be very specific about what it is you want to know, what you want to do, the brush category and brush variant you're using (by exact names), provide a description of your image, and any other details that will help us to help you.

Corel Painter and Photoshop

Let’s first look at Photoshop and the CS package and what it has to offer on advantages.

The CS Advantage..

The new Adobe Creative Suite combines Adobe's graphics applications and an efficient workflow that answers the needs of nearly every creative professional, from conceptualization to implementation, from print to Web. Whats great about this pack of programs is that not only do designers get one program at a time; rather, a whole suite of the latest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and GoLive software.

The Creative Suite is Adobe's attempt to bind the applications together. Now, Adobe's creative products use not only the same graphics engine but also the same type and color-management engines. Files that are created in one application can open easily in others with all their features intact. With a consistent user interface, moving from one application to another is easy.

And holding it all together is the new file-management and version-tracking technology Version Cue. The Version Cue lets you create and publish content for print and the Web faster, more easily, and more affordably. That's why Adobe is introducing this one whole package as "the complete design environment for print and Web publishing".

Adobe Photoshop for image editing- easily manage your images with the improved File Browser, quickly share design variations with Layer Comps, and instantly improve contrast with Shadow/Highlight correction; perform more precise editing and retouching with expanded support for 16-bit images and monitor changes to your image in the Histogram palette, which dynamically updates as you make adjustments.

Adobe Illustrator for drawing and vector graphics- with powerful new 3D features, advanced typographical controls, and a host of groundbreaking new design tools, this powerful upgrade from Illustrator 10 delivers the performance you need to make the most of your creativity; import Photoshop image compositions directly to Illustrator- or create drawings in Illustrator and import them directly into Photoshop; create native Adobe Portable Document Format files using settings and options consistent with Adobe Acrobat Distiller software and get fast, consistent print results with features like Fit to Page, Print Preview, and support for Print Settings.

Adobe InDesign for page layout and design, and Adobe GoLive for Web layout- import your native vector and bitmap artwork directly into InDesign CS software for sophisticated print layouts or into Adobe GoLive CS software for powerful web pages. With the support of Adobe PDF and XML, you can easily output your pages to both print and the Web.

The Corel Advantage…

With the introduction of Corel Painter IX, commercial designers, photographers, and professional artists are able to use their natural talents and techniques to create breathtaking works of art. Corel ensures that the new program is a must-have software for creative professionals, whether they're in film making, game development, commercial design, illustration, photography, or even fine arts.

With regards to performance and productivity, the Corel Painter IX boasts of significantly improved speed, new and enhanced Brush Control Palettes, Frames-per-Second Control, and Customizable Shortcut Keys. Professional users can extend their creative possibilities with new enhancements that include Artists' Oils Painting System, Snap-to-Path Painting, improved Digital Watercolor, and Quick Clone.

What is exciting about this new software is that the Corel Painter IX is more compatible with other professional technologies, providing enhanced support to Adobe Photoshop, Wacom (including the Wacom Intuos3), and Color Management.

What's more, getting started is easier than ever. Corel has provided various support guides to help end-users control their fear of tackling a seemingly intricate world of softwares and programs. Corel has provided a revitalized User Guide, the Painter IX Handbook that includes tutorials from leading creative professionals, access to free training videos, and academic courseware specifically designed for educators.

With powerful applications such as the Adobe CS and Corel, artists and designers alike can now combine both worlds of traditional art and sophisticated technology. The intricate tones of traditional art skills and techniques they've developed during their formation years as artists can be integrated with the incredible benefits that digital media can provide. Every creation can now be worthy of the exaltations and awe reserved for those found in galleries and exhibits. In addition, these art forms are now made at a faster and quicker rate than their original counterparts.

Customizing Corel Painter: Shortcut Keys

Corel Painter offers creative professionals an unprecedented level of control over their workflow by enabling complete customization of shortcut keys. You can save time by assigning your favorite commands to keys on your keyboard for immediate access. Along with character, numeric, function, and modifier keys, you can also use Tab, Backspace (Windows®), Delete, Insert, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Left Arrow, Right Arrow, and Spacebar. When assigning a command, you can over-write keys already used for other shortcuts.

You can also create a collection of keyboard shortcuts, or key sets, based on changes to the default key set. For easy reference, you can generate and print an HTML summary of a key set.

The Customize Keys dialog box lets you assign your favorite commands to shortcut keys.

To assign commands to keys
1. Do one of the following:

* (Mac OS) Choose Corel Painter IX menu > Preferences > Customize Keys.
* (Windows) Choose Edit menu > Preferences > Customize Keys.


2. Choose a key set from the Key Set pop-up menu.
The default key set is named "Default" and is not editable. When you change any shortcut in the Default key set, another set is created and named "Custom."

3. Choose one of the following from the Shortcuts menu:

* Application Menus to create or modify menu bar command shortcuts
* Palette Menus to create or modify palette menu command shortcuts
* Tools to create or modify tools shortcuts
* Other to create or modify non-menu, non-palette menu or non-tool command shortcuts


4. Choose a command from the Application Commands list, and type the shortcut keys you want to assign.

If the shortcut you assigned is already in use, a message appears below the Application Commands list.

5. Do one of the following:

* Click Accept to assign the shortcut to the command. The conflicting command that previously had the keyboard shortcut now has no keyboard shortcut assigned to it.
* Click Accept and Go To Conflict to assign the shortcut to the new command, and to assign another keyboard shortcut to the conflicting.


Key Set Reference
For your convenience, Corel Painter IX provides a handy HTML summary of any active key set which you can print to use as a reference.

To create an HTML Summary of a Key Set

1. In the Customize Keys dialog box, click the Create HTML Summary button.
2. In the Save Summary dialog box, type a name in the Filename box, and click Save.

Customizing Corel Painter window background color

Corel Painter lets you set the window background color to either the current main color or some other color of your choice. The window background color is displayed when you use full-screen mode to view your document. Full-screen mode hides your computer's desktop and lets you view the document window without scroll bars.
To change the window background color

1. Do one of the following:
* (Mac OS) Choose Corel Painter IX menu > Preferences > Palettes and UI.
* (Windows) Choose Edit menu > Preferences > Palettes and UI.


2. Do one of the following:
* To use the current main color, click Use Current Color.
* To choose another color, click Custom Color, select a color in the Color dialog box, and click OK.