New to Corel Painter X - Two questions - History menu & Brush realism

[Ashoka]

Background:

I just got a computer that has Corel Painter X installed.
In order to test its features, I also bought a Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet.

Problem:

I cannot find a "history" menu in Corel Painter.
I'm referring to the type of history menu standard in Adobe Photoshop.
The closest thing I can find is the "Ctrl+Z" option to undo.

Most of Corel Painter's brushes seem to be circular.
In real life, most brushes are squarish or rectangular.
I have a couple of old Bob Ross shows.
He achieves many natural effects by dabbing the brush to create foliage or waves.
I can't find any brush that allows me to paint this way in Corel Painter.

Questions:

1) Does Corel Painter have any history menu?
Something like the history menu in Adobe Photoshop.

2) Are there tips or tutorials you can give me on achieving brush realism?
Brush tips that will allow the painting of natural elements (bushes, water, trees, etc.) using a Bob Ross type of tutorial.

Thanks for any tips or help!

[Jinny Brown]

Background:

I just got a computer that has Corel Painter X installed.
In order to test its features, I also bought a Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet.

Problem:

I cannot find a "history" menu in Corel Painter.
I'm referring to the type of history menu standard in Adobe Photoshop.
The closest thing I can find is the "Ctrl+Z" option to undo.

Undo is the Painter "history". In Edit > Preferences > Undo (Windows) or Painter X > Preferences > Undo (Mac) we can set the number of Undos. The maximum is 32 but since each Undo is remembered so we can redo (Ctrl/Command+Y), they can take up a lot of memory. If you can get along fine with a lower number than 32, it's a good idea to use the lower number.

Most of Corel Painter's brushes seem to be circular.
In real life, most brushes are squarish or rectangular.

There are many brush variants in Corel Painter that are not round. Some are flat (a narrow oval) some are flat (a narrow rectangle with a more narrow extension at each end), some are round.

Brush variants that use Dab Type: Static Bristle have dab shapes made up of randomly spaced and sized dots. A few examples are the:

Acrylics' Thick Opaque Acrylic 30 (and other sizes)
Oils' Fine Feathering Oils 30 (and size 20)
Sumi-e's Dry Ink
Sumi-e's Opaque Bristle Sumi-e

Some brush variants are called Captured Dab variants and their dab shapes are based on images which can be any shape and contain varying degrees of opacity in the image. A few examples of Captured Dab brush variants are the:

Chalks' Square Chalk
Charcoal's Soft Vine Charcoal 30 (and other sizes)
Conte's Square Conte 22
Oil Pastels' Oil Pastel 30 (and other sizes)
Sponges' Loaded Wet Sponge 70 (and size 160)

I have a couple of old Bob Ross shows.
He achieves many natural effects by dabbing the brush to create foliage or waves.
I can't find any brush that allows me to paint this way in Corel Painter.

You might find Chris Cimonetti's Fine Art 2 brush library useful. It contains many Captured Dab variants and some that aren't Captured Dab variants, but all of them are nice. You can download the brush library from my PixelAlley site at:

Custom Brushes for Painter 6 through Painter X.1

Before you download the ZIP file, create a new empty folder somewhere outside of your Painter X application/program folder and outside of your Painter X User folder.

Download the ZIP file into that folder, then extract the ZIP file into the same folder. You'll see a brush library folder named fa2. Copy and paste that brush library folder into the following Corel Painter X application/program folder:

Mac - Applications > Corel Painter X > Brushes

Windows - Program Files > Corel > Corel Painter X > Brushes

Launch Painter, and from the Brush Selector menu, choose Load Library. The Brush Libraries dialog box opens. Highlight fa2 and click the Load button. Now the fa2 brush library is loaded and ready to use.

You might want to read the readme.txt that's included in the download. After you've installed the fa2 brush library you'll find it in the following folder:

Mac - Applications > Corel Painter X > Brushes > fa2

Windows - Program Files > Corel > Corel Painter X > Brushes > fa2

When you read it, skip the installation instructions as they're old (for Painter 7) and don't pertain to your Painter version. The rest is very informative and includes instructions for learning how these brush variants work.

Questions:

1) Does Corel Painter have any history menu?
Something like the history menu in Adobe Photoshop.

See above where I answered this question.

2) Are there tips or tutorials you can give me on achieving brush realism?
Brush tips that will allow the painting of natural elements (bushes, water, trees, etc.) using a Bob Ross type of tutorial.

I don't know of any tutorials for Painter that pertain to Bob Ross style of painting, but there are many Painter tutorials available in the archived Corel Painter newsletter, The Painter Canvas issues. You'll find the archived newsletters on the Corel Painter X website, on this page:

The Painter Canvas Newsletter Archives

Some of the tips and tutorials in a few of the issues may no longer be available, but don't give up. Just check all of the issues and you should find many that will help you get started.

Also, it's a good idea to join some of the more active forums where experienced Corel Painter users are available to show you their work and answer questions:

The PainterFactory - Corel's Painter Community Forum Site

CGTalk's Corel Painter Forum

Conceptart.org's Painter Forum

If you read the threads in those three forums, where you can also do a search for specific information, then ask questions, you'll get loads of help and recommendations, especially in the Conceptart.org Painter forum, for how to get started learning Corel Painter and how to become familiar with the many brush variants.

Before you ask questions in Painter related forums, it'll be a good idea to read this tutorial on my PixelAlley site so you'll know what to include in your messages:

How to Ask Corel Painter Questions in Forums Around the Painter Community

Thanks for any tips or help!

You're welcome! I look forward to seeing you in the forums I linked above, where I spend time almost every day.


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[Fes]

Background:

Questions:

1) Does Corel Painter have any history menu?
Something like the history menu in Adobe Photoshop.

In addition to what Jinny said, just to clarify that Painter does not actually have a history menu window like Photoshop where you can choose exactly where to go back to. You only have the "Ctrl+Z" option to undo, but unlike Photoshop, you can just keep pushing "Ctrl+Z" to go back further than the first undo (up to the max of 32 as Jinny said).