So I finally got caught up and now have Painter 8

[athena]

Hi Everyone,

I've just been exploring the Painter 8. And coming from version 6, I have to say that while I never felt radically deprived by what Painter 6 offered me, this version of Painter is VERY comfortable for me.

Just on the surface, some things I've found really nice are:

1)the new interface/UI

No longer does the color set boxand the brush control box get in your way when you're drawing/painting. (hooray!)

When you choose a tool, the property bar under the menu bar dynamically changes and you have instant access to fine tuning your tools.

I can't tell you how much I love that it's no longer in the way of my canvas http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

2)the way brushes are now organized

I thought 400 brushes sounded like feature bloat or something the marketing people made up to sound impressive.

But just in a simple comparison between my old set of pencils in Painter 6 and my new set of pencils. . . wow! Again, I never felt really deprived in Painter 6. I thought the beauty of painter was (and still is) the smooth lines you can make with simple brushes like the 2B pencil. The new set of brushes in Painter 8 really is fun. I didn't think you could get a more beautiful pencil stroke than the Painter 2B pencilbut for me, the Painter Cover Pencil is even more delicate and natural looking.

Ok ok, but wasn't I talking about how the brushes are organized? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif Yes http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Just on a preliminary look at the new brushes I'm already in love with the fact that Corel gave us brush called a blender.

Ohhhhh yeah http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. No longer do I have to remember to look under obscure names for brushes that help me soften lines with a smudge here or there.

There is even (brace yourselves)a blender brush called blur. YES! the beauty and power of your favorite Photoshop filter in the fine laser like precision of your Wacom Stylus (or whatever pointing device you prefer)

3)and this, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.

I've already been thinking of projects that I think might be cool to embellish with Painter 8. And when I get more done I'll share the results with you (good or bad http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

Sure, there are little details where it might act a little differently than I'd expect but overall, this version of Painter is very powerful and finally, I feel like I can be more productive with Painter.

I'll try my best to answer any questions you may come up with about Painter 8. Until then, have fun with Painter.

[athena]

Hi Everyone,

I've just been exploring the Painter 8. And coming from version 6, I have to say that while I never felt radically deprived by what Painter 6 offered me, this version of Painter is VERY comfortable for me.

Just on the surface, some things I've found really nice are:

1)the new interface/UI

No longer does the color set boxand the brush control box get in your way when you're drawing/painting. (hooray!)

When you choose a tool, the property bar under the menu bar dynamically changes and you have instant access to fine tuning your tools.

I can't tell you how much I love that it's no longer in the way of my canvas http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

2)the way brushes are now organized

I thought 400 brushes sounded like feature bloat or something the marketing people made up to sound impressive.

But just in a simple comparison between my old set of pencils in Painter 6 and my new set of pencils. . . wow! Again, I never felt really deprived in Painter 6. I thought the beauty of painter was (and still is) the smooth lines you can make with simple brushes like the 2B pencil. The new set of brushes in Painter 8 really is fun. I didn't think you could get a more beautiful pencil stroke than the Painter 2B pencilbut for me, the Painter Cover Pencil is even more delicate and natural looking.

Ok ok, but wasn't I talking about how the brushes are organized? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif Yes http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Just on a preliminary look at the new brushes I'm already in love with the fact that Corel gave us brush called a blender.

Ohhhhh yeah http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. No longer do I have to remember to look under obscure names for brushes that help me soften lines with a smudge here or there.

There is even (brace yourselves)a blender brush called blur. YES! the beauty and power of your favorite Photoshop filter in the fine laser like precision of your Wacom Stylus (or whatever pointing device you prefer)

3)and this, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.

I've already been thinking of projects that I think might be cool to embellish with Painter 8. And when I get more done I'll share the results with you (good or bad http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

Sure, there are little details where it might act a little differently than I'd expect but overall, this version of Painter is very powerful and finally, I feel like I can be more productive with Painter.

I'll try my best to answer any questions you may come up with about Painter 8. Until then, have fun with Painter.

[Klaus Nordby]

Yup, P8 is pretty good! Make sure you get the 8.1 update, which fixes a lot! I wrote a big review of P8 here last year, which you might find interesting:
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?...ticle&artid=65

[athena]

Hi Klaus,

yes http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif I had loved that review of yours. and I had a devil of a time finding it again when I needed to re-read it. Your articles are very hard to find on the web via google. I don't know if that's by accident or by design http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. I'm pretty sure I was searching for "Klaus Nordby" in google. In any case, thank you for the link and thank you for that awesome review http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Your review had given me great hope that it was a worthy upgrade http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. I just didn't fully comprehend the magnitude of how nice an upgrade it is (well at least for me to go from version 6 to version 8 http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif). And yes the first thing I did after I installed it was play with some brush strokes and then find the upgrade patch and uninstall Painter so I could apply the upgrade http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

So I may end up "finding" stuff that everyone else may say "ho hum -- we knew that already". But in just this first week, it's been feeling like a pretty satisfying upgrade. I'm rapidly losing any desire to go back to painter 5 or 6.