For instance the particle brushes respond to the angle the stylus is pointed at, and frankly, the precision you get with a stylus is leaps and bounds over a mouse or trackpad. There are many features available which work best when drawing with a stylus. Painter is renowned for its “real” brushes, brushes that replicate how they would behave in the real world watercolours bleed into each other for instance, thick paint can almost be sculpted depending on the chosen brush, and brushes can even run out of paint (although you also have the option to toggle that off).

This can be done straight from within the app itself where brushes can also be combined into bundles so you can get exactly the set you need. It comes with over 900 pre-loaded and offers the ability to purchase additional ones. The most impressive part of Painter has always been its brushes. New brushes, with a revamped preview of all of them, and better performance to boot (Image credit: Corel) See my brushes In addition to helping you create a more computer-controlled harmonious creation, you can choose to lock down some harmony sets so they don’t change no matter which other colour is selected, and if you like a specific combination, you can save those swatches to your library and use them at a later date, or on another project. There are six different types of harmonies available - you can in fact have them all displayed at the same time. These offer you complementary colours based on your current selection. One really great feature for newcomers is Colour Harmonies. Of course the advantage of working in the digital realm is you can then save those mixes into libraries for later use. This works well with the mixer palette (which is found in that section’s second tab), where you can mix you new section with other colours, just as you would with paint in the real world. All are designed to help you choose the best colour for your needs. But now Painter offers you a new split preview while you’re mixing your colours, which includes new colour ramps. The outer circle lets you choose the hue, and the inner triangle is for the saturation and value.

Harmonies are a new feature to help you use complementary colours (Image credit: Corel) Color enhancementsĬorel’s colour wheel is quite useful by default.

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