To autopaint a photo
1 On the Brush Selector Bar in the upper-right corner of the application window, choose a Cloner brush variant from the Brush Variant Selector. 2 With the clone of the image open, choose an option from the Stroke pop-up menu on the Auto-Painting palette. 3 Adjust the Pressure slider to set the amount of pressure with which the brush strokes are applied. The range is 0 to 200. This setting represents the percentage of the preset pressure for the Stroke option. 4 Adjust the Length slider to set...
Cloning photos
You can use a range of preset stroke styles from the Auto-Painting palette to create stylized artwork based on a photo. The Auto-Painting palette provides a range of cloning options. The Auto-Painting palette provides a range of cloning options. 1 Choose a Cloner brush from the Brush Selector bar. 2 With the clone of the photo open, choose an option from the Stroke pop-up menu. 3 Adjust the Pressure slider to set the amount of pressure with which the brush strokes are applied. The range is 0 to...
Getting Started with the Image Hose
Corel Painter Essentials lets you select nozzles containing various images to use with the Image Hose. You can adjust the opacity, size, color, position, and spacing of the images you paint. The Image Hose is easy to use and offers a number of options for the behavior of nozzle spray. As with other Corel Painter Essentials brushes, the Image Hose has several variants. These built-in variants combine nozzle control factors indexing rules with brush settings to create different hose effects. In...
Applying Preset Lighting Effects
The Lighting library contains several preset lighting environments. You can use these directly or as a starting point for customized lighting. 1 Select a layer or area of the canvas. If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, do not make a selection. 2 Choose Effects menu gt Surface Control gt Apply Lighting. 3 In the Apply Lighting dialog box, click a preset thumbnail. The lighting effect is displayed in the Preview window.
Cloning with an Artistic style
Using the Artists brush category and the Clone Color button, you can clone an image in the style of Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, or an Impressionist. You can turn almost any brush into a cloner with the Clone Color button. The Clone Color button causes a brush to pick up color from the source image while staying true to its own stroke nature. Artist brush variants help you paint in the styles of master artists. For example, you can paint in the style of Vincent Van Gogh, where brush...
To open an existing document
Corel Painter Essentials remembers the location of the last file you opened. 2 In the Open Mac OS or Select Image Windows dialog box, use the controls to locate the file you want to open. Corel Painter Essentials lists every image's dimensions in pixels , file size, and file format. In addition, files saved in Corel Painter Essentials include thumbnails for browsing purposes. The File menu also offers you a shortcut to previously opened documents. Before choosing Open in the File menu, see if...
Troubleshooting
Why doesn't your brush stroke appear What to check Main color On the Colors palette, what color is the Main Color front square Is it a color that will show up when applied to your image If not, click the Main Color square to be sure it's selected, and then set a different color. Opacity Check the Opacity setting on the property bar and, if necessary, adjust the pop-up slider to increase opacity. Drawing mode If you have made a selection, the drawing mode determines what part of the selection is...
Corel Painter Essentials Workspace
The Corel Painter Essentials 3 workspace has been designed to give you easy access to tools, effects, commands, and features. The workspace is organized across a series of menus, selectors, and interactive palettes. Some features are also available in the frame of the document window. Photo Painting Palettes Underpainting, Auto-Painting, and Restoration Photo Painting Palettes Underpainting, Auto-Painting, and Restoration
Painting with Airbrushes
The Corel Painter Essentials computed airbrushes are so realistic, you feel as though you're using the real thing. Taking advantage of computed dab-type technology, most airbrush functionality is now available. The best way to get used to the Corel Painter Essentials airbrushes is to play with them. Select each variant and spray paint onto the canvas without worrying about running out of compressed air. With computed airbrushes, you can paint with color, patterns, or variants. Previous versions...
Documentation Conventions
The following table describes important conventions used in the Corel Painter Essentials 3 Getting Started Guide and in the Help. Multiple platforms This guide is for both the Mac Hold down Command Mac OS OS and Windows platforms. As a or Ctrl Windows . convention, Mac OS commands precede Windows commands in the text. Modifier keys When a modifier key differs between Mac OS and Windows, the Mac OS modifier is listed first, followed by the Windows modifier. Command I Mac OS or Ctrl I Windows...
Using the Image Hose
The Image Hose is a milestone in the evolution of art tools. Instead of painting with color, the Image Hose paints with images not just one or two at a stroke, but a variety of changing images. The images flowing from the hose change as you make a brush stroke. The Image Hose lets you control the image output. For example, by increasing stylus pressure, you can paint larger or more colorful images. By changing the direction of the stroke, you can change the angle of the images. This is just a...
Screen Navigation
Spacebar click Spacebar Ctrl click Delete Layer Group Ungroup Colors Palette Command Delete Command G Command U
Restoring the default Corel Painter Essentials settings
Corel Painter Essentials is designed to run from a locked volume such as a read-only disk image or a CD or from within a limited-user mode. All user settings are saved to a local user folder when Corel Painter Essentials starts, it recalls these user settings rather than the application settings. At any time, you can restore the Corel Painter Essentials workspace to its default factory settings by replacing the settings in the user folder with copies of the settings from the originating...
Dragging Between Programs Mac OS
Corel Painter Essentials supports drag-and-drop functionality between applications on Mac OS. This can be a quick, convenient way to acquire or export images. On the Mac OS, you can drag files from Adobe Photoshop directly into Corel Painter Essentials. Raster images that you drag into a Corel Painter Essentials document window become layers. You can drag a PICT file from the Finder to a Corel Painter Essentials document. The PICT image becomes a layer. You can also drag layers out of Corel...
Using Orientation Effects
You can change the orientation of part or all of your image by rotating, scaling to a larger or smaller size, or flipping horizontally or vertically. Corel Painter Essentials applies orientation effects to layers only. Therefore, when you rotate, scale, or flip an image or selection, Corel Painter Essentials first converts it to a layer. The image or selection remains a layer until you merge it with the canvas. For more information, refer to Merging Layers with the Canvas on page 135.
Grouping Repositioning and Resizing Palettes
In Corel Painter Essentials, palettes appear by default in small, intuitive groupings. You can customize these groupings by moving palettes from one group to another. You can include as many palettes as you want in a group. You can also reposition items to a new location within a group. A customized palette grouping. In this example, the Colors palette has been grouped with the Photo Painting palettes.
Applying Express Texture
The Express Texture effect generates a high-contrast version of an image in grayscale. With this feature, you can create a visual effect similar to a custom halftone screen, like a mezzotint or line screen. Like the Apply Screen effect, the Express Texture effect has anti-aliasing built in. 1 Select a layer or area of the canvas. If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, do not make a selection. 2 Choose Effects menu gt Surface Control gt Express Texture. 3 In the Express Texture...
To apply the Sketch effect
1 Select a layer or area of the canvas. If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, do not make a selection. 2 Choose Effects menu gt Surface Control gt Sketch. 3 In the Sketch dialog box, adjust any of the following sliders The Sensitivity slider determines sensitivity to detail. Low values detect only the main edges. High values detect the main edges as well as thin lines, such as the lines around a person's eyes. The Smoothing slider determines how much noise is filtered out. Higher...
How to Access Corel Support Services
Corel Support Services can provide you with prompt and accurate information about product features, specifications, pricing, availability, services, and technical support. For the most current information on support services available for your Corel product, please visit www.corel.com support. Corel Painter Essentials 3 is the leading Natural-Media painting application. Corel Painter Essentials 3 lets you simulate a wide range of art tools from crayons, chalk, and air brushes to watercolor and...
Creating an Underpainting
The new Underpainting palette gives you access to several options for preparing an image for cloning. You can adjust the contrast, lightness, or saturation of an image. In addition, you can add a decorative edge effect to an image, such as rectangular, circular, or jagged vignettes. You can prepare a photo for cloning by using the Underpainting palette. You can prepare a photo for cloning by using the Underpainting palette.
Info Xgn
Chalk brush variants produce the thick, rich texture of natural chalk sticks and cover with strokes that interact with the paper grain. The opacity is linked to stylus pressure. The Cloner brush variants behave like other brush variants, except that they take color from a clone source. These variants recreate the source imagery while effectively filtering it, reproducing the image in an artistic style, such as pastel chalk or watercolor. For more information, see Cloning and Tracing on page...
Exploring Brushes
The Corel Painter Essentials Brush tool offers users a wide range of preset painting and drawing tools called brush variants. Brush variants are organized into categories, such as Airbrushes, Artists' Oils, Pencils, and Digital Watercolor. They are designed with real media in mind, so you can select a tool with an expectation of how it will behave. For example, you'll find a 2B Pencil brush variant in the Pencils category, and a Fine Camel brush variant in the Oils category. The Brush Selector...
Resolution and Print Quality
The resolution of output devices printers is measured in dots per inch, and, in the case of halftones, lines per inch lpi . Output device resolutions vary, depending on the type of press and paper you're printing on. Generally, a photograph will be output at a crisp 150 lpi if printed on glossy magazine stock and at 85 lpi for newspaper stock. If you are using a personal laser or inkjet printer, set your document size in inches, centimeters, points, or picas at the dots-per-inch setting...
Softening Focus
The Soften effect increases the transition from one part of your image to another, enhancing the anti-aliasing of strokes. Images are softened using either the Gaussian or Circular aperture options. The aperture is useful for creating smooth, optical blurs or defocusing the Circular aperture is useful for creating shadow maps cast by a circular light source like the sun. The Super Soften effect is a stronger version of Soften. 1 Select a layer or area of the canvas. If you want to apply the...
To create an underpainting
1 Choose File menu gt Open, choose an image from the Open Mac OS or Select Image Windows dialog box, and click Open. 2 On the Underpainting palette, choose an option from Style pop-up menu. A preview of the change is shown in the photo, but the change is not applied until you click Apply. 3 If you want to add a decorative border to your cloned image, choose an option from the Edge Effect pop-up menu, and adjust the Amount slider. The edge effect is previewed in the image, but isn't set until...
Using a Stylus or Mouse
When you reach for a wide, flat brush, you expect the stroke you make to depend on how you hold the brush. A stroke using the face of the brush comes out wide. A mark using the edge is narrow. Corel Painter Essentials produces realistic brush strokes that fade in and out change width, tilt, and angle and penetrate based on the stylus input. Some brush variants, such as the Smeary Flat variant in the Oils category, also react to stylus tilt how close to vertical the stylus is held and bearing...
Selecting a Brush
On the Brush Selector bar, you can choose from brush variants that are arranged in recognizable categories. Corel Painter Essentials brushes are built to emulate NaturalMedia tools, which lets you select a tool with a reasonable expectation of how it will behave. In an art store, if the tools in one aisle don't produce the results you want, you can try a different aisle. Similarly, with Corel Painter Essentials, you can try different brush categories to find the tool you want. In the toolbox,...
Memory and Scratch Preferences
You can change the percentage of memory usage dedicated to Corel Painter Essentials, which is set to 80 by default. You can dedicate as much as 100 of memory to Corel Painter Essentials. The lowest percentage you can choose is 5 . You can also choose the scratch disk, which selects the disk volume that Corel Painter Essentials uses to store its temporary file and to access virtual memory. Mac OS Choose Corel Painter Essentials 3 menu gt Preferences gt Memory amp Scratch. Windows Choose Edit...
To paint with Artists Oils
1 Choose File menu gt New, and select a white paper color. Artists' Oils blend with all colors on the canvas, including paper color. This is useful when painting on a photograph or using a color wash as an underpainting. To prevent Artists' Oils from blending with the canvas color, create a new layer exclusively for the Artists' Oils choose Layers menu gt New Layer . 2 On the Brush Selector Bar, choose Artists' Oils from the Brush Category Selector. 3 On the Brush Selector Bar, choose a brush...
Adjusting Opacity and Grain
The Opacity slider controls the degree to which a stroke covers or builds up on the underlying pixels. 80 opacity top and20 opacity bottom . The Grain slider controls how much color penetrates into the paper texture. Lower settings show more of the grain. 89 grain top , and 12 grain bottom . 1 Choose the Brush tool from the toolbox. 2 Choose a brush from the Brush Selector bar. 3 On the property bar, type a percentage in the Opacity box, or adjust the pop-up slider. When Opacity setting is low,...
Cloning a Document
One way to use the Corel Painter Essentials cloning feature is to clone an entire file, creating a clone source destination relationship between two documents. The clone of the file is more than a copy. It maintains a pixel-for-pixel correspondence with its source document. For this reason, the source must remain open while you work in the clone. Here are some ways to take advantage of a clone source destination relationship Trace the source image by using Tracing Paper the light box method ....
Grouping Layers
Grouping layers enables you to control layers as a unit. You can move, rename, hide, show, and set options for a group just as you do for a single layer. However, you cannot paint across layers in a group you must collapse the group into a single layer if you want to paint on it. To work with individual layers in a group, you must open the group. To regain control of the group as a unit, you must close the group. Collapsing a group reduces its contents to a single layer. If you create a layer...
To group ungroup rearrange and resize palettes
Drag the palette title bar, and place it on top of the palette with which you want to create a group. A new group of palettes is formed. Drag the palette title bar away from the group. The palette is removed from the Reposition items in grouped palettes Drag the palette title bar to a new location in the group. Resize palettes Drag the resize handle in the bottom-
Resolution and Screen Appearance
Most monitors have a resolution of 72 dpi dots per inch . Because of this, the Corel Painter Essentials display default is 72 ppi pixels per inch . This means that each pixel in the Corel Painter Essentials image occupies 1 pixel on your monitor. The display resolution does not affect the document's actual pixels per inch only how the image is displayed on the monitor. For example, a 300-ppi document displays at approximately four times its actual size. This happens because each pixel in the...
Rotating and Flipping the Canvas
Corel Painter Essentials lets you rotate and flip the Canvas layer. When you rotate or flip the Canvas layer, all other layers move along with it. You can rotate the Canvas layer by a predefined amount, or you can choose the amount of rotation. If your document has layers of different varieties, you are prompted to commit all of them to default, pixel-based layers. The Canvas layer increases in size when necessary, so rotating or flipping it does not cause the contents of other layers to be...
Using Lighting
The Apply Lighting effect lets you shine one or more light sources on an image. Using this effect is like hanging your artwork in a gallery and adjusting colored spotlights to illuminate it. You can choose different lighting effects from the Corel Painter Essentials library, or you can create your own effects by defining brightness, color, and other characteristics. Before left and after right Apply Lighting. Before left and after right Apply Lighting.
Creating and Opening Documents
The File menu gt New command creates a blank, untitled document based on the specifications you set in the New dialog box. Canvas Size shows the RAM requirement for creating the document at the specified width, height, and resolution. This number does not reflect the file size for the saved document. A saved Corel Painter Essentials file is usually 25 to 50 of the size of the working document, depending on the number of colors it contains. You can also open documents from other graphics...
Choosing Brush Settings
Basic brush controls for size, opacity, and grain are located on the property bar. The property bar may also contain additional controls for the selected brush category, such as resaturation, bleed, and jitter. When a brush is selected and positioned over the canvas, the cursor changes, by default, into a ghost of the brush mirroring size and shape so you can see the area that you're about to paint. This ghost brush provides a handy way to see if a change in size is required. The Size slider on...
Printing an Image
Once you have chosen options in the Print Setup dialog box Mac OS or Page Setup dialog box Windows , you are ready to print. 1 Choose File menu gt Print to open the Print dialog box. 2 Mac OS From the pop-up menu below the Presets pop-up menu, choose 3 In the Print Type area, select one of the four print types that Enable the Color Quick Draw Mac OS or GDI Printing Windows option if your printer is not a PostScript printer. Some common examples are the Hewlett-Packard Deskjet, the Canon Bubble...
Using the Colors Palette
The Colors palette includes the Hue Ring and the Saturation Value Triangle. Values span the triangle from top to bottom, with the top of the triangle being the highest value white and the bottom being the lowest value black . Saturation levels go from left to right. Dragging or clicking to the right produces the purest color within the predominant hue. Dragging or clicking to the left reduces the level of color saturation, producing muddier or grayer colors. You can also use the Clone Color...
Flipping Images
You can flip all or part of an image horizontally from left to right or vertically from top to bottom . 1 Select a layer or area of the canvas. If you want to flip the entire image, do not make a selection. 2 Choose Effects menu gt Orientation, and choose one of the following
Saving JPEG Files
Corel Painter Essentials supports the JPEG file format. Because of its small file size and high quality, JPEG is commonly used to transmit files through a modem. Unlike GIF, the JPEG file format displays a full range of colors. The JPEG file format allows you to compress your file on a scale of Fair to Excellent, where quality is directly proportional to file size. These quality settings will let you achieve compression ratios of less than 10 1 to greater than 100 1. JPEG is a lossy file...
General Preferences
Mac OS Choose Corel Painter Essentials 3 menu gt Preferences gt General. Windows Choose Edit menu gt Preferences gt General. w To make changes to other preferences before closing the Preferences dialog box, choose another preference type from the pop-up menu. You can choose a cursor icon and its orientation. You can also set the drawing cursor to show the brush size and shape. 1 On the General page of the Preferences dialog box, enable the Brush option in the Cursor Type area. 2 Choose one of...
Property Bar Basics
The property bar is docked horizontally below the menu bar by default. You can move the property bar anywhere in the application window, dock it under the menu bar again, or close it. The property bar for the Rectangular Selection tool. You can restore the default settings for the current tool by clicking the Reset Tool button at the left end of the property bar. The property bar for the Rectangular Selection tool. You can restore the default settings for the current tool by clicking the Reset...
Understanding Brush Categories
The section below lists the brush categories and highlights some of the brush variants you can find in Corel Painter Essentials. Acrylics Airbrushes Art Pen Brushes Artists Artists' Crayons Digital Watercolor Erasers Image Hose Oils Palette Knives Pastels Pattern Pens All Acrylic brush variants cover underlying brush strokes. Airbrushes apply fine sprays of color. Computed airbrushes carefully mirror the feel of a real airbrush in action. The Wacom airbrush stylus is fully compatible with the...
To resize the canvas
The Resize dialog box appears, showing the current and new sizes by width, height, and resolution. 2 Enter a new value for width, height, or resolution. For more information on these values, refer to Creating and Opening Documents on page 37. 3 The Constrain File Size check box lets you choose how to deal with dimensions relative to resolution. When Constrain File Size is enabled, you can change the height and width of the image together. The resolution will change accordingly. When Constrain...
Wacom Intuos Support
Corel Painter Essentials supports the Wacom Intuos tablet, pen, and airbrush technology. Painting with an Intuos Tablet and Pen The Intuos tablet provides 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity to help you create smooth curves, gradual transitions, and precise brush strokes. Corel Painter Essentials allows you to take advantage of tilt and bearing input from an Intuos pen in new and exciting ways. Before you use Corel Painter Essentials with your Wacom Intuos 3 tablet on the Mac OS, you need to...
Creating Selections
You can create path based selections that are rectangular or oval, or you can create a freehand selection. Choose the Oval Selection tool O from the toolbox Choose the Rectangular Selection tool r from the toolbox Choose the Lasso tool from the toolbox p . Draw a freehand border around the area you want to select in the document window. When working with the Rectangular Selection tool or Oval Selection tool, you can constrain your selection to a square or a circle by holding down Control Shift...
Working with Floating Objects
You can make a selection on a layer using the Rectangular Selection, Oval Selection, or Lasso tool. Selections on layers function in the same way as selections on the canvas you can use them to constrain brush strokes, to isolate an area of the layer for applying an effect, or to choose an area of the layer to cut or copy. For more information about working with selections, see Selections on page 117. By default, when you move a selection, only the selection marquee moves, not the images. To...
To add to or subtract from a selection ToDo the following
Add to a selection With a selection tool chosen, click the Add to Selection button V on the property bar, and select the area you want to add. You can also hold down Shift, and select the area you want to add. Subtract from a selection With a selection tool chosen, click the Subtract from Selection button Q on the property bar, and select the area you want to subtract. You can also hold down Option Mac OS or Alt Windows , and select the area you want to subtract. 1 Choose Select menu gt...