Corel Painter X3 Quick start guide

Getting Started Guide

Corel Corporation

2013

Corel® Painter® X3 Getting Started Guide

The contents of this user guide and the associated Corel Painter software are the

property of Corel Corporation and its respective licensors, and are protected by

copyright. For more complete copyright information about Corel Painter, please refer

to the About Corel Painter section in the Help menu of the software.

Protected by Patents in the United States and elsewhere.

Product specifications, pricing, packaging, technical support and information

(“specifications”) refer to the retail English version only. The specifications for all

other versions (including other language versions) may vary.

Information is provided by Corel on an “as is” basis, without any other warranties or

conditions, express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of

merchantable quality, satisfactory quality, merchantability or fitness for a particular

purpose, or those arising by law, statute, usage of trade, course of dealing or

otherwise. The entire risk as to the results of the information provided or its use is

assumed by you. Corel shall have no liability to you or any other person or entity for

any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages whatsoever, including, but

not limited to, loss of revenue or profit, lost or damaged data or other commercial or

economic loss, even if Corel has been advised of the possibility of such damages, or

they are foreseeable. Corel is also not liable for any claims made by any third party.

Corel's maximum aggregate liability to you shall not exceed the costs paid by you to

purchase the materials. Some states/countries do not allow exclusions or limitations

of liability for consequential or incidental damages, so the above limitations may not

apply to you.

Corel, the Corel logo, Painter, Painter for Cinco, Natural-Media, RealBristle, and the

Balloon logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation and/or its

subsidiaries in Canada, the U.S., and/or other countries. Other product, font, and

company names and logos may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their

respective companies.

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Contents i

Contents

Welcome to Corel Painter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

What’s in this user guide? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Additional resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Corel Cinco for Painter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

About Corel Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

What’s new in Corel Painter X3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

What’s New in Corel Painter X3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

What’s new in Corel Painter 12 Updates 1 and 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Changes to the brush control panels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Workspace tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Corel Painter terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Exploring the Document window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Exploring the toolbox. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Displaying the toolbox. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Displaying the Media Selector bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Displaying the property bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Exploring the Navigator panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Displaying the Brush Selector bar and the Brush library panel . . . . . . . . . 24

Exploring panels and palettes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Working with libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Restoring the default Corel Painter settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

A short tour of Corel Painter for users of Adobe Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Creating, navigating, and manipulating documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Creating documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

ii Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide

Understanding resolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Opening files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Navigating images and viewing image information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Resizing images and the canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Saving files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Choosing a painting workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Exploring painting media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Working with the canvas and layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Displaying reference images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Clearing the canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Brush tracking and calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Applying freehand and straight brushstrokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Choosing colors from the Color panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Using the temporal colors palette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Exploring the Mixer panel and mixing controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Mixing, sampling, and applying colors from the Mixer pad . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Opening images in the Mixer panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Selecting, managing, and creating brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Understanding brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Exploring brush categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Searching and selecting brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Setting basic brush attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Displaying advanced brush controls dynamically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Cloning images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Contents iii

Cloning images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Using Quick Clone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Editing, updating, saving, and exporting clone source images . . . . . . . . . 98

Painting in the clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Jitter brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Choosing a Jitter brush variant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Controlling the behavior of Jitter variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Applying and adjusting flow maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Getting started with flow maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Choosing flow maps and compatible brush variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Enabling flow maps and controlling flow resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Working with symmetry tools and perspective guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Using the Mirror Painting mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Using the Kaleidoscope Painting mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Using Perspective Guides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Welcome to Corel Painter 1

Welcome to Corel Painter

Corel® Painter® X3 is the ultimate digital art studio. Its inventive drawing tools,

realistic brushes, cloning capabilities, and customizable features let you expand your

creative output in exciting new ways. When you use the pressure-sensitive brushes of

Corel Painter, they become fluid extensions of your hand, so the resulting brushstrokes

are unrivaled in texture and precision. What’s more, features such as the ability to

build your own Natural-Media® brushes and customize how brushes interact with the

canvas give you countless ways to develop your artistic ideas. Corel Painter takes you

far beyond what’s possible in a traditional art environment.

This section contains the following topics:

• What’s in this user guide?

• Additional resources

•Registration

•Corel Cinco for Painter

• About Corel Corporation

What’s in this user guide?

This user guide provides step-by-step instructions to help you get started with

Corel Painter X3. The content describes the most common tasks performed with

Corel Painter X3. Please note that this guide is not an exhaustive reference for every

tool. If you require additional information, refer to the application’s Help system.

A stunning collection of artwork, created in Corel Painter by renowned digital artists,

is included in this user guide to inspire you and show you what you can do with the

application.

2 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide

Additional resources

You can access additional Corel Painter resources online to learn more about the product

and connect with the Corel Painter community.

Registration

Registering Corel products is important. Registration provides you with timely access

to the latest product updates, valuable information about product releases and access to

free downloads.

If you skipped the registration process when installing Corel Painter X3, you can

register at www.corel.com/support/register.

Corel Cinco for Painter

Corel® Cinco™ for Painter® is a companion app that lets you control Painter remotely

from your iPad by opening and using any custom palettes that you created in

Corel Painter. You can download Corel Cinco for Painter from the Apple App Store.

Corel Cinco for Painter lets you display only one custom palette at a time, but you can

quickly switch between palettes. Corel Cinco for Painter displays five palette controls

per screen. If your custom palette includes more than five controls, you can swipe the

screen to display the additional controls.

Resources To access

Corel Painter page on the Corel website http://www.corel.com/painter

Corel Painter Factory http://www.painterfactory.com/

Corel Painter on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/corelpainter

Corel Painter on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/corelpainter

Welcome to Corel Painter 3

The icons of the controls are conveniently positioned to match the shape of your

hand so that each finger can quickly tap a control.

Working with Corel Cinco for Painter allows you to extend your workspace and reduce

onscreen clutter. It can also replace traditional shortcut keys.

To allow Corel Cinco for Painter to connect with Corel Painter, you need to enable the

option in the Painter Preferences dialog box.

To allow Corel Cinco for Painter to connect with Corel Painter

1 Do one of the following:

• (Mac OS) Choose Corel Painter X3 menu  Preferences  Connections.

• (Windows) Choose Edit  Preferences  Connections.

2 Enable the Allow Companion Application to Connect to Painter check box.

3 Type a name in the Service Name box to give your copy of Corel Painter a unique

name.

We recommended that you do not enable the Allow Companion

Application to Connect to Painter check box before the companion

application is available.

4 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide

You can also specify an Authentication Code to ensure that only a legitimate

user can access your copy of Corel Painter from a remote application.

About Corel Corporation

Corel is one of the world’s top software companies providing some of the industry’s

best-known graphics, productivity and digital media products. Boasting the most

comprehensive portfolio of innovative software, we've built a reputation for delivering

solutions that are easy to learn and use, helping people achieve new levels of creativity

and productivity. The industry has responded with hundreds of awards for innovation,

design and value.

Used by millions of people around the world, our product lines include

CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite, Corel® Painter®, Corel® PaintShop® Pro,

Corel® VideoStudio® and Corel® WordPerfect® Office. For more information on

Corel, please visit www.corel.com.

What’s new in Corel Painter X3 5

What’s new in Corel Painter X3

Corel Painter takes you far beyond what’s possible in a traditional art environment.

This section contains the following topics:

• What’s New in Corel Painter X3

• What’s new in Corel Painter 12 Updates 1 and 2

• Changes to the brush control panels

What’s New in Corel Painter X3

In this section, you will find information about the new and enhanced features of

Corel Painter X3.

A platform for inspiration, creativity,

and reflection

Brush search Helps you find the perfect brush by

performing a search. Simply type in the

name of the brush variant or a combination

of brush properties, such as jitter or bristle,

to narrow down the search. To find all of the

new brush variants that were added in

Corel Painter X3, type in “X3” in the Search

bar.

Reference Image panel Lets you display an inspirational image in an

easy to use, dockable panel. You can zoom,

pan, and sample colors from the reference

image while maintaining focus on your

digital painting.

6 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide

A platform for inspiration, creativity,

and reflection

Enhanced stroke preview Offers a more detailed preview of the

brushstroke that will appear on the canvas in

real-time. The preview now visually

represents brush parameters such as mixing,

erasing, blending, and jitter. The brush

preview displays in the Brush library panel,

Brush search results panel, and the Stroke

Preview brush control panel.

Inspirational Mixer Pads Lets you choose colors from a collection of

original mixer pads that were created for you

by expert Corel Painter artists.

The innovator in digital art

Jitter brushes Produces more realistic brushstrokes by

introducing an increased amount of

randomness. The Jitter brush variants are

found under various brush categories.

Universal Jitter Allows you to control the randomness of

various brush features, such as size, angle,

and opacity. You can now use Jitter in

conjunction with a different expression.

Minimum controls Allows you to introduce a range of variation

to a selected expression. You can apply

minimum values for brush controls such as

Size and Opacity.

Additional Flow Maps, Patterns, and Papers Includes a greater variety of Flow Maps,

Patterns, Papers that you can use in your

paintings.

Easier to learn and use

Smart Brush Settings with added media

panel (Advanced Brush Controls)

Provides you with a more intuitive way of

modifying the advanced brush controls of a

selected brush.

What’s new in Corel Painter X3 7

What’s new in Corel Painter 12 Updates 1 and 2

If you are migrating to Corel Painter X3 from Corel Painter 12, you may not be aware

of the features and enhancements that were added to Corel Painter 12 Updates 1 and

2. These features and enhancements are also available in Corel Painter X3.

Easier to learn and use

Perspective Guides Allows you to accurately draw in one, two or

three-point perspective by using preset

guides. The Perspective-Guided Strokes

constrain your strokes to direct them

towards the vanishing points. This feature

replaces the Perspective Grid feature.

Enhanced Cloning Reintroduces the traditional side-by-side

cloning workflow and lets you view the

crosshair cursor on your source image to

increase painting accuracy. In addition, you

now have the ability to edit the source

image. For example, you can apply various

effects to the source image.

Transform across layers Allows you to apply transformations to

multiple layers and layer groups

simultaneously.

Set maximum colors for color sets Lets you specify a maximum number of

colors when creating new color sets.

Show Onion Skin layers Allows you to display underlying frames

when working with movies.

Performance

Memory Extender Lets you take advantage of more of your Mac

systems’s available RAM by letting you

control how much RAM you want to

designate to Painter. This features was

introduced in Painter 12.2.1.

8 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide

Corel Painter 12 Update 1 Features

Ability to import and export brush libraries,

categories, and variants

Allows you to import and export brush

libraries, categories, and variants so you can

better manage brush resources.

Creating and removing brush libraries Allows you to more easily create and delete

custom brush libraries.

Creating and removing brush categories Allows you to store brush variants in custom

brush categories. You can also remove

custom brush libraries when you no longer

need them.

Saving brush variants Allows you to quickly save the custom brush

variants that you create.

Moving brush variants Allows you to easily drag variants between

categories.

Deleting Workspaces Allows you to delete custom Workspaces

from within the application.

Color mixing enhancements Allows you to open images as mixer pads

and save mixer pads to the PNG file format.

Panel resizing Lets you vertically resize most panels within

a palette.

Navigator panel enhancements Lets you hide the image information area or

the controls of the Navigator panel.

Corel Painter 12 Update 2 Features

Flow Maps Introduces an additional textured surface for

working with Real Watercolor and Real Wet

Oil brushes that help you direct the flow of

paint.

Vertical docking of panels Allows you to vertically dock panels in the

document window.

What’s new in Corel Painter X3 9

Changes to the brush control panels

A number of brush controls panels were more logically organized to better reflect the

structure of the Corel Painter brush engine. The following table maps the

Corel Painter 12 brush control panels to the new Corel Painter X3 brush control panels.

For more information about the brush control panels that include the new Jitter

controls, see “Controlling the behavior of Jitter variants” on page 105.

Corel Painter 12 Update 2 Features

Support for Corel Cinco for Painter Allows Corel Painter to connect to

Corel Cinco for Painter, which is a

companion iPad app that integrates

seamlessly into your current workflow to

enhance productivity.

Wacom Multi-Touch support Enables enhanced multi-touch support for

Wacom Intuos 5 touch tablets. You can now

simultaneously pan, rotate, and zoom the

canvas.

Corel Painter 12 brush control panels Corel Painter X3 brush control panels

Dab Profile panel

Stroke Preview panel (New)

Dab Preview panel (New)

Dab Profile panel (Modified)

10 Corel Painter X3 Getting Started Guide

General panel

General panel (Modified)

Stroke Attributes panel (New)

Opacity panel (New)

Grain panel (New)

Size panel

Size panel (Modified)

Bristles panel (New)

Multi panel (New)

Corel Painter 12 brush control panels Corel Painter X3 brush control panels

What’s new in Corel Painter X3 11

Spacing panel

Spacing panel (Modified)

Smoothing panel (New)

Corel Painter 12 brush control panels Corel Painter X3 brush control panels

Workspace tour 13

Workspace tour

The Corel Painter workspace has been designed to give you easy access to tools, effects,

commands, and features. The workspace is organized by using a series of menus,

selectors, panels, and interactive palettes.

This section contains the following topics:

• Corel Painter terms

• Exploring the Document window

• Exploring the toolbox

• Displaying the toolbox

• Displaying the Media Selector bar

• Displaying the property bar

• Exploring the Navigator panel

• Displaying the Brush Selector bar and the Brush library panel

• Exploring panels and palettes

• Working with libraries

• Restoring the default Corel Painter settings

Corel Painter terms

Before you get started with Corel Painter, you should be familiar with the following

terms.

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Corel Painter X3 Quick start guide

Corel Painter X3 Quick start guide

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