Corel® Painter™ IX Unveiled

Corel today announced that Corel® Painter™ IX, the world's most powerful Natural-Media® painting and illustration software, is now available for pre-order. Hitting the streets in October, Corel Painter IX allows commercial designers, photographers, and professional artists to use their natural talents and techniques to create breathtaking works of art.

Corel Painter IX is a highly-sophisticated painting and illustration application designed to capture the intricate nuances of traditional art tools while taking advantage of the incredible power of digital media. It is the must-have software for creative professionals, whether they're in film making, game development, commercial design, illustration, photography, or fine arts.

"Professional users tell us time and again - there is simply no substitute for Corel Painter. Painter is the only application that has the power and versatility that enables them to create the masterpieces they build their reputations on," said Nick Davies, Director of Graphics for Corel.

"Setting a new standard for performance, Corel Painter IX introduces tools that redefine digital art. Creative professionals who work either traditionally or digitally should give serious consideration to the benefits Corel Painter IX can offer to their creativity and workflow," Davies continued.

Professional Customers Praise Corel Painter
"Having worked exclusively in Painter at Disney Features for 8 months prior to beginning art direction of Bambi And The Great Prince, I knew its potential. I was given the opportunity to show that a beautiful `traditional' painting could be done digitally - specifically Bambi, which was incredibly difficult regardless of the medium. Painter took off the digital curse, sensitively emulating paint, stroke, texture, and atmosphere not possible with Photoshop alone. We simply could not have produced the great artwork, reminiscent of the original movie, for this production, without it!" said Carol Kieffer Police, Art Director, The Walt Disney Company.

"Corel Painter IX lets photographers offer their customers unique painted masterpieces created from photos. For photographers who already use Painter, the benefits of the new Quick Clone feature alone make the upgrade absolutely essential. I am delighted at the way the new Artists' Oils perform, so much like my traditional paints and brushes do. And I am amazed at the way familiar brushes now react - they are all simply luscious, the speed is incredible, and there are so many variations and choices that anything is possible. Working with Painter has always been fun, and Painter IX is not only pure pleasure, it's also profitable," said Helen Yancy, Past President & Chairman of the Board, Professional Photographers of America (PPA).

"In my experience, using Painter IX is faster, more efficient, and produces more realistic results than any other paint software. Snap-to-path also puts Painter IX into a professional illustration category where other software packages struggle. The combination of tools, and the opportunity for customization unequivocally augments my work flow," said Christopher Welch, Senior Designer, DaimlerChrysler Corporation.

Corel Painter IX Takes Digital Art to the Next Level

Performance and Productivity
Improved Speed - This is the fastest version of Corel Painter yet. Some brushes perform up to 10 times faster, and most brushes work, on average, twice as fast.

New Welcome Screen - Getting down to the job at hand has never been easier, thanks to the new Corel Painter IX Welcome screen, which launches on startup and provides access to a Corel Painter Master gallery, lynda.com training, brush tracking, and more.

New and Enhanced Brush Control Palettes - Providing easy access to all brush settings and controls, users can now make on-the-fly changes to brush settings and variables by simply dragging sliders - without any disruption to their workflow.

New Frames Per Second Control - Animators can now test frame rates directly in Corel Painter. With the new Frames-per-Second Control, frame rates can be set and previewed in a range of 1 to 40 frames per second.
New Customizable Shortcut Keys - Corel Painter now offers creative professionals an unprecedented level of control over their workflow by enabling complete customization of shortcut keys.

Creativity
New Artists' Oils Painting System - A milestone in the evolution of digital art, this new painting system creates a new level of realism for digital painting, delivering oil paints that truly behave like traditional media. They blend, mix and feel `organic'. Artists' Oils blow away previous notions of what is possible in the digital realm.
New Snap-to-Path Painting - When users need to paint or draw a perfect curve or shape, Snap-to-Path Painting is a great time-saver. Snap-to-Path Painting makes it possible to constrain a brush stroke along a vector path or shape, creating a distinctly `made-by-hand' Painter look.

Improved Digital Watercolor - Digital Watercolor has been significantly enhanced in Corel Painter IX. Paint stays wet between sessions, enabling artists to start one session where the last one ended. Digital Watercolor emulates the traditional watercolor painting experience more realistically than ever before.

New Quick Clone - Ideal for photographers, Quick Clone enables the easy transformation of a photo into a painting. This new feature speeds up the image-cloning workflow, reducing five complicated steps to one simple click.

Compatibility
Enhanced Adobe® Photoshop® Support - Moving between Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter is easier than ever. Files saved to the Adobe Photoshop (PSD) file format open in Corel Painter, with layer masks, alpha channels and layer sets (layer groups) maintained. New layers are now added above the selected layer, layers with different merge modes are collapsible, and it is now possible to hide or display multiple layers by simply clicking and dragging.

Enhanced Wacom® Support - Corel Painter IX features support for Wacom's newest pen tablet model - the Wacom Intuos®3 - and the entire Wacom tablet product line. The Wacom Intuos3 has touch strips that can be configured to control brush size, zooming, and many other functions, eliminating the need for a keyboard.
Enhanced Color Management - Supporting industry-standard ICC4.0 profiles, Corel Painter IX Color Management enables color matching between on-screen and printed colors.

Learning
With improved Help; a revitalized User Guide; tutorials from leading graphics professionals; free training videos from lynda.com; and academic courseware specifically designed for educators; getting started with Corel Painter IX is easier than ever!

Powerful Software, Training and Content in One Box
Corel Painter IX includes the following components: Corel Painter IX, both Mac® and Windows® versions; libraries of unique gradients, nozzles, patterns, stock photos, paper textures, and brushes, including the new Artists' Oils brush category; The Corel Painter IX Handbook, including tutorials written by creative professionals; the User Guide (PDF) in electronic format; and free lynda.com training video content.

Pricing and Availability
Corel Painter IX is available for pre-order starting today through Corel and select partners. A free trial version is also available for download. Please visit www.corel.com/comingsoon for more information. Suggested retail pricing for Corel Painter IX is $429 (US) for full, $229 (US) for upgrade and $99 (US) for the education edition.

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