VERDICT A rethought interface, new auto painting capabilities and excellent price make Painter Essentials a real creative star.
Corel’s flagship Painter application is unmatched for its ability to mimic traditional artistic media such as watercolours and oil paints – but no-one could claim that it makes the process simple. This is where the cut-down Painter Essentials comes in, promising to make the core of this creative power accessible to everyone.

Tom Arah shows you the best way to bring some texture into your design work.

Long-term readers will know that I am a big fan and keen advocate of the use of seamless bitmap textures. Such textures play an essential role in the production of 3D work, as we saw again last month, but they can also prove just as useful within 2D bitmap and vector environments...

Tom Arah explores the ways in which 3D modelling and bitmap editing can be creatively fused.

The end quality of 3D output depends largely on the application’s handling of materials and, more often than not, this involves mapping imported bitmaps to your objects’ surfaces...

VERDICT: Piranesi gets the major overhaul of interface and tools that its extraordinary creative power deserves.

Piranesi stands out from all other bitmap editors because it is able to handle material and depth information as well as colour; it might sound a relatively small difference but it unleashes a massive amount of 3D painting power...

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VERDICT: New realism for bristled brushes and automatic painting that approaches hands-on quality give Painter X a creative edge.

Over the years Painter has made its reputation by reproducing as faithfully as possible the way that traditional media, art materials and underlying canvas interact with each other...

Don’t be put off by the name (Project Dogwaffle), Tom Arah discovers some extraordinary painting power in the unlikeliest of places

After working in the digital design industry for almost 20 years and reviewing over 250 applications I like to think that I know the graphics software that is out there. Recently however...

Tom Arah looks at some recently released creative add-ons from Alien Skin and Twisting Pixels that could help make your work stand out

With all creative professionals using Adobe Photoshop it’s difficult to make your work stand out. The solution is to extend your creative arsenal by choosing from the wide selection of Photoshop plug-ins.