Corel Corp. on Monday introduced Painter Essentials 3, a consumer application based on the company’s pro-level Painter IX. Targeted to digital photo enthusiasts, scrapbookers and other hobbyists, Corel said that all consumers would find the application easy to use.
“With Painter Essentials 3 we have taken the power of Painter IX and made it more approachable for our home users,” Sean Young, Product Manager for Corel Painter Essentials 3, told MacCentral. “Painter Essentials is built from the ground up with consumers in mind.”
Painter Essentials 3 has a new interface and dynamic painting palettes that paint your photo for you. There is also the option of having more control over the painting and using your mouse or Wacom tablet to paint the picture yourself.
“Painter Essentials enables anybody to turn a digital photo into a beautiful painting without any art skills, special computer equipment or technical capabilities,” said Young.
Even though Painter Essentials is based on Painter IX, Corel said there was more to the new application than dumbing down the pro version to meet consumer expectations.
“It’s about reorienting Painter and rebuilding it for the consumer’s needs,” said Young. “For instance, Painter Essentials can turn a photo into a painter in three easy steps.”
Painter Essentials 3 has many new and enhanced features including: Quick Clone; Artists’ Oils; Rubber Stamp tool; Eraser tool; Quick Guide Palette; and others.
Painter Essentials also features support for Adobe Photoshop and Apple’s iPhoto. Users can exchange files between Corel Painter Essentials 3, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Elements. Layers and layer sets are maintained when users open and save files in the PSD file format.
Users can also set their iPhoto preferences to designate Corel Painter Essentials 3 as their photo-editing software. Double-clicking an iPhoto image will open the image for editing in Corel Painter Essentials 3 and saved changes are instantly updated in iPhoto.
Painter Essentials 3 is available immediately from Corel for $99. The product will be shipping to retail stores later this month.