Painter is one of the more unexpected success stories on the PC. First released 10 years ago, it instantly made news by offering unique paint, ink and paper simulation features for users of Wacom tablets. Inspired marketing – one version was sold inside a paint tin instead of a box – kept the profile high. But after a few rounds of corporate pinball, Painter eventually ended up in the Corel stable. Development has slackened since then: while this latest version adds some new features, it’s not so different from version 8, the last release we’ve tested.

Painter uses a system of virtual brushes for drawing and painting. These attempt to simulate the spread and glop of real paints and pencils, and can be applied to a variety of simulated paper surfaces, as well as to your own photos. Some effects, like watercolour washes, are subtle. Others, like the fur brush, are silly but fun. There are also special effects that add textures, create glass-like reflections, produce quick sketches and even draw mazes.

New to version IX was an impressive artists’ oils toolset, which improved simulation by limiting the amount of paint in each stroke. After a certain amount of brush wiggling, the brush had to be recharged. This is a deceptively simple feature, and goes a long way towards making Painter more natural to paint with. There’s also path painting for industrial illustration, and improved watercolours. A new QuickClone feature instantly clones an image and sets up tracing paper options for it – handy for clone paint operations. Bringing up the rear is a subset of the KPT Collection plug-in set, repurposed for Painter. This includes the Pyramid Paint option, which is an interesting and intermittently useful take on the ‘instant painting’ idea.

Artistic impression
In IX.5, these features are joined by a new auto-painting tool. This takes a while to master – it’s not mentioned in the online help – and the results are mixed. It’s supposed to smother a photo in simulated paint strokes and turn it into an instant masterpiece. In practice, the output is more varied than the plastic and mostly useless instant art plug-ins in Photoshop. But a lot of fine tuning and care are still needed to get even passable results, and it ignores the fact that artists use brush strokes to follow tone and colour contours. It’s a long way from an instant-click painting generator.

There are also several new brushes, including a special selection for Wacom’s new 6D art pen (www.wacom.com), some new tools – finally, an eraser and a cloner – and better support for Paint Shop Pro, now also in the Corel stable.

The documentation is also worth a mention. A book includes some impressive showcase tutorials and registration offers the chance to download tutorial videos (www.lynda.com). This good start is let down by the online help, which has a few oddities or omissions – for example, the entry for Plug-ins takes you to Dynamic Plug-ins, which links right back to ‘For more information, see Plug-ins…’

Painter IX.5 seems to be a great piece of software buried under a half-hearted development schedule. Rough edges that were excusable in a v1 or v2 release seem to have persisted through to this latest version. For example, the file selector includes a thumbnail window, but this doesn’t seem to show any thumbnails. Previews remain stamp-sized when today’s faster processors make full-sized previews practical.

This is a paradoxical product. In capable hands, it can create fantastic results, and that makes it essential for PC-based illustrators and designers. For Wacom-equipped dabblers, it’s a great way to try out techniques and styles without the huge investment in paints and brushes that would otherwise be needed. When a single high quality paintbrush can cost £50, Painter IX.5 is a bargain. But it would be more appealing still if someone tidied up the flaws and modernised the interface.