Painter 11 for Photographers

Creating painterly images step by step

Martin Addison

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136100215
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Art General

Whether you are new to Painter or a seasoned pro wanting to take your digital art to the next level, this inspirational book and downloadable resources package will show you how to get the most out of Corel's powerful painting software.

Starting with the basics and moving on to cover brushes, textures, cloning, toning and other effects, Martin Addison will help you master the tools and features needed to transform your photographs into stunning works of art. Over 2 hours of video tutorials and clear, step-by-step examples take you through the techniques in a no-nonsense manner, with all images provided on the accompanying downloadable resources so you can learn by doing.

Packed with beautiful images to illustrate what can be achieved with the right skills and know-how, Painter 11 For Photographers will inspire you to get creative with your personal or commercial photographs.

FIG 1.1 Sailing ship – painted with the Square Chalk brush

The first part of this chapter is intended for complete beginners to Painter and contains simple exercises to guide the user in identifying the key areas of the workspace. If you have previously used Painter you may wish to skim this section or just pick up on the newer features.

The second part of the chapter contains information to enable you to customize the program to your own requirements and covers the use of graphic tablets and setting preferences to make the work process smoother and quicker.

Both sections can be used as a quick reference guide to the key elements as you work through the step by step examples in later chapters.

Information on printing and color management can be found in Chapter 12.

Many readers will have already used and be very familiar with Adobe Photoshop, and for them I have included a section highlighting the differences between the two programs: sometimes the naming of techniques differs and of course the location of particular commands. There are also tables of file compatibility, tools and keyboard shortcuts.

The Painter 11 workspace

Default view

Figure 1.2 shows the default view of Painter 11 with the File bar at the top of the screen and the Properties bar just beneath, leading to the Brush Selector on the right. The tools are on the left and a selection of palettes on the right beneath the Brush Selector.

FIG 1.2 The default view of Painter 11

FIG 1.3 The Toolbox with hidden tools shown to the side. The Library palette icons at the bottom of the Toolbox are shortcuts to the following palettes: Papers, Gradients, Patterns, Weaves, Brush Looks and Image Nozzles

New tools added in Painter 11 are the Transform tool, which is behind the Layer Adjuster tool, and the Polygonal Lasso, which is behind the Rectangular Selection tool

Painter is unable to read RAW files, so they will need to be opened first in a RAW reader such as Adobe Camera Raw or Aperture

Toolbox

The Toolbox is where all the tools are stored (no surprise there then) and Figure 1.3 shows the Painter 11 Toolbox with all the hidden tools revealed and shown alongside.

To access the hidden tools, click and hold the visible tool and the other options will appear to the side – just click the one required. Some of the important tools which are being used in this book are detailed in this chapter, but most are very obvious by their icons.

Keyboard shortcuts are set up for many of the regularly used tools and others can be customized in the Preferences menu. A full explanation of all the tools can be found in the Painter program under Help > Help Topics.

Opening a picture in Painter

Painter is able to use several different types of pictures. If you are bringing in pictures from a digital camera, the most common file types are JPEG or TIFF format. If you are importing a picture that has been saved in Adobe Photoshop the file type is likely to be PSD. Painter will happily use all these file types and several others. Painter does have its own file type called RIFF, however when importing photographs it is not necessary to use this in the majority of cases. It is generally desirable not to use very large image files as they will slow the program down and some of the complex brushes in particular can be very slow.

If the image is to be printed then a resolution between 150 dpi and 300 dpi is preferable, which means a file size of between 10 and 20 mb is suitable to print up to A4 and A3. For web use a much smaller file size can be used: in most cases around 1mb. More information on file sizes and printing can be found in Chapter 12.

Open ‘ Boots ’ from Chapter 1 folder on the DVD, or use your own photograph to try these procedures.

Brush Selector

The Brush Selector is where the type of brush is chosen. Brushes are at the heart of everything in Painter and are dealt with in a lot more depth in Chapters 3 and 4.

FIG 1.4 The Brush Selector

On the right of the Properties bar is the Brush Selector. Click the brush icon on the left and the drop down menu will reveal the extensive range of brush categories that are available. Click and drag down the bottom right corner of the menu to see the full list of brush categories. Select the Oils category.

Click on the right-hand icon to reveal another drop down menu that shows the list of variants for the Oils brush category. Once again you will need to drag down the list to reveal all the variants. This is a very large category and will give some idea of the huge number of brushes available. Click on the Bristle Oils 30 brush as illustrated in Figure 1.4.

Picking a color from the Colors palette

To choose a color go to the Colors palette, which should be visible on the right of the screen. If this is not the case go to Window>Color Palettes>Colors and it will appear.

Figure 1.5 shows the Colors palette. Click in the outer colored circle to choose the hue or color. The inner section defines the brightness of the color – the pure color is on the right, the darker colors bottom left and lighter at th...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Decation
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Where can I get help?
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: Getting started in Painter 11
• Chapter 2: First steps in cloning
• Chapter 3: Choosing brushes
• Chapter 4: Customizing brushes
• Chapter 5: Paper textures
• Chapter 6: Layers and montage
• Chapter 7: Using color
• Chapter 8: Landscape
• Chapter 9: Children
• Chapter 10: Portraits
• Chapter 11: Special effects
• Chapter 12: Printing and presentation
• Index