onezumi.com : Stupid and Insane Defenders Against Chaos

When I discuss art creation techniques with people, inevitably I get a lot of questions about a program called Corel Painter. In theory, Painter seems like it could be a very good program. This is not the case. Terrible execution makes it something that I cannot recommend. Until recently I had withheld judgment since I really wanted to like this program, but this past week Corel went out off their way to prove that my waiting and tolerance was foolish.

My System

Painter's problems have nothing to do with my computer. I'm working on a custom system that is upgraded every so many months specifically for making 2D and 3D art. It is an Asus A7N8X Deluxe E motherboard with AMD 3000+ Processor. 1 gig of PC2700 memory, and a TI4600 128 MB graphics card. Running with a Raid 0 with dual SATA Western Digital 36 gig Raptor drives. I could easily crack a high-end 3D package open with no problem or work at 600 DPI in Adobe Photoshop with hardly any lag with a massive 2000px brush. Every other program is running flawlessly on my system except for Corel Painter.

Why I Dislike Corel Pt. 1 - Painter 7&8

Prior to this I had tried demo versions of Painter 7 and Painter 8. Both programs were pretty much unusable for me. It was so slow that working above a 75 DPI web graphic size was almost impossible. For print I have to work at least at 300 DPI. When I loaded up an image at 300 DPI and started to use a large brush (small by my Photoshop standards, only about 400px) to fill in the background, nothing happened...at least nothing happened until about 4 seconds later when one paint stroke began to trail in behind where I had used my brush. About 75%-99% of my CPU was being used just for this simple task and the program was locking up. The lag was so bad that I went into the other room and got a soda. On 3 separate occasions I tried the Painter 7 demo. All three times I got the same piss-poor result. When I removed the program from my computer, it took incredibly long just to do that. Ouch!

When Painter 8 came out I performed similar tests. This version was just as bad as 7. It was still unusable. Right when I loaded it up, the CPU usage spiked up to 100% and back down again. Each time I tried to perform a small task I locked up again. At this point I was a bit agitated. I felt as if this great concept was being dangled in front of me, but I wasn't able to use it. I was also agitated because I had read that Corel knew there was a problem with the code that slowed it down a lot but the tone of their FAQ at the time was something similar to, "We have no intention of fixing it."

I had posted on art forums about these problems and the responses I have received were not encouraging. Artists were going to great lengths to use this program. Why, I don't know. Maybe it was because it was packaged for free with some high-end art tablets. They worked only with specific brush sizes, worked at 75 DPI and then up sampled and then painted some more, up sampled again and painted I have no idea how many times - just to get a simple background! The amount of shit they were doing just to get the same thing I do in Photoshop (or Open Canvas) in a few minutes was very discouraging.

Why I Dislike Corel Pt. 2 - Painter IX

Painter IX has just been released. They are calling it, "The fastest version of Painter. EVER!" Obviously I was really excited. There was a chance that Corel fixed the problems in the program and I could now buy this thing and use it!

Nope. I have no idea why they are calling this, "The Fastest", because this program, as far as I can tell, is much worse than before. I downloaded the demo this week and loaded it up. I went to File > New. BAM! My machine locked up again, much worse than before and refused to move. All of this was just from opening the dialogue menu to start a new project. I never even got the canvas to open up.

At this point I made a wookie sound and called Harknell into the room. Harknell works in QA for a similar program. He immediately said, "This program has a serious problem. It's unusable. How did this make it to release?" He assisted me in regaining control of my system and dumping Painter IX into the trash.

Corel Tells Me to Get Lost

At this point I emailed Corel Support about this problem - like I said before I really wanted this to work out for me. Corel has a terrible system for this. Just to download the demo you have to log in with your name and create a password and such. By the time you get in, you are no doubt a bit frustrated. This is obviously a tactic to keep you from contacting them, and for getting your info to probably sell or market. The amount of hoops they want you to jump through is incredible. I figured that since I went through all of this I might as well email them and see if there is some kind of resolution planned.

I got this email in return:

"The product that you have submitted a support request for does not qualify for free support via email. This product is a Trial product. Trial software is free and as such, this product does not include the cost of technical support. Corel does offer a number of support options for Trial software. We offer self-serve support through our Knowledgebase..."

The mail went on to tell me the URL of their newsgroup and FAQ so that I could learn how to use Painter. After all that trouble I've gone to over the past few years they just blew me off. They completely disregarded everything I was saying once they saw "demo". I emailed them back telling them how I felt, and that the purpose of my trying the demo was not to learn how to use the program, but to see if it would work before I bought it. Not addressing this issue was pointless. I have yet to get a response. I don't really expect one.

I Still Want to Paint! What Should I Use, Onezumi?

For the high price they want for Painter and the incredible amount of problems and poor customer service - my honest opinion is that everyone would be better off with Adobe Photoshop. If you can't afford Photoshop, download the Gimp, which is like Photoshop but free for PC, Mac, and other platforms. If you want a program that is geared toward painting and you are comfortable with the somewhat limited file formats that it supports, buy Open Canvas. If you want a powerful sketching and painting program, tryAlias Sketchbook. Which one you choose depends on your personal preference, and I'll be more than happy to discuss it with you on my forums. In my opinion, all of these other programs are easily better than anything from Corel. After 4 years of trying to get their products to work - they have truly earned this review.

(EDIT:11-30-04)

I'm surprised. Since I wrote the above 5 days ago, Corel has contacted me. I will be having a phone conversation with them this week and I will update this section when I know the outcome. I have to admit, after the poor way I was treated and how I had to be forceful just to talk to someone about this; it would have to be miraculous to change my mind. I am willing to hear what they have to say. I still hope that Painter isn't as bad as I have seen.

(EDIT:12-03-04)

We received an autoresponse from Corel essentially stating that "since you haven't responded in lightening fashion, the magic pixie dust we used must have fixed your problem, we consider this case closed" Well guys, yup, you can consider it closed all right.

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Painter IX Review: : Great idea, terrible execution - buyer beware.