Increasing the overall speed, performance and stability of
Corel Painter IX was Corel's top priority. Working closely
with Apple, Intel and AMD, Corel engineers created improvements
wherever possible. The result: Corel Painter has never been
a more efficient and powerful application. This is the fastest
version of Corel Painter yet. Some brushes perform up to 10
times faster than in previous versions, and all brushes work,
on average, twice as fast. In addition, you can now change
the default scratch disk location in the Preference settings.

Getting down to the job at hand has never been easier,
thanks to the Corel Painter IX Welcome screen, which launches
at startup. Divided into four sections, the Welcome screen
gives quick access to recently used files, tutorials, brush
and color-management settings, and artwork from renowned Corel
Painter masters.

Brush Control palettes provide easy access to all brush
settings and controls. Making on-the-fly changes to brush
settings and variables is as simple as dragging a slider—without
any disruption to workflow. For example, the new Boost slider,
found in the General palette of the Brush Controls, instantly
enhances brush speed. Just drag the slider and see brush
performance accelerate.

The Artists' Oils Painting System is a milestone in the
evolution of digital art. This new painting system enables
you to apply paint blends created in the Mixer palette
directly onto images in the document window. Each brush dab
loads the brush variant with a finite amount of oil. As the
oil runs out, the brush stroke becomes fainter. Brush strokes
interact with any paint already on the canvas just as they
would with natural media.

When you need to create a perfect curve or shape, Snap-to-Path
Painting is a great time-saver. Snap-to-Path Painting makes
it possible to constrain a brush stroke along a path or a shape
by clicking a button or using a keyboard shortcut. With a
simple click, you can now create a precise brush stroke that
reflects the attributes typically found in a Corel Painter
stroke, such as pressure, tilt and bearing.

Digital Watercolor has been significantly enhanced in Corel
Painter IX. Paint stays wet between sessions, allowing you
to start one session where the last one ended. The wet
fringe of digital watercolor brush strokes can now be
changed dynamically, enabling experimentation after the
brush stroke has been applied.

Quick Clone is ideal if you're a photographer because it
enables you to transform your photos into paintings. This
new feature speeds up the image-cloning workflow and reduces
five steps to one. Quick Clone settings can be defined on
the General page of the Preferences dialog box.

Moving between Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter is
simple. Files saved to the Adobe Photoshop (PSD) file
format open in Corel Painter, with layer masks, alpha
channels and layer sets (layer groups) maintained.

Layer behavior in Corel Painter is now very similar to
layer behavior in Adobe Photoshop. New layers are added
above the selected layer, layers with different merge
modes are collapsible, and it is now possible to hide
or display multiple layers by simply clicking and dragging.
In addition, Corel Painter IX supports Adobe Photoshop
plug-ins for Mac® OS X.

Corel Painter IX includes access to a selection of
training videos created by lynda.com—one of the world's
most renowned graphics training companies—to guide you
through the Corel Painter workspace, tools, features
and techniques.