Photo Painting

New! Redesigned Workspace

Work within a tailored environment that includes all the tools you need to paint your photos.

New! Smart Stroke™ Technology

Quickly achieve impressive paintings or sketches with intuitive tools. Built into the Auto-Painting palette, Smart Stroke technology paints with brush strokes that follow the shapes and contours in your original photo. It dynamically changes brush size, stroke length and pressure, based on the detail and focal areas of the original photo.

New! Updated File Format

Quickly return to a project for further editing. Corel Painter Essentials 4 now saves the source image with your painting so you can continue working at any time.

Drawing and Painting Tools

New! Brush Drawer

Easily select brushes by previewing brush stroke samples and quickly access your most recently used brushes. You can also easily add your favorite brushes to the Brush Drawer column.

New! Mixer Palette

Get the exact color you want every time. In addition to the traditional Color Wheel, the new Mixer palette simulates the traditional experience of mixing colors on an artist's paint palette, making it easier for you to blend colors and get precise results.

New! Colors Palette

Pick a color with a single click.

New! Tablet Support

Easily navigate with a tablet thanks to redesigned workspaces that feature larger icons, buttons and sliders.

New! Magic Wand Tool

Easily select specific portions of a photo or painting.

New! Paper Selector

Enjoy quick access to a greater selection of paper textures that accurately reproduce the feel of using traditional art materials. You can even control the texture of the canvas to achieve the results expected from using traditional media on a given surface, like pencil on watercolor paper, felt pens on cotton paper, or chalk on the sidewalk.

New! 32 Undo Levels

Go back to earlier versions of your work to view or undo portions of your painting.

New! Online Print Services

Order prints of your artwork on canvas, watercolor paper and other fine art materials directly from the File Menu.

More Natural-Media® Tools

New! RealBristle™ Brushes

Authentically reproduce the natural movement of your brush, right down to the individual bristles.

New! Pens

Expand your artistic range with Scratchboard and Smooth Edge Calligraphy tools, which are perfect for inking comic books or doing calligraphy.

New! Charcoal Brushes

Apply realistic charcoal drawing effects to your artwork with new brushes that range from pencils to hard or soft charcoal sticks. As with other dry media brushes, the opacity is linked to pen pressure.

New! Sumi-e Brushes

Create flowing sumi-e-style brush strokes. Sumi-e is a style of painting that is characteristically Asian, and has been practiced for well over a thousand years. Literally ink painting, it is an art form that strives to distill the essence of an object or scene in the fewest possible strokes.

New! Sargent Brush

Paint in the style of Master Artist John Singer Sargent.

Enhanced! Brush Ghost

Receive unprecedented visual feedback of brush stroke behavior and enjoy better control as you apply brush strokes.

New! Nozzles

Apply special images to your canvas with handy Effects brushes, such as Nozzles. These are special image files that work with Image Hoses to "paint" images instead of colors. Each nozzle file contains multiple images.

New! Pattern Pens

Apply unique patterns to your images, and vary the size and transparency of the pattern.

Learning Resources

New! Tutorial-based Guidebook

Learn to use Painter Essentials 4 while completing fun, instructional projects.

New! Video Tutorials

Access video tutorials from Painter Master John Derry directly from the application.

New! Sample Files

Quickly find sample files for the guidebook and video tutorials right in the File Menu.

File Compatibility

New! Universal Binary Support

Painter Essentials 4 is optimized for use with Intel® processors. Enjoy improved performance with PowerPC® processors and Mac® OS.

New! Windows Vista® Support

Enhanced! Support for Wacom® Products

Use Painter Essentials 4 with any product in the entire Wacom line, including Graphire® pen tablets, Cintiq® 21 UX interactive pen display, the Intuos® 3 pen tablet and the Wacom 6D Art Pen.

Enhanced! File Compatibility

Easily share files with major photo-editing applications, such as Adobe® Photoshop® Elements, Adobe Photoshop, Corel® Paint Shop Pro® and Corel® PhotoImpact®.