[MW Forums]

Corel Corp. on Monday announced that it is now shipping Corel Painter IX, the latest version of the company's painting and illustration software that simulates natural media. The new version of Painter is now available in North America, the U.K. and Australia. New features include improved speed, new and enhanced Brush Control Palettes, frames-per-second control, customizable shortcut keys, the Artists' Oils Painting System, Snap-to-Path Painting, improved Digital Watercolor and Quick Clone. Also enhanced is Adobe Photoshop support and support for Wacom pen tablets; color management has been improved also. Painter IX costs US$429; upgrades from previous versions are $229, and an educational version costs $99. System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.2.8 or higher, G3/500MHz or greater, 128MB RAM, mouse or tablet, 24-bit color display, 1024 x 768 pixel display and CD-ROM drive. more

[Uncle_Deercamp]

It's just bells and whistles...

[Nobody]

This looks like a cash desperate company renaming what should have been Painter 8.2. I just bought Painter 8. I think I'll stick with it long enough to figure out its UI before venturing forth to yet another version. Faster? I should pay for faster? Faster should be free.

[jackaxe]

The Artist Oils alone make this worth the upgrade. This is the first Painter that can actually mix the paints directly on the canvas, for once yellow and blue actually make green. Corel really fudged Painter with version 7, but wtih 8 and now 9 they've managed to redeem themselves. Painter 6 is still the fastest version IMO, but the demo of P9 is noticeably faster then P8.1 and because of it's updated brushes, the best version to date.
<]=)

[ldixon]

Anyone who is interested in Painter would be well advised to check out Studio Artist. It's got in my opinion some of the best natural (and un-natural) media generation, built around a true synthesis model (each configuration is a "patch" that you can tweak and customize to yr hearts content). It's keyframe interface is a royal pain for those wanting to use this for video, but it's more than adequate for really textural, painterly, bizzarre and beautiful effects.
www.synthetik.com
No I don't work for them, I just love the product and think it deserves at least as much attention as Painter (for those that are interested in that sort of thing).
Now if I could only work these effects like I can with stuff in AfterEffects, ie more comprehensive control over keyframed attributes... I'd never leave the house...