Is Painter Lite the right software for Industrial Design?

#1

Hello all

I’m in the market for a drawing application. I’m interesting in creating Industrial Design concept work digitally. I’m keen on this video by Eric Holmen which uses Corel Painter.

I’ve got the trial of X3 and it runs really badly on my work PC, which is a 3rd gen i5. It surprised me how slow the program started and closed, although the actual workflow seemed ok.

I’ve tried Mischief - which I liked - but it’s missing blend tools and only seems to have 5 brushes (when you consider the last 10 are just larger, less opaque version of the first 5). The UI is perfect though.

I also tried Manga Studio 5, which seems ok but the Windows UI is terrible and I’ve read it’s bad at colours? Dunno what that’s meant to mean… :-/

I already have Photoshop and Xara, but neither seems particularly well suited for this task.

Finally, I should point out that I’m likely to be using N-Trig pens because they are available on larger screens at lower price points. My first device (already purchased) uses the latest N-Trig digitizer. I expect that due to the Surface Pro 3, N-Trig pens will soon work will many WinTab applications like Corel Painter, right?

#2

Have you tried Krita yet? Pretty amazing paint open source paint application that arguably wipes the floor with Photoshop for painting. It’s more comparable to Painter, but also supports 16 and 32bpc, and offers a more modern GUI. Weighted smoothing of strokes is also supported, making it easier to draw smooth strokes (something missing in Photoshop).

Before you start painting make sure to turn on opengl acceleration in the preferences for improved performance.

The Windows version can be downloaded here:
http://kritastudio.com/desktop.html

The rate of development has become quite rapid, and new features are added every month now. Also, if you like it, please consider funding the kickstarter to sponsor some very interesting new features:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-open-source-digital-painting-accelerate-deve

http://krita.org/

#3

Btw, Painter Lite is horribly limited:

  • no layer blending modes
  • no custom brushes
  • no transformation tools
  • no layer transformations

Stay well clear. Krita blows Painter Lite out of the water - there is just no comparison.