agr-Not Impressed with P7
Alan G Roberts
I am an architect & bought P4 some years ago as I enjoy drawing and
painting. It was a wonderful program. I upgraded to P5 and then P5.5, each
time being impressed with the improved ability of the program. BUT... then
P6 arrived. After about one week of experiencing its terrible performance -
even though its advertising hype claimed it was much improved, faster, and
so on - I sent it back and demanded a refund.
Recently I purchased a 1.2 GHz computer and, after reading the hype on P7
and being offered an upgrade by Corel I decided to give it another try.
Sorry, but I am not impressed and I have a few comments:
!) In P5.5 there were floaters. If you created a floater you could easily
select it - or a number of floaters together - with the selection tool on
the screen and manipulate it/them. How do you do this in P7? It seems to me
that floaters are gone and we now have "layers" but there doesn' seem to be
a way to select objects in the drawing other than by picking them
individually in the "layers" box on the "objects" menu. In a large file with
many layers how are you supposed to pick the specific object you want other
than by picking through each one on the list until you hopefully hit the one
you want. I may have missed it but so far I do not know how to do this.
2) What happened to the wonderful oil paint brushes that existed in P5.5 and
how do I get them back?
3) The menus and toolbars are so badly designed that you end up needing two
columns of toolboxes visible to work - Can't the designers figure out that
screen real estate is precious and needed to view the image one is creating?
4) Documentation is absolutely pathetic. One miserable manual and not even a
decent tutorial. P4, P5 and P5.5 all had spiral-bound manuals that laid flat
plus separate tutorial manuals. Nothing like this in P7.
So far I am not impressed at all with P7 and am debating whether I should
send it back to Corel and demand a refund. If I designed a building as
sloppily as these programs are put together and made grandious and
misleading claims about it I would be sued into oblivion yet computer
companies do this all the time to us users and we just keep on paying for
upgrades and put up with half-baked products full of problems that do not
live up to the hype.
Alan Roberts, AIA
Architect
Karen Sperling
Select in the Control palette and you have your lovely functioning
floater-esque layers back.
Also, click Preserve Transparency in the Layers palette to constrain paint
to the "floater's" edge like the old days. With Preserve Transparency
unchecked, you paint beyond the edge, but it's like editing the mask. Check
Preserve Transparency again, and your newly painted area is now the
"floater's" edge.
Hope this helps.
--
Karen Sperling
Editor/Publisher
Artistry Painter Tutorials
http://www.artistrymag.com
----------
In article <3b93185d_1@cnews>, "Alan G Roberts" <alangr...@onebox.com>
wrote:
Richard
news:3b93185d_1@cnews...
Snip>
BUT... then
> P6 arrived. After about one week of experiencing its terrible
performance -
> even though its advertising hype claimed it was much improved, faster, and
> so on - I sent it back and demanded a refund.
You should have waited until the patch came out...6.1 is very stable. There
are
some things I still use 5.5 for, such as creating certain types of floaters
that need
more area added to the rectangle peremiter. I create lots of them so it is
easier for me
to use 5.5. To do this in 6 is a bit convoluted. I haven't tried it in 7
yet.
Snip>
> 2) What happened to the wonderful oil paint brushes that existed in P5.5
and
> how do I get them back?
Check CD #2...Look under the Brushes folder...You also get the added bonus
of Painter 6 brushes. You will really like the new xml brush technology in
7.
> 3) The menus and toolbars are so badly designed that you end up needing
two
> columns of toolboxes visible to work - Can't the designers figure out that
> screen real estate is precious and needed to view the image one is
creating?
Look under Preferences > Palettes...you can select how you want the 3 main
palettes to look. Actually it works pretty good when you get used to it.
> 4) Documentation is absolutely pathetic. One miserable manual and not even
a
> decent tutorial. P4, P5 and P5.5 all had spiral-bound manuals that laid
flat
> plus separate tutorial manuals. Nothing like this in P7.
If you think 7's manual is bad...6 fell apart after 4th day because the
binding was
so poor. The content was pretty good, like 4 & 5. I spent $3.95 at Kinko's
for
the same type binding as 4 & 5. I did the same thing with 7. Corel
scrimped a
lot on the screen captures but the rest of the information is there...not
quite the
way you are used to seeing a Painter manual.
As for tutorials...Look under Help > Tutorials...For the most part these are
very good. Also check Jin's site where she has many helpful tips of her own
and other gathered from various places. The most recent are 2 by John
Derry.
Keyboard Shortcuts and Liquid ink...wish I had his communication skills.
http://www.pixelalley.com/
> So far I am not impressed at all with P7 and am debating whether I should
> send it back to Corel and demand a refund.
Snip>
IMHO...There is enough in 7 to make it worth the time and effort to learn
the
program. Without going into specifics, those who stuck with 6 will not find
a
steep learning curve for 7...er...maybe the new water colors will be a
little
more stressful. ;-)
Richard
http://www.rapartz.com
Jinny Brown
I can understand your frustration, leaping from Painter 5.5 to Painter
7. There were a lot of changes in Painter 6 that somewhat help us to
make that transition, though we're still having to learn a lot of new
things in Painter 7.
I'll try to answer some of your issues. Comments inserted below:
Alan G Roberts wrote:
<SNIP>
>.....BUT... then
> P6 arrived. After about one week of experiencing its terrible performance -
> even though its advertising hype claimed it was much improved, faster, and
> so on - I sent it back and demanded a refund.
Painter 6 was pretty well stabilized with the 6.0.3 patch (the prior,
and first, patch was 6.0.1). Later, the 6.1 patch was introduced and
included a few fixes and a couple of new features. In the beginning, it
too caused some complaints but with the second version of the 6.1 patch,
things calmed down and most of us are doing very well with it. Painter 6
was the first version to do away with Floaters and Transparent Layers.
All Layers were/are automatically transparent. In addition, we could now
make selections on Layers.. a great improvement to name just one of
many.
The interface took some getting used to as it was different from earlier
versions and still took up a lot of real estate. However, there are
several ways to arrange Palettes and save user-arranged Palette Layouts
(several if the user wants them to switch between them for specific
kinds of work in Painter). In addition, it's easy to toggle Palettes
open and closed with a combination of two keystrokes (Ctrl/Command+1,
Ctrl/Command+2, etc.), or hide all Palettes at once using
Ctrl/Command+H.
In addition to being able to save Palette Layouts and use keystrokes to
open and close individual Palettes, we can create Custom Palettes that
contain library icons for Brushes, Papers, Patterns, etc. and frequently
used Menu commands so with one click a library can be loaded or a Menu
item initiated. Also, the F keys can be programmed to perform Menu
commands.
It is quite possible, with a little planning and setting up to make good
use of the Painter screen's real estate and work comfortably.
Some users, who have two monitors, stretch the Painter window over to
the second monitor and move their palettes over to that space, leaving
the "main monitor" completely available to paint.
<SNIP>
> !) In P5.5 there were floaters. If you created a floater you could easily
> select it - or a number of floaters together - with the selection tool on
> the screen and manipulate it/them. How do you do this in P7? It seems to me
> that floaters are gone and we now have "layers" but there doesn' seem to be
> a way to select objects in the drawing other than by picking them
> individually in the "layers" box on the "objects" menu. In a large file with
> many layers how are you supposed to pick the specific object you want other
> than by picking through each one on the list until you hopefully hit the one
> you want. I may have missed it but so far I do not know how to do this.
Several things can be done to manage Layers conveniently and find the
ones you want:
1. Double-click the Layer and when the Layer Attributes dialog box
opens, rename the Layer with an appropriate name. Or, double-click a
Group and when the Layer Attributes dialog box opens, rename the Group
with an appropriate name.
2. Lock Layers that you don't want to accidentally move or otherwise
affect. (Click the Layer's Lock icon).
3. Group Layers that you won't be working on for a while, then lock the
Group for the same reason as described above. (Highlight the Layers you
want to Group, then Group them using one of the following methods:
a.) From the Layers section icon at the bottom of the Layers section,
choose Group.
b.) (In Windows) Hold your cursor over the highlighted Layers and
Right-Click to open the menu, then choose Group.
c.) From the Layers section menu in the upper right corner of the Layers
section, choose Group.
d.) Use Ctrl/Command+G to Group the Layers.
4. To make things less visually confusing, you can also close the Eye
icon for Layers and/or Groups that are not going to be used for a while
and are locked (or remain unlocked if you wish).
5. With all Layers and/or Groups that you don't want to work on locked,
in the Layers section list, click Canvas and using the Layer Adjuster
tool (hand with pointing index finger), drag over the Layer(s) or
Group(s) you want to highlight/make active and then treat in some way.
In Painter 7, text is easier to deal with too, since it's automatically
"held together" in a Dynamic Layer and can be edited at any time by
simply clicking the Text tool and placing your cursor inside the text
box. Text also can be selected when other Layers and Groups are locked
by clicking Canvas in the Layers section list then using the Layer
Adjuster tool to either click the text or drag a window over it to make
it active.
There is probably more to say about managing Layers, Groups, and Dynamic
Layers but that should give you something to start with and make it
easier to deal with them.
> 2) What happened to the wonderful oil paint brushes that existed in P5.5 and
> how do I get them back?
If you check on your Painter 7 CDs (two of them), you'll see that
Version 4, 5, and 6 brushes are included, in addition to many extra
brushes on CD 2. Some older brushes won't work in Painter 7 as the brush
technology has changed, especially for Water Color brushes. I have both
Painter 5 and Painter 6 still on my system along with Painter 7 so if I
want to use a brush that doesn't work in Painter 7, I can still use it
in it's own version of Painter.
Painter 7 has some pretty wonderful brushes too. Though I've only begun
to discover what they can do, I'm enjoying the process of learning very
much and am finding these brushes to be really interesting to use.
I just loaded the Painter 5.5 brush library in Painter 7 to see how the
Big Loaded Oils, Big Wet Oils, Loaded Oils, Oil Paint, and Small Loaded
Oils work. They all look delicious to me, though I can see a slight
difference when using them in Painter 6 and Painter 7. Without playing
with any of the settings, I can't say if they could be made to match
exactly but they're not far enough to cause much of a problem.. or
that's my thought. You'd have to try them yourself to see what you
think.
To load your Painter 5.5 brushes, in the Brushes palette's Brush
category list, scroll to the bottom and click Load Library, click the
Import button, locate the Painter 5.5 brush library file and click the
Open button. You'll see Painter 5.5 Brushes in the list of brush
libraries in the upper part of the Brush Libraries dialog box. Highlight
Painter 5.5 Brushes and click the Load button. In a couple of seconds
(Painter 7 will write an XML file for the Painter 5.5 brush library),
your Painter 5.5 brushes are loaded and ready to use. Whenever you want
to load them again, just click Load Library at the bottom of the Brush
category list, highlight Painter 5.5 Brushes, and click the Load
button.
> 3) The menus and toolbars are so badly designed that you end up needing two
> columns of toolboxes visible to work - Can't the designers figure out that
> screen real estate is precious and needed to view the image one is creating?
See what I wrote above about managing Palettes, making Custom Palettes,
and using keystroke commands.
> 4) Documentation is absolutely pathetic. One miserable manual and not even a
> decent tutorial. P4, P5 and P5.5 all had spiral-bound manuals that laid flat
> plus separate tutorial manuals. Nothing like this in P7.
You just haven't looked far enough (yet). There are several very good
tutorials on the CDs that you can choose to install with the initial
Painter 7 installation or install later if you want. The list of
tutorials in (printable or viewable either in Acrobat Reader or in your
browser) PDF format includes:
Brush Variants
Clone Painting
Collage
Color Management
Color Reduction
Foliage
Image Hose
Line Art
Liquid Ink
Movie
Patterns
Text
Watercolor
Workspace
In addition to the hard copy Painter 7 User Guide, via the Help menu, we
now have browser-based searchable documentation and we can bookmark
topics that we want to return to later.
In addition to all this, Corel Painter Developer John Derry has
generously given permission to make his Painter 7 Visual Guides for
Keyboard Shortcuts, Water Color, and Liquid Ink available for download.
There's a page on my site where you can do this, and also read two
messages he sent that explain more about the Painter 7 Water Color
brushes and Liquid Ink brushes. Another page on my site has recently
been set up to collect problem reports and, where possible, solutions
as well as some things that are just informative. Jeremy Sutton, Painter
artist and teacher, has just contributed a demonstration of how Painter
7 brushes work differently with Paper textures that earlier version
brushes did. It is a set of steps that any Painter 7 user can use to see
how the Painter 7 brushes work with Paper textures. That page is being
updated almost daily so it's a good one to check back and read
frequently.
You'll find links to both pages at the top of this page:
http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/tuthome.html
At the bottom of that page, you'll find a list of Painter related e-mail
lists, message boards, forums, and newsgroups and links to sign up. I
strongly suggest that anyone who owns Painter 7 take advantage of these
resources as we're working together to learn Painter 7. It's a big
change for all of us and after the first jolt of seeing how different it
is.. it's becoming more fun each day.
> So far I am not impressed at all with P7 and am debating whether I should
> send it back to Corel and demand a refund. If I designed a building as
> sloppily as these programs are put together and made grandious and
> misleading claims about it I would be sued into oblivion yet computer
> companies do this all the time to us users and we just keep on paying for
> upgrades and put up with half-baked products full of problems that do not
> live up to the hype.
>
> Alan Roberts, AIA
> Architect
Hope you give it a little more time and effort before making your
decision. I think there's a whole lot of joy to be had with this version
if we give it, and ourselves, a chance.. and especially if we don't try
to learn it all alone.
Best wishes, :o)
Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________
Jinny Brown
Thanks! I knew that once (Auto Select). <g>
So much to remember and so little brain to remember it with.
Happy Holiday! :o)
Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________
Karen Sperling wrote:
>
> With the layers adjuster tool selected (the left-pointing hand), click Auto
> Select in the Control palette and you have your lovely functioning
> floater-esque layers back.
> Also, click Preserve Transparency in the Layers palette to constrain paint
> to the "floater's" edge like the old days. With Preserve Transparency
> unchecked, you paint beyond the edge, but it's like editing the mask. Check
> Preserve Transparency again, and your newly painted area is now the
> "floater's" edge.
> Hope this helps.
> --
> Karen Sperling
> Editor/Publisher
> Artistry Painter Tutorials
> http://www.artistrymag.com
<SNIP>
Karen Sperling
This is one that is near and dear to my heart.
I, too, felt Alan's frustration upon opening Painter 6 and thinking that you
could no longer select layers as floater/objects. It is really one of
Painter's best features, being able to click and move a layer/object without
having to select it first in the layers palette.
Karen
----------
In article <3B939654...@mindspring.com>, Jinny Brown
Alan G Roberts
I am going to save them and go through the tips you gave. I downloaded the
first patch for P6 when it came out and was also frustrated by its poor
performance. It was at that point that I decided to send it back.
Fortunately I do not earn a living with this program as some of you guys do.
I use it mainly for pleasure and I have been hoping that it would improve.
This is why I lived with P5.5 until now. Looking at your comments I will
probably stay with it and not send it back. One thing I have had however are
a number of random crashes caused by P7 performing an "Illegal Operation" -
something that rarely happens on my computer with P5.5.
Thanks again,
Alan R
"Jinny Brown" <jinb...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3B93951E...@mindspring.com...
kevj
if P5.5 works for you then stick with it because there is virtually no
improvement in the brushes. in fact i often go back to 5.5 because it's
chalk brushes worked better before thay changed the paint engine. i think
that i could probably achieve the same results with a copy of painter 3 than
i can with 7.. apart from the fact ive lost the floppys.... and there no
where to put them in my mac? bring back the mask brush........!
kev j
"Alan G Roberts" <alangr...@onebox.com> wrote in message
news:3b93b5fe_2@cnews...
Jinny Brown
I remember that frustration (dismay) too, but it was forgotten pretty
soon as I learned other ways to snag my Layers. It is a great and easy
way to do it though.
Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________
Karen Sperling wrote:
>
> Jin,
> This is one that is near and dear to my heart.
> I, too, felt Alan's frustration upon opening Painter 6 and thinking that you
> could no longer select layers as floater/objects. It is really one of
> Painter's best features, being able to click and move a layer/object without
> having to select it first in the layers palette.
> Karen
<SNIP>
Jinny Brown
Karen Sperling contributed a great tool for learning Painter 7 Water
Color settings and I just updated my pages to include it.. along with a
couple of other new things I did and added to my brand new Painter 7
Tutorials page. Here are the links and you'll find some things linked on
all three pages:
http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/tuthome.html (Original PixelAlley
Tutorials section main page.. still active with Painter 5/5.5 and 6
tutorials and sign up information for Painter related e-mail lists,
message boards, forums, and newsgroups.. also contact information for
Corel at the bottom of the page.)
http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/painter7-findings.html (Painter 7
Findings - Tips and Facts - Watch this one for updates frequently as we
learn more about Painter 7 bugs/problems and solutions.. also other good
information. If you're looking for something, use your browser's word
search function to see if it's there.. or just scroll down the page.
Something new contributed by Jeremy Sutton yesterday on how Painter 7
brushes interact differently with Paper textures than earlier version
brushes.. and Karen's great contribution today.)
http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/painter7-tutorials.html (Painter 7
Tutorials - A Beginning.. Jeremy and Karen's contributions and a couple
of mine .. just opened it yesterday.. gimme time.)
Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________
Richard wrote:
>
> "Alan G Roberts" <alangr...@onebox.com> wrote in message
> news:3b93185d_1@cnews...
>
> Snip>
> BUT... then
> > P6 arrived. After about one week of experiencing its terrible
> performance -
> > even though its advertising hype claimed it was much improved, faster, and
> > so on - I sent it back and demanded a refund.
>
> You should have waited until the patch came out...6.1 is very stable. There
> are
> some things I still use 5.5 for, such as creating certain types of floaters
> that need
> more area added to the rectangle peremiter. I create lots of them so it is
> easier for me
> to use 5.5. To do this in 6 is a bit convoluted. I haven't tried it in 7
> yet.
<SNIP>
Jinny Brown
In either Painter 5.5 or Painter 3 (or anything in between)...
Can you paint with Liquid Inks and later scale the image up without
losing quality?
Can you make selections on Floaters and Transparent Layers?
Can you use the Text tool without ending up with a long string of text
Shapes in your Floater list, then edit it any time you want after the
fact of typing it?
Can you paint with Water Color brushes on Floaters or Transparent
Layers?
<G>
It's a very personal thing, what aspects of Painter are good for one
person or another. Whatever makes you happy is a good thing.
Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________
kevj
im not arguing with you at all. im just saying i can paint as well in 3456
as i can in seven(well, nearly if they hadn't changed their keyboard
shortcuts). as you say it depends on what you do .i was just ponting out
that i liked some of the old brushes before they changed the paint engine.
i have really tried in v6 to get a brush like the old oils ect but cant as
these brushes are great for instant woodgrain ect.
ps . this is not a moan!
pps. im not moaning even though i sound like im moaning.
ppps. when re- reading my post i noticed a slight mini-moan
pppps. im not looking for tips on instant woodgrain in 7
bye
kev j
"Jinny Brown" <jinb...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3B93DA2C...@mindspring.com...
Karen Sperling
watercolors, I like the way floaters worked (this never comes up but after
version 5 you could no longer make layers interact with canvas masks, for
instance).
I do like the brushes in Painter 6 and 7 too, though.
I just keep version 5, 6 and 7 on my system-they seem like different
software programs, not just upgrades of the same software.
Karen Sperling
Editor/Publisher
Artistry Painter Tutorials
http://www.artistrymag.com
----------
In article <3B93DA2C...@mindspring.com>, Jinny Brown
Jinny Brown
You didn't really sound like you were moaning.. and I was teasing you a
bit. I like some of the old brushes a lot too and am not so comfortable
with the idea that they (and the software that allows us to use them)
will one day become so antique it won't work on our systems anymore. Ah
well, I'm going to get every bit out of Painter 7 and surely that will
keep me busy for the rest of my life. <g>
pppps. don't worry.. I don't have any tips on instant woodgrain in 7 or
anywhere else.. or anything much that's instant.
Happy rest of the holiday,
Karen Sperling
Just a note to thank you for keeping everyone so informed on Painter 7.
I can't imagine how anyone is doing with Painter 7 who doesn't know about
your site and all these Painter forums.
--
----------
In article <3B93E521...@mindspring.com>, Jinny Brown
Jinny Brown
Um.. "Actually?" ?? Liquid Ink scaled up? That's what John Derry said.
Let me go get his exact words.. be right back.. (bet that's not what you
were asking and I'm going to feel stupid again). <g>
back again.. here it is:
"An important feature of Liquid Ink that I don't believe is mentioned in
the Guide is that
it is "vector-like"; that is, you can re-scale a Liquid Ink image up to
a higher resolution
and it will re-render with crisp, anti-aliased edges." John Derry,
August 31, 2001 or thereabouts.
Cool, yes?
Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________
Karen Sperling
pre-6 brushes, too...
??
--
----------
In article <3B93E9F5...@mindspring.com>, Jinny Brown
Jinny Brown
It's always amazed me to find that people have been using Painter for
years and barely ever communicated with other Painter users. I'd never
have learned even as much as I have without help from literally hundreds
(thousands?) of people.
What's puzzling me is how relatively few people have spoken up with
questions about Painter 7. No one could figure it out just by reading
the User Guide, Help Topics, and doing the tutorials.. good as they may
be. We've run into such odd things that none of those cover.
I know! They're just so blown away by Painter 7 they don't know what to
ask. <g>
We'll get 'em one of these days. Curiousity will get the best of them.
Thanks for letting me know all this running around might be doing some
good. :o)
Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________
Karen Sperling wrote:
>
> Jinny,
> Just a note to thank you for keeping everyone so informed on Painter 7.
> I can't imagine how anyone is doing with Painter 7 who doesn't know about
> your site and all these Painter forums.
> --
> Karen Sperling
> Editor/Publisher
> Artistry Painter Tutorials
> http://www.artistrymag.com
>
> ----------
<SIX MILE LONG SNIP> hOLY tOLEDO!
Jinny Brown
<giggling> I really don't know what's going on. I thought you might be
responding to something I said about the Liquid Ink brushes when you
began one of your posts with "Actually?" Reading through the previous
message, that's all I could think to tie that word to. <G>
Oh well.. it really doesn't matter and we'll probably never figure it
out now.
Karen Sperling
were good points to the previous versions, even though I enjoy aspects of
the newer versions as well.
Now that I think about it, I can't say every version is an improvement over
previous versions, just different.
----------
In article <3B941F89...@mindspring.com>, Jinny Brown
Jinny Brown
I think each version has offered some improvements and some headaches.
Different, certainly.
Jin
____________________
Timd1971
Dave
"Karen Sperling"
> Oh I see, no, I was agreeing with the posters who were saying that there
> were good points to the previous versions, even though I enjoy aspects of
> the newer versions as well.
> Now that I think about it, I can't say every version is an improvement
over
> previous versions, just different.
> --
>
This is what gets me about this product (Painter 7) newer version are
supposed to be upgrades not just different programs that act differently,
but can achieve similar results.
Dave
Jinny Brown
Each version of Painter since I first began using Painter 4 has had many
improvements and additional new features and capabilities.
For each user, the decision as to whether or not an upgrade is an
overall improvement *for them* is an individual decision, depending on
what they want and/or need from the program.
Of course each upgrade is different, at the very least because it
includes new things the previous versions didn't have.
I do agree that we'll have a problem not being able to use the older
Water Color brushes *if* after learning how to use the Painter 7 Water
Color brushes we are still not able to achieve the same desired result
somehow.
At this point, we are in sore need of some assistance from Corel in
learning how to use the Painter 7 Water Color brushes at least as they
were intended to be used. From several quarters we are hearing that the
documention does not give us enough information on the subject (it is
also incorrect in at least one place that I've seen.. suggestion to use
Wet Fringe slider to create pooling effect.. Wet Fringe is not available
in Painter 7).
Though there is a very nice Water Color tutorial on the CD, I believe
that it only introduces a small part of what needs to be learned.
Thank you Cher for that tutorial. It is appreciated. :o)
Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________