Corel Painter Essentials 8 | Beginner Digital Art Software

I’m not a graphic designer or animator, or anything like that, but I do like to dabble with trying to draw on my computer, as well as take certain photographs that I have taken, and give them a little bit of an artistic touch. I will say that I am often stubborn and like to try to figure out how to use programs like this on my own, but I think with this type of program, it behooves you to watch a tutorial or two to get up to speed. After watching a tutorial introducing me to some of the basic features of the program, I was able to go ahead and sort of re-stylize a lot of pictures that I had intended to try to do that with. In many cases there really are quite a few templates that you could simply apply that make it quick work. I do have a Wacom tablet that I can use with this program, but I haven’t had the opportunity to really give it that much of a try yet. I do have a friend who is an animator at Disney, or at least was before she went independent, and asked her opinion about this program for a beginner like myself. She said that it was actually pretty decent, and for somebody who’s just learning is a great place to start. After getting familiar with some of the aspects of the program it was fairly intuitive to try and stylize some of my pictures with a couple of quick clicks, and give them a whole different type of look. I really do hope to have the opportunity to spend more time learning about this program, and possibly getting more creative by using my tablet. All in all as a beginner, I would say that this program provides more than I could even imagine I’d use. I think to be honest, if you are mid level to even an expert level type artist, you’d really enjoy tinkering around with this software.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed using Corel Painter Essentials 8 | Beginner Digital Painting Software | Drawing & Photo Art. I’ve never had much skill as an artist, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying, and that is what makes this program so great, because it welcomes users of all skill levels to jump in and start creating.

One thing that I really appreciated about this program is how uncluttered and clear the UI is, I can easily see what something is immediately, and if I didn’t know what something did, I could mouse over it and a tooltip would pop up giving me the rundown. This was refreshing, as most art or design software has an overwhelming number of things, with a learning curve till you can understand how best to use them.

Simplicity is the name of the game here, but I also found the experience of drawing or doodling or whatever to be so smooth and satisfying for me. I tried using this on Windows and used a secondary monitor and used a stylus to test how it worked. While it wasn’t hiccup free, the experience once set up correctly was rather good, I did find some issues with accuracy, but that was more to do with the touchscreen and stylus not the software itself.

Overall, this is a great piece of art software for beginners, and for more experienced users as well. I always appreciate when barriers to entry are removed, and this is a fantastic way to make digital art more accessible to everyone. 5/5 stars.

If you’re unsure about whether this software is for you or will run on your hardware/OS, you can download a 16 day free trial from the Painter website which has the exact same software so you can try it out before you buy. I strongly recommend doing this because it allows you to get a good sense of this software before buying. This listing simply provides a box which contains a serial number to activate the software beyond the trial period.

While it is labeled as “beginner”, it is only beginner in that it lacks some of the more complex and capable features of the pro version; you are not going to get the most out of a powerful tool like this without some tutorials and training; it’s simply not that type of software. I would start by playing around a bit to get a feel for the UI and how to navigate and general usage of the software, then move on through the tutorials and videos.

The application dialog that opens up when you launch the software has various links to online PDF files which provide very basic tutorials. From the help menu, you can also access a large video library which does a much better job of working you through the user interface. Again, if you are deciding whether this is the right digital painting software for you, download the trial and work through some of the tutorials to get a good feel for it before you commit.

For more walkthroughs, consider checking YouTube for tutorials or Twitch for live streams to see how semi-pros and pros actually use the software to create amazing digital artwork.

You will not get the most out of this software if you are not using a touch screen or a drawing tablet; do not get this software unless you are using a device with a pressure sensitive pen or you also plan on buying a drawing tablet. Paired with a VEIKK A30 V2 10×6 inch Graphic Drawing Tablet Digital Pen Tablet, for example, you will have a much better experience (lets face it: it would be ridiculous to use this with a mouse…). The pressure sensitivity does make a difference and Painter is able to pick up different pressure and apply brush strokes/effects accordingly. If you have a device like a Surface tablet, I again recommend you start by downloading the free trial version from the website (which is the exact same software without activation) and see how you feel about it and how it runs on your particular hardware.

While the cited minimum requirements for PC are relatively low cited as an Intel Core 2 Duo and 4 GB RAM, it is taxing on your GPU and CPU. I ran it on a 6 core/12 thread Core i7-9750H laptop with 32 GB RAM and didn’t have any slowdown, but the CPU usage easily spikes to 50+% when applying even basic pen strokes. I know I sound like a broken record by now, but if you’re concerned about whether your hardware can run this, download the free trial version and try it out!

In summary, this version of Painter is only “beginner” in that it lacks some of the features of the pro version. In all other respects, it is a powerful tool for digital art that absolutely requires that you invest time in learning how to use it if you do not have a background in similar tools.