Very few of us can claim to have the painting talent of a Michaelangelo or a Renoir, but if you've ever fancied trying your hand at dipping a brush in oils and acrylics just for fun then Painter Essentials 3 has to be the ultimate digital painting tool.

To get you started you can import photos and enhance them by automatically applying random, hand-made paint strokes varying in type, direction and pressure. You can then touch up the final image with special brushes to restore areas of the picture to the original detail. Additional new features include photo painting palettes, quick clones and an impressive sketch effect that makes your images look like rough drafts.

Once you've gained some confidence you can move on to true digital art, with freehand drawing, filling in the colour and then adding your own finished effects. New artist's oils allow you to smear colourful paint on the canvas very realistically and if you work in watercolour the paint retains its wet appearance between coats. Canvases can be rotated and flipped and you can use the new eraser tool to undo any layers.

There's even a rubber stamp tool to enable point-to-point cloning and more than 75 varieties of brushes, plus new nozzles and patterns. There's a total of 18 brush categories ranging from chalk, oils and airbrushes to pencils, crayons and pastels.

If all this variety seems too daunting for a would-be artist, the software includes extensive tutorials and training schemes to make the whole process more user-friendly. There are 10 new training videos from renowned graphics training company lynda.com that will steer you through the Painter Essentials 3 workspace, tools, features, and techniques. 10 more free videos can be accessed through the Web site if you're prepared to sign up.

Young children who want to learn how to use animation techniques can make use of the Animated Training Movie for Kids from GeeGuides which is a Web-based interactive art education programme - again a sample lesson is included on the CD-ROM. If you subscribe to their site, GeeGuides will keep track of your child's learning growth and provide customised achievement reports.

If you don't want to go online then the Quick Guide Palette explains all the basic moves and options for you and the Welcome screen gives quick access to recently used files, tutorials, and settings as well as showcasing original images from Corel Painter artists who've mastered the techniques.

Finally, Painter Essentials 3 is designed to be compatible with a range of graphics-related software such as Corel Paint Shop Pro X, Corel Photo Album 6, Adobe Photoshop CS, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Apple's iPhoto, so Mac users won't miss out either.

Verdict
Whether you're a child wanting to discover the delights of painting or an adult who wants to make works of art from photos or from scratch, it's hard to find a more benign package for the budding artist.

Company: Corel

Contact: 01628 589800

Tags: corel painter corel iphoto adobe photoshop corel painter essentials graphics image editing painting