Corel Painter Essentials 4

Readme Notes

Whether you are transforming your photos into paintings or sketching and painting on a blank canvas, this art studio offers everything you need to explore your inner artist.  Corel Painter Essentials 4 also comes with extensive learning resources to help you get started in creating digital paintings: 

Video Tutorials: Learn from Painter Master John Derry. The video tutorials can be accessed from the Help menu. 

Guidebook:  The Guidebook provides step-by-step tutorials, a tour of application, art tips, and more. You can access it from the Help menu. 

Online Community:  We invite you to join our online community at essentialscafe.com. You can get help from other users, share paintings you have created, and more.

Release Notes:  This readme file contains installation information and other late-breaking news.

We hope you enjoy Corel Painter Essentials 4!

Contents



Minimum System Requirements

Windows version

  • Windows Vista or Windows XP (with latest Service Pack)
  • Pentium III, 700 MHz or greater
  • 256 MB RAM
  • Mouse or tablet
  • 24-bit color display
  • 1024x768 screen resolution
  • CD-ROM
  • 1 GB of HD space for installation

Mac OS version

  • Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 (with latest revision)
  • Power Macintosh G4, 700 MHz or greater
  • 256 MB RAM
  • Mouse or tablet
  • 24-bit color display
  • 1024x768 screen resolution
  • CD-ROM

1 GB of HD space for installation

Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) Reader are required for components of Corel Painter Essentials 4.

Safari(TM) web browser on the Macintosh and Microsoft(R) Internet Explorer 6 (or greater) on Windows are required for components of Corel Painter Essentials 4.

Training Videos

Adobe(R) Flash(R) Player version 7 or higher is required to play the Corel Painter Essentials 4 training videos.

For download versions of the software, you must be connected to the Internet to view the Corel Painter Essentials 4 training videos.



Installation

Preparing to Install Corel Painter Essentials 4

Before you install Corel Painter Essentials 4, you must close all other applications, including virus detection programs. If other applications are running, they may interfere with the normal installation process. In Windows, open applications are displayed on the taskbar. On the Mac OS, in the Dock, a small, black triangle displays below the icons of open applications.

Serial Number

To install Corel Painter Essentials 4, you need a Corel Painter Essentials 4 serial number unless you are using a trial version. Please keep your serial number in a safe place in case you need to reinstall Corel Painter Essentials 4, or in case you need to call Corel Support Services. For activated trials, you also need to note your activation code.

Older Versions of Corel Painter

  • It is recommended that you install Corel Painter Essentials 4 to a new folder. Do not install Corel Painter Essentials 4 over an older version of the software.
  • Corel Painter Essentials 4 does not support the installation of one language over another -- for example, Japanese over English, or vice versa.

Installation on Macintosh Computer

The installation of Corel Painter Essentials 4 to a UNIX partition on a Macintosh computer is not supported.

Uninstalling Before Reinstalling

Before reinstalling Corel Painter Essentials 4, you need to uninstall it. Please follow these instructions to uninstall Corel Painter Essentials 4.

Windows Version

  1. Click Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs. (On the Windows Vista operating system, click Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features.)
  2. Click the Change/Remove button under the Corel Painter Essentials 4 entry. (Click the Uninstall/Change button on the Windows Vista operating system.
  3. In the Corel Painter Essentials 4 - Program Maintenance dialog box, choose Remove.
  4. In the Corel Painter Essentials 4 - Remove the Program dialog box, enable the Remove User Files option, and click Remove.

Note that if you do not enable the Remove User Files option when you uninstall Corel Painter Essentials 4, you will need to reset your user workspace before restarting Corel Painter Essentials 4. The procedure for resetting your user workspace is described in the Technical Issues section below.

Mac OS Version

  1. Remove the Corel Painter Essentials 4 application launcher by dragging it to the Trash icon in your Dock.
  2. Go to the User ":Library : Application Support : Corel" folder, and remove the Painter Essentials 4 folder by dragging it to the Trash icon in your Dock.
  3. Go to the User ":Library : Preferences" folder, and remove com.corel.PainterEssentials4.plist by dragging it to the Trash icon in your Dock.
  4. From the Finder Menu, choose Empty Trash.

Network/Workstation

For network administrators, a network deployment guide is available to organizations that have purchased multiple licenses of Corel Painter Essentials 4. For more information, contact Corel's Licensing Department or Customer Service.



Technical Issues

If you are experiencing problems starting Corel Painter Essentials 4, try resetting your user workspace. You can reset your user workspace to the factory default by holding down the Shift key when you start Corel Painter Essentials 4. A prompt appears and asks you to confirm the restoration of factory default settings.

Please note that Painter Essentials 4 may not operate correctly if it is installed on an operating system that is below the minimum requirements.

Brushes

Performance on Slow Computers

Because of their complexity, some brushes do not perform optimally on minimally equipped systems. To improve brush performance on slower systems, disable the Brush Ghosting option.

Digital Watercolor

  • Images that contain wet Digital Watercolor do not open correctly in Corel Painter 8 and earlier versions of the software. For those versions, you must dry the layers or canvas before closing the files. Corel Painter Essentials 4 lets you open images created in Corel Painter IX that contain wet Digital Watercolor.
  • Digital Watercolor images must be dried before you apply Effects.
  • It is recommended that you use wet Digital Watercolor while you are painting and that you dry your image when you want to perform other functions from within Corel Painter Essentials 4.
  • When you save an image to the PSD file format, Corel Painter dries the Digital Watercolor and converts Gel layers to use the Darken composite mode. Although this works relatively well on images with a light background, you may achieve better results by changing the blending mode to Multiply in Adobe Photoshop for images with a dark background.

File Filters

  • Corel Painter Essentials 4 does not support Adobe Photoshop files with layer effects. If you have a layer effect in your Adobe Photoshop file, it is recommended that you drop the layer effect to the canvas before opening it in Corel Painter Essentials 4.
  • Corel Painter Essentials 4 does not support TIF files with LZW compression.

Help (Mac OS only)

If you encounter no response when pressing the Home button or navigating back to the Home page, close the Help window, and click Help > Corel Painter Essentials 4 Help to reopen the window.

User Interface

Corel Painter Essentials 4 is optimized for Small Font Display on the Windows XP, and Windows Vista platforms.

Globalization (Windows only)

Corel Painter Essentials 4 is not a Unicode application. When Corel Painter Essentials is installed on a Windows operating system that has the English Multilingual Language Pack, you need to change the system's Regional settings for the application to operate correctly when you change the language of the operating system. This is especially important if the language you are using has double-byte characters (for example, Japanese). You need to switch the locale in the Regional Setting to the language you are currently working in, as described in the following procedure.

Windows Vista Platform

  1. Click Start > Control Panel > Regional and Language Options.
  2. Click the Administrative tab.
  3. Click Change System Locale.
  4. Choose Japanese from the Language For Non-Unicode Programs list box.

Windows XP Platform

  1. Click Start > Control Panel > Regional and Language Options.
  2. Click the Advanced tab.
  3. Choose Japanese from the Language For Non-Unicode Programs list box.

Note: If you are using a native language operating system such as Japanese Windows Vista, you do not need to change your regional settings, as they would have defaulted to the native language of the operating system.

Tablet Support

If you experience a loss of pressure sensitivity with your Wacom pen and tablet PC, install the "Enhanced graphics driver" from http://www.wacom.com.



Trial, Academic, and OEM Versions

Not all components are available in trial, Academic, and OEM versions. Unavailable components may include Corel applications, features, third-party utilities, and extra content files. However, some of these components may still be mentioned within the application and within the documentation.

Technical Support for OEM Versions

Technical Support is not available for OEM, "white box," jewel case (CD-only), trial, or Academic versions of Corel products. For more information, please visit http://www.corel.com/support.



Painter Essentials 4 Macintosh OSX 10.5 Leopard Update

The overall stability and performance of Corel Painter Essentials 4 on Macintosh OS X 10.5 Leopard has been improved.  The following is a list of  improvements.

Starting with Leopard in Japanese

Painter Essentials 4 will now start on Macintosh OS X 10.5 Japanese without having to hold down the shift key

Welcome Screen

The Welcome Screen no longer requires mouse or pen movement for it to function normally.

Quick Look Support

You can now view the contents of RIFF files you have saved from Painter Essentials, using the Macintosh OS X10.5 Leopard "Quick Look" feature.

Size to Fit Page

The Size to Fit Page option is now available in the Print dialog box rather than the Page Setup dialog. If you wish to have your image sized to fit the page, follow these steps:

  • Choose File > Print.  
If the down arrow appears next to the Printer name, click it to expand the Print dialog box
  • Choose Painter Essentials from the menu in the middle of the Print dialog box.
  • Enable Size to fit page.

Other Improvements

  • Painter Essentials 4 no longer becomes unstable when opening multiple files
  • An intermittent crash when opening files from the Welcome screen has been fixed
  • File  > Open dialog now displays PSD file thumbnail preview.
  • The default font when selecting the Text tool is now legible.
  • When saving a file, you no longer have to click outside the document for the progress wheel to return to the brush ghost icon

Known Issues

The following are known issues working with Painter Essentials 4 on a Macintosh OSX 10.5 Leopard operating system. Corel is working in conjunction with Apple, Inc. to address these issues.

  • Macintosh OSX 10.5 Leopard "Spaces" feature, may not work as expected with Painter Essentials 4.
  • Printing from Painter Essentials 4 may randomly cause instability with Painter.

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