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A review of Painter 2017 on Mac
9 years ago
I was excited to see the new release of Painter 2017. Why? Well, I’ve been an avid Painter user since version 6. And with each new release, it pretty much turned out that every other version was really good, and the alternating years were pretty crappy. 7 sucked, 8 was decent, 9 sucked, 10 was decent, 11 sucked, 12 was decent, 13 was so awful I didn’t touch it after the first few minutes of use and rolled back to version 12. That’s when they started turning to year versions. 2014/2015 was really good, 2016 was turned into dreck, and then I had high hopes for 2017.
And my hopes were dashed.
Version 2016 began great, with recognizably speedier brush response than 2015, but then degraded to unusable after the first patch. The main reason was that the brushes which previously loaded instantly (say, switching from an oil brush to an airbrush) suddenly took several seconds to load. I’m talking 3 full seconds sometimes. Which on a machine that is top-of-the-line with a metric ton of RAM is inexcusable. The brush resize also went from nearly instant to several seconds of time to “take.”
The pre-patch release of 2016 remains my mainstay for all my work.
First world problems, perhaps. But why add slop and lag to something that previously ran flawlessly? In my workflow I need to finish illustrations fast, and that time adds up. Not to mention it’s frustrating.
And so, I was hoping that these problems, which Corel knows about, would be addressed in 2017. Turns out I was disappointed.
At first glance it seems pretty much the same as the previous version of Painter (2016). They added some new interface organization stuff, which might be nice if it made any sense for workflow reasons. However it does not. I can accomplish most of the same organizational stuff with the pallettes in Painter 2016 that they offer in 2017. Besides I don’t need it that much.
New 2017 features = not worth it.
But how are the new brushes? Meh. Again, not worth it.
Did they fix the bug that automatically selects the topmost layer any time you move another layer? NO.
That brush loading and sizing lag will just rip out your creative heart, stomp it a few times, and leave it on the floor.
It IS, however, nice to see that the canvas view rotation got some speeding-up, as it was and is still pretty laggy in 2016. So bravo on that, but you missed the target on the rest.
To sum it up, Corel focused on adding new crap that nobody will use, and ignored fixing the bugs that plagued the second rev of 2016.
I hereby offer my kingdom to Corel if they stop adding new features that I will never use (who gives a damn about pallette drawers?) and simply make their software not lag all to hell again. I wonder if they even test their stuff on Mac? Like, actually give it to a real illustrator and get a real nuts-and-bolts review? They should be ashamed to release this. It’s unusable.
It’s clear they don’t listen to their community; I’ve been complaining about the lag problems since they squeezed out the dreadful turd of version 13. I will NOT be purchasing this version. Which will make it the first time I have stopped giving them money since the 90s.
Congratulations, Corel.
And my hopes were dashed.
Version 2016 began great, with recognizably speedier brush response than 2015, but then degraded to unusable after the first patch. The main reason was that the brushes which previously loaded instantly (say, switching from an oil brush to an airbrush) suddenly took several seconds to load. I’m talking 3 full seconds sometimes. Which on a machine that is top-of-the-line with a metric ton of RAM is inexcusable. The brush resize also went from nearly instant to several seconds of time to “take.”
The pre-patch release of 2016 remains my mainstay for all my work.
First world problems, perhaps. But why add slop and lag to something that previously ran flawlessly? In my workflow I need to finish illustrations fast, and that time adds up. Not to mention it’s frustrating.
And so, I was hoping that these problems, which Corel knows about, would be addressed in 2017. Turns out I was disappointed.
At first glance it seems pretty much the same as the previous version of Painter (2016). They added some new interface organization stuff, which might be nice if it made any sense for workflow reasons. However it does not. I can accomplish most of the same organizational stuff with the pallettes in Painter 2016 that they offer in 2017. Besides I don’t need it that much.
New 2017 features = not worth it.
But how are the new brushes? Meh. Again, not worth it.
Did they fix the bug that automatically selects the topmost layer any time you move another layer? NO.
That brush loading and sizing lag will just rip out your creative heart, stomp it a few times, and leave it on the floor.
It IS, however, nice to see that the canvas view rotation got some speeding-up, as it was and is still pretty laggy in 2016. So bravo on that, but you missed the target on the rest.
To sum it up, Corel focused on adding new crap that nobody will use, and ignored fixing the bugs that plagued the second rev of 2016.
I hereby offer my kingdom to Corel if they stop adding new features that I will never use (who gives a damn about pallette drawers?) and simply make their software not lag all to hell again. I wonder if they even test their stuff on Mac? Like, actually give it to a real illustrator and get a real nuts-and-bolts review? They should be ashamed to release this. It’s unusable.
It’s clear they don’t listen to their community; I’ve been complaining about the lag problems since they squeezed out the dreadful turd of version 13. I will NOT be purchasing this version. Which will make it the first time I have stopped giving them money since the 90s.
Congratulations, Corel.
Tell us more about this kingdom of yours...
A shame though. Was pondering giving painter a try but I'll stick with clip studio.
Nice to hear a users point of view for a change. In program lag is the bane of my existence, and is why I only rarely use photoshop on my virtual drive any more. I've moved to MS5, and it does almost everything I need (and a lot faster). I just use photoshop for final touch ups and background work now.
Heh you'd be better off with CS6
first day trying it and it seems okay. not as sensitive with the wacom pen as what Sai is. But the choice of medium on Corel is larger, which is nice.
as said already, I use Photoshop CS or CS6 for touch ups as the quality always looks pixelated on there.
Why? Because I am so lacking in talent that anything else would be a waste of money.