This is Corel's first full upgrade to Painter. Procreate is the division of Corel that is geared toward the creative professional. Some of their products include Bryce 5, KPT, and Knock-Out. These products can be found at www.procreate.com .

Painter 7 has some new and very exciting additions. For those who have used Painter in the past, they know that it is known for all the Natural-Media tools. These tools give the artist the ability to create wondrous images using traditional non-computer type tools in the form of Natural-Media brushes and other effects such as paper texture and grain. The following are some of the new features listed in the manual:

• Liquid Ink which allows strokes near to each other to congeal or bind together. The congealing and blending ability of liquid ink can be set as can many other options.
• New Water Color technology which allows for the building up and editing of water color layers. There are a number of controls to create the exact water color look desired such as controls to set the wetness and evaporation levels of the paper. All these give a more natural water color look to the image.
• Enhanced Color Management which allows for user generated profiles; profiles for the web, desktop, and professional output devices; RGB color space options; and reduction of CMYK shift when working between various programs such as Photoshop.
• Increased Photoshop compatibility especially in the area of layers. Now users can bring in a PSD file with layers and keep the format intact.
• Text layers with text having the ability to be placed on a curved line as well as on its own layer.
• Easier interface with the ability to hide or display palettes and decide how many features a given palette will display.
• Perspective grids and variable zoom. The variable zoom might appear to be a small feature, but it is very useful as are the perspective grids.
• New surface Control Effects such as Serigraphy effects................................plus many more! To read about more of the features, download the Reviews PDF guide and the FAQ from the following URL: http://www.procreate.com/product/painter7

I have reviewed various versions of Painter in the past and, obviously, have used it in my artwork. I like to take a perspective when writing a review and state what it is. I decided to approach this review from the perspective of almost but not quite a novice to Painter 7. That does not mean that I will ignore all the new additions to Painter. While many are just mentioned above, I will discuss some of them in the course of this review. I, also, will discuss how a newcomer might look at Painter 7.

The minimum system requirements for Painter 7 are:

• Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me or Windows NT 4.0
• IBM-compatible PC, Pentium 200 or higher
• 64 MB RAM
• 24-bit (800x600) color display
• 2x CD-ROM drive
• Mouse or tablet

Painter 7 retails for $479 and the upgrade is $199. People with Painter versions 4 and higher are eligible to upgrade to Painter 7. Corel offers a 30 day satisfaction guarantee which is very helpful since they do not offer a demo version. Thus, as I always do, I encourage readers, especially new ones, interested in purchasing Painter 7, to look at the newsgroups (listed on the Corel/Support page) and the other Painter communities on the web. Painter 7 comes with a manual as well as extras on the CD. These include tutorials on using Painter 7 as well as special documents describing various aspects of Painter. For example, there is a pdf on Brush Variants. These are very good and can be found in the "Tutorials" folder in the Painter 7 folder on the hard drive.

The Painter interface looks just the same. However, one great feature is the ability to minimize the number of items in a palette. This really saves space and clutter. If you are not at present using scripts, for example, they do not have to appear in the palette. I found that I could keep all the palettes I wanted open and still on a 19" monitor set at 1024 x 768 have enough room to open my image up to a very workable size. It was no longer cramped, dwarfed by palettes. To access this feature, one goes to Edit, Preferences, Palette............. Since previous versions have been so top heavy with palettes that one needed two monitors to work comfortably, this is a big improvement.

Another feature that I liked is the easy method of accessing various libraries. In Painter 7 there are brush libraries for versions 4, 5, and 6. All one has to do is click on the load command in the brushes palette, and load a new library. This library will take the place of the current one until another one is chosen. One can collect all of one's favorite brushes and create a new library.

A lot more can be said about brushes. One of the major areas of change involve the Water Color brushes. Previously, water colors could only be painted on the canvas. Now water colors have their own layers. Yes, layers. These layers can be stacked as can all other layers.

I like to work with Photoshop images. While I have painted, I do not enjoy it as much as I do working with various effects using Photoshop and, what I think of as, Photoshop related programs. These are programs that I use in conjunction with Photoshop. I decided to play with the Water Color brushes on layers using my Photoshop layer as my canvas. The number of default brushes, as can be seen by the list on the left, is huge. These are only the default brushes.

The left most image shows the Layers in the Object palette. The two Water Color layers that I used for the sky and the clouds are visible. While the paint is running, the little tear drops keep moving. The number of settings for Water Colors include not only the evaporation and paper wetness levels, but also, pick up (which is the amount of dye that gets picked up during diffusion), dry rate, wetness or the spread of the dye, diffusion rate, capillary factor (the grain's affect on diffusion, grain soak-in, etc.

Another new feature, mentioned in the beginning of the review, was liquid ink. Liquid Ink has almost as many controls to be set as do the Water Color brushes. Some of these are: smoothness, volume, size, bristle, etc. The manual does show examples of these to take away some of the inherent guess work that is always present in selecting settings.

The Water Color controls are also illustrated in the manual to help select the type of effect desired.

The general brush controls such as rake, for example, are also illustrated in the manual's section on "Customizing Brushes."

With the introduction of Painter 7, there is finally a color management module that works with ICC profiles. There are many to choose from as well as many choices as to choice of color space, output options, etc. The basic screen is pictured below. Under each of the icons on the Color Management module, there is a drop down menu listing devices, out put options, etc.

If I had a wish list for a Painter 8, I would wish that Corel would simplify even more the interface although the changes, as stated earlier, are very helpful. Perhaps, as can be found in some programs, there could be novice, intermediate, and advanced options in which the number of choices would be initially limited and then gradually increased. I have always found, and still do, that the number of options, brush modifications, for example, are too many and, thus, become confusing. Maybe different levels would solve the problem. I, also, wish that Corel would institute better support by at least having online tech support via e-mail. One can, however, at least use the knowledge base under Support on the general Corel site and there are many news groups and Painter Community groups so the newcomer, as well as the more experienced user, does have good options for support.

I like the changes and additions Corel has made to Painter 7. I especially like the new Water Color brushes and options although I will never even use half of them. I, also, like the Liquid Ink and believe that there are many uses for it. I found that with the new new addition of Water Color layers, using these brushes was much easier than in previous versions. I, also, found the increased compatibility with Photoshop really great since I look at most image creating programs in relation to Photoshop. The following examples show how the two Water Color layers that I created in Painter 7 appear in Photoshop and how the other layers I created in Photoshop appear in Painter 7.

This picture, of course, is not finished, but I thought the ease of moving from Photoshop to Painter and visa versa needed to be illustrated.

I have really only mentioned the basics inherent in Painter 7. With these new additions to Painter, I plan to do a lot more work in Painter than I have in the past. The ability to integrate the Water Color layers with other types of media (on other layers) and then manipulate the transparency levels of all, give an added depth to Painter that I feel is very significant.