procreate Painter 7.0

Any digital artist worth their salt is at least familiar with Painter. Painter has tools like no other image editing application, and it is capable of imitating watercolor, oil, crayons, markers, and pencil to a remarkable degree. Combined with a graphics tablet, a talented artist might never pick up a physical paintbrush again.

Painter 7 raises the stakes in natural-media emulation. The new Liquid Ink technology emulates thick paint on a surface, and the new watercolor layers are so realistic you'll worry that they'll drip down into your monitor.

Other enhancements include a continuous, variable zoom tool, total compatibility with Photoshop (including the ability to open and save layered PSD files), and perspective grids to act as an aid when drawing freehand objects.

Painter 7 is also OS X native, meaning it takes full advantage of the Aqua interface and opens in OS X without the need to start up Mac Classic OS 9. As of this writing, there are still some issues to be ironed out with Wacom's tablet drivers, which prevent Painter 7 from being pressure-sensitive, but it's still early in the OS X game.

Overall, Painter 7 offers numerous new and improved features, making it more than just a worthwhile upgrade. --Mike Caputo

Amazon.com Product Description
Painter 7 captures the thickness of the paint, the angle of the brush, the texture of the surface, and all the other real-world experiences of painting. The software offers hundreds of brushes and thousands of effects. The new brush library architecture makes it easy to organize brushes, create custom libraries, and share brushes with other users. Painter 7's watercolors are so true to life that paints drip and blend together as you apply them. You control how the watercolor diffuses onto the canvas with wetness, dry rates, diffusion, and wind direction features. The realistic new Liquid Ink layer mimics the viscosity and surface tension of a thick, gluey medium such as ink or paint. Enhanced Adobe Photoshop compatibility lets you open PSD files and save Painter 7 images as PSD files, which you can open in Adobe Photoshop with the layers intact.

There is a new continuous and variable zoom that lets you view and work on an image at an arbitrary zoom factor. The shapes-based text tool and the dynamic text feature are now integrated into a single, easy-to-use tool. Access all text options, including font, alignment, point size, tracking, leading, opacity, and curve style, from a single drop-down palette. Painter 7 also includes an enhanced interface for CMYK preview and profile selection, updated ICC profiles, and color-managed CMYK import and export. New perspective grids allow you to create 3-D scenes easily with a nonprinting array of lines that converge at a single vanishing point. You can turn on vertical or horizontal lines (or both), and modify the location of the vanishing point, horizon line, and ground plane using the Perspective Adjustor tool.

Professional and serious artists will get the most out of this software since it follows many of the same rules that apply to using actual paints and papers (watercolors run and require 'drying' time). But other users should be able to pick up the basic techniques and be able to create some terrific art. The interface with OS X is easy on the eyes and very responsive. However, you will want to use a tablet and stylus instead of the mouse to maximize your results. If your looking for the best painting program available (on the best OS around), well your search has ended. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination.