This may be a dumb question, but what exactly is the difference between Corel Draw and Corel Painter? I mean, I've seen the same kind of work done in both programs? How/where do they differentiate in their abilities, if at all? Would having both be redundant?
I'm trying to decide on one.
Thanks
CorelDraw Graphics Suite includes both Draw and Photo-Paint. Draw itself is nothing like painter. Photo-Paint and Painter are closer, but Painter is more of a niche app, geared specifically toward mimicking a paint / brush / canvas / paper environment, and designed to be used with a pen/tablet. Painter has sophisticated controls for it's niche, but overall Photo-Paint / Draw is a more powerful combination.
Hope it helps
As TheSign Guy said, PP + Draw are powerful combo for a certain tasks, like designing for print, web and for general picture manipulation. And you can have both at the same time by buying CGS package. But Painter also can be combined with Photo-Paint since both are able to open PSD files. There is no straight answer which combo or app alone is more powerful, because it's all about a job you have to do.
For me, I'm working on all apps you've mentioned, but not at the same time:
- At work I'm working mainly in Photo-Paint, since there is more GUI designing and web stuff in my daily tasks than DTP stuff and painting / drawing. Draw helps me here for few elements or icons. But when I have to create some logos, stuff for print, posters - then Draw is the only true answer for me, because I can pop out final PDF's faster than in, for example, Illustrator.
- At home on the other hand I almost don't need Draw and I'm focused heavily on Photo-Paint + Painter combo, because of the different type of tasks to handle: characters drawing and painting. In such type of graphic the coverage for my software is something around 70-80% for Painter (core drawing) and 20-30% for Photo-Paint (difficult corrections, fixes, effects). I could depend probably only on Painter here, but I've found Photo-Paint to be faster and easiest to handle for me in tasks like corrections and applying effects, but since it's drawing engine is unusable for me (heavy lag and no realistic brush stroke reproduction abilities) the core of my work must be done in Painter.
Thank you for your post EvilKillaruna! I love how you described how you used each program.
Question. The last paragraph mentions Photo-Paint & Painter, I'm assuming "Painter"="Painter X3"? What does "Photo-Paint" equal in the line up of programs now available...
I'm also figuring out the CorelDraw is "like" Adobe's Illustrator and it deals primarily with vector image making, am I correct?