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Thread: Artrage vs Corel Painter?

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by CMDesign View Post
    I'm curious what the major differences are between these two programs and why there is such a massive price difference.

    I have been using Artrage for a long long time and love it. But I see Painter 2019 is in a Humble Bundle along with some other programs for $25. Wondering if it has any features or differences that would make it worth the extra expense? What does each do better or worse than the other?

    Also I'm currently using AR5.
    Consider Corel's Painter (Originally a Co. called Fractal Design) the premiere, industry standard traditional media (oils, pastels, watercolors, ink, ect.) - digital art software. Very much like many would consider would consider Adobe Photoshop, for Photo & Raster design, or Adobe Illustrator for Vector design, as industry standards. for their respective primary functions in artistic design. Corel actually makes or has bought up (like Adobe), several design & other software companies. However, in the digital art world for a digital based traditional art media, Corel's Painter is regarded as the overall best software. That's where & why you have a big price tag. That all said, Painter isn't expensive considering you "own," the software vs. having to rent it, as you do with Adobe. When you could still buy Adobe software (some years ago), I can assure you, it was just as expensive (if not more), than Corel Painter. Consider Painter Corel's flag ship software these days too, for many professional artists.

    In the last several years, you have seen a revolution (so to speak), with many new Software companies like Ambient Design, Seriff, Escape Emotions, Ect., creating some fantastic art/design software. This is do to several factors. Cost of software (like Corel's painter) and Adobe's "rent our software." In particular, Adobe has received a huge backlash to their pricing. This was evident a couple of months ago when Adobe attempted to increase the price of their Photographers Package. Reasons already explained, plus a bunch of other little things have also contributed to this revolution of new and in some cases art/design software that is beginning to challenge Adobe & Co. from dominating the Design Industry (from painting, to editing photos, videos, website design, on & on). Don't get me wrong... Adobe, Corel, Autodesk, ect., still dominate and that won't end anytime soon. However, so long as these new Art/Design software company's like Ambient Design, don't get too greedy, they will increase in popularity. Seriff (who makes the Affinity line of software) is probably doing the best job, of the new art/design revolutionary companies. Affinity is actually really good... all 3 programs.

    Now that you have your history lesson (haha) and understand why Painter is so much more, I'll rank some software in tiers of: best, solid & fair "overall," (for painting & drawing only). Now just because Painter is and should be ranked #1, that does not mean other software is "entirely," less than. Example: Rebelle is by far the best software for digital watercolors. Both Artrage and Painter have really good watercolor functions but, Rebelle is again... the best when it comes to digital watercolors. Another example: don't think for a second that you cannot produce professional art in Artrage and that you have to have Painter.

    Best - overall: Painter - there are pros & cons with all software however, no software offers the control, tools, options upon options within tools, brushes, ect., as Painter
    does.

    Solid - overall (in no particular order): Artrage, Rebelle, Affinity Designer, Sketchbook (old but still awesome & now free), Clip Studio, Leonardo (this is technically should
    be in the fair tier but, it is wonderful to sketch on, when using a tablet like a Surface Pro, as well as it has so much potential). There's certainly a few more I could
    add to this list but, you should get the point.
    * I should mention Concepts, which is unique. This is a vector based app however, you draw & paint with this app as you would do in Artrage. Only downside with
    Concepts: they want a 25/30 yearly subscription fee, for some of the best tools and brushes. The Copic Color wheel will wow you.

    Fair - all listed have potential & could be big in a couple of years or sooner: Krita (tons of features, really needs to be cleaned up, high learning curve also), Gimp (which
    is Open-Source), Medibang (wow, is this fun to sketch in). Again, there's plenty of other software I could mention but, there's enough listed to make my point.

    What I use... I all of the software listed from time to time. I have a lot of knowledge and experience using the software listed. Even though I oddly just bought Artrage 6, I have used it years ago. I finally feel like it's at a stage where I'll use it more consistently. Save your money for now, if you don't have a ton of digital painting experience, for an eventual digital art digitizer/screen, like a Wacom Cintiq or a cheaper competitor in the meantime. A Wacom is expensive like Painter also but, it's less subjective to opinion as 99.9% of users will say " its worth every cent, in the long run. My best advice with Painter vs. Artrage: use what you're comfortable with. There isn't a wrong answer to this question.

    This is "my opinion." However, I base it on 25 years of tradition & digital painting. Name any art software and chances are I've tried it. I also teach, tutor and freelance. I'm also a Adobe Photoshop Certified Expert. At the very least, I hope this helps you and anyone else with similar thoughts or questions.

  2. #12
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    I gave up on Corel because it crashed (a lot) and I was sick of loosing work.
    I gave up on Adobe because they moved to the subscription payment model.

    I use ArtRage because it has a nice Oil Paint and Airbrush Tool, but I also use Clip Studio Paint, Pixelmator and Graphic in my workflow. I'll never depend on a single brand or App for my art work again.

    I recomend using any and all Apps you can, find the Apps that suit you.

    Digital Art since 1982.

  3. #13
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    Agreed, Kaveman! That's the way it use to be for a long time until the bigger companies like Corel & especially Adobe bought all of these independent companies up. Before a company called Macromedia was bought up by Adobe I believe, there was a program/software named "Freehand." It not only challenged Adobe's Illustrator, in many ways it was better than. Even if you still had a old copy, it wouldn't run on any modern operating system. Google it though. Even today, it's still very much remembered and fondly thought of.

    ProCreate (wish they made for Windows also and it will probably be it's eventual down fall for not being available on Windows), has done such a great job that Adobe considers it a threat. They refused to be bought out by Adobe, so Adobe made Fresco (which will come to Windows soon). It's actually very, very good. I hope Ambient Design also takes notice and raises Artrage to a new level come their 7th version.

    I mention this all to my students as well. All though I encourage them to at least try other software makers, they have to know how to know Adobe if they are planning a career in Art/Design. I refuse to subscribe to Adobe as well. My CS6 suite still works just fine, though I do have access to CC, via my college, since I teach Photoshop and how many methods can be applied to other software like Serif's Affinity software as an example. That said, you do have know Adobe if again, you're planning a career in art/design. Have to. It's the industry standard and most studios use Adobe. Adobe has a serious strangle hold on the Digital Art Design World and much more these days with their servers.

    Speaking of subscriptions... I begged people to refuse the subscription model. I warned them this is what would happen (Adobe's stranglehold). However at the time, people thought it was great. They didn't have to shell out 3 hundred or more for just Photoshop. Some people say high insight is 20/20. I say just read a history book. People make the same mistakes over and over. Furthermore, just because you can do something, mos people don't think of the more important question of: "should they do it." Ethics 101.

    Btw... What version of painter do you have that's crashing? Prior 2019, Painter does need some serious hardware to run smoothly. Even though I rarely do anymore 3D work or rendering, my next rig will still have at minimum a i7 (or rather the AMD equivalent or better). A Quadro or top end gaming card and 32GB of Ram (I prefer 64GB sooner or later). I almost exclusively paint commissioned oil painting portraits, digitally now. The likeness is still draw freehand (line art, sometimes copic makers in grey are used), which is scanned at 600 to 1200 PPI (again, piece pending). A 18' by 24' working space with, a standard 300 PPI (more often than not I work at 4-600 PPI for commissioned pieces), "requires the hardware," to back it up. I very well may use Artrage in the future on some pieces and probably still use Painter for some touch ups. Regardless of Artrage or Painter or whatever software used... again, you need some decent hardware, to have some very large brushes work and move as smoothly; smoohly as if you were digitally painting something for the Web at 72 and 5" by 7"

    - Food for thought mates.

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnKon View Post
    ProCreate (wish they made for Windows also and it will probably be it's eventual down fall for not being available on Windows), has done such a great job that Adobe considers it a threat.
    fun fact - procreate.com domain is cybersquatted by c--rel corporate pigs for a few years now, so guess who's feeling threatened.

    I'd argue that c-rel painter is pretty much not needed anymore, with its absent ipad port, degenerate program core, and corel's decision to milk the program by selling over-priced brush packs in batches instead of focusing on their programs reliability, and while fresco looked promising for a second, artrage has nothing to fear quite for a while on that front either; adobe fundamentally refuses to understand real media imitation.

    painter is dead and its former users have switched to artrage, clip studio, paintstorm, some left for adobe.


    on a semi-related note, I'm glad you're sharing a whole bunch of observations on painter this and painter that, did you join a board dedicated to artrage for the sake of replying in a single painter-themed thread?.. that's really cool.

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by nekomata View Post
    fun fact - procreate.com domain is cybersquatted by c--rel corporate pigs for a few years now, so guess who's feeling threatened.
    Actually it's not really a cybersquat, it was actually Procreate Painter at one point in it's history... Painter went through a few... Fractal Design and Metacreations in the 90s, Corel, Procreate, and then back to Corel in the 2000 to present. So it is their domain, they just held on to it.

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by doze View Post
    Actually it's not really a cybersquat, it was actually Procreate Painter at one point in it's history... Painter went through a few... Fractal Design and Metacreations in the 90s, Corel, Procreate, and then back to Corel in the 2000 to present. So it is their domain, they just held on to it.
    actually you're right, corel did establish procreate as some sort of a sub-division that only released painter 7 around 2001 to my knowledge, and it was dissolved entirely by the time painter 8 went on sale.
    good to know they're holding tight on those 20 years old assets.


    with that being said,
    Quote Originally Posted by nekomata View Post
    painter is dead.

  7. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by nekomata View Post
    on a semi-related note, I'm glad you're sharing a whole bunch of observations on painter this and painter that, did you join a board dedicated to artrage for the sake of replying in a single painter-themed thread?.. that's really cool.
    It just happened to be the first topic I read, and answer the original gentleman's question, is that okay with you?Yeah, I thought so. Glad we squashed that silly semi-related note.

    Speaking of semi-related notes: I'm not sure where you get your information from but it's not remotely true, not at the present and not in the professional world. Are more people using Artrage, Rebelle, CSP, ect.? Of course they are, and I hope as these software companies get better, and more people using them, will lead to both Corel & Adobe losing their strangle hold, (especially Adobe). Speaking of... again, I don't know where you get your info from but, ProCreate is killing it. It has literally put fear in Adobe; at least enough for Adobe to take notice and create Fresco. Regardless, as I also already mentioned... you have to know Adobe, pending you're planning on working in the art/design industry, even as a freelance artist.

    However, as of right now in today's world, your opinions sound a bit of wishful thinking or just fanboy. As I said, every software has it's "pros & cons." Either way you should want Painter or Fresco to succeed, at least just a bit. Competition is what drives industry (or software on this case). It should only help the software you like better, with each edition, pending none get complacent.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rod Turner View Post
    Well, here I go....I paid for Painter 2019, and it worked very well. Then, I tried the trial version of 2020. At the end of the 30 day trial period I discovered that my already-paid-for 2019 had been deactivated and cannot be used. Corel Corp has gotten their last dime from me. I will never use Painter again, which is a pity. I will now start the learning curve for Art Rage.
    I have both Corel Painter 2017 and Corel Painter 2019 installed on my computer. As well as Corel Essentials 4 and Essentials 5. I installed a trial version of Painter 2020. After the trial period it deactivated. All my registered Corel Products still worked. Later I installed a demo of Corel Essentials 7. After the trial period Essentials 7 deactivated and ALL my Corel Products were still working fine.

    I would contact Corel about this. As your experience seems to be the exception.

  9. #19
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    On the discussions here of Corel vs ArtRage.

    A couple of my points.

    ArtRage is a pure joy to use. Better performance and a very friendly user interface. Corel's performance at times can be quite laggy and it's interface is cluttered and confusing. I tried Painter 2020 and despite Corel's claims of a vast performance improvement, I thought not enough to warrant upgrading despite the offer of $134 Canadian (about $99 USA).

    However that said, lately ArtRage has been gathering dust as I am using Corel Painter 2019 and Essentials 5 a lot more.

    Why? Because I now find my self doing a lot more photography and 3D modeling/3D rendering and less freehand sketching, drawing & painting.
    Corel's photo cloning ability is perfect for my photos and 3D renders, giving them a more paintery look. If I could obtain the same results I would use ArtRage.
    If only ArtRage had photo cloning brushes.

    A couple of years ago I asked this question here. How to make a photo look paintery with ArtRage.
    I was told I could place a layer beneath my photo and the brush strokes on the layer below would appear in the photo.
    I tried this and it did not give me the type of results I was looking for.
    The response kind of soured me for a bit on ArtRage.

    I did download the trial of ArtRage 6. I was quite turned off my the lack of a chalk brush. And there were not enough changes or improvements to warrant upgrading. However my opinion my change as I do admire ArtRage and it's friendly community.

    That's another point. Despite it's wider audience, Corel's user community is nowhere as active (PainterFactory.com) as ArtRage's. Nor are they as friendly and helpful. Corel's support is one of the worst.

    I'm now retired and I have a lot of registered apps (Photoshop, Lightroom, TopazLabs, Corel, ArtRage, e-onsoftware's Vue, Silo3D, 3D Coat, Curvy 3D, etc) and I have to pick and choice which apps to upgrade.

    ArtRage is still one of my favorite apps. I would rather give my money to a small development team like Ambient Design or the 3DCoat development team then to Corel.

  10. #20
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    Hello kenmo,
    That’s an impressive array of graphics app you have there!

    I’m curious as to what you would like to see improved or changed in AR’s current Pastel/Wax/Chalk tool?
    For me it would be having a choice of square or round head like some of the other tools have.
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