Corels Digital Imaging Portfolio Inspires Home Users

New Addition to Corel's Digital Imaging Portfolio Inspires Home Users to Explore their Creativity with Digital Art and Photography

OTTAWA, Ontario--Oct. 3, 2005--Corel Corporation today unveiled Corel(R) Painter(TM) Essentials 3, the complete home art studio built on the award-winning power of Corel Painter IX. The latest addition to Corel's digital imaging portfolio, Corel Painter Essentials 3 includes everything new users need to get started with digital art and create stunning paintings from their photos. The software is now available from Corel (www.corel.com) and will be hitting store shelves in North America later this month.

Available for the suggested retail price of $99 US, this affordable software package provides home users with more creative options than ever before. Ideal for digital camera enthusiasts, art, decor and scrapbook enthusiasts, and art students and teachers, Corel Painter Essentials 3 enables users to create beautiful, handmade digital-art keepsakes that are perfect for framing, craft projects, and special gifts for friends and family.

With a new easy-to-learn interface, dynamic painting palettes that automatically paint your photos for you, and extensive training resources, Corel Painter Essentials 3 empowers users to turn their mouse or tablet stylus into a digital paintbrush and begin a new journey of creative possibilities.

"Everything in Corel Painter Essentials 3 is designed to make it easy for any user, even if they don't have any previous experience with artistic or creative software, to create beautiful works of art. Whether you're hand painting your own original masterpiece or watching as the software magically paints for you, Corel Painter Essentials 3 opens up a new world of artistic expression that anyone can master," says Sean Young, Product Manager for Corel Painter Essentials 3. "Everyone who sees this software reacts in the same way - with wonder and surprise. It is truly unique and a great addition to any artist's, scrapbooker's, or digital photographer's bag of tricks!"

Powerful Features in Corel Painter Essentials 3 Introduce an Exciting World of Digital Creativity!

Turn Photos into Paintings

-- New! Photo Painting Palettes - In three easy steps, the new Photo Painting Palettes, including the Underpainting, Auto-Painting, and Restoration palettes, work together to help users create a beautiful hand-painted work of art from a digital photo. The software automatically applies individual hand-painted strokes, painting the image right before the user's eyes - like magic!

-- New! Quick Clone - The new Quick Clone feature starts the process of turning a photo into a painting with a simple mouse click.

Have Fun with Digital Art!

-- New! Artists' Oils - Delivering a new level of realism, Artists' Oils truly behave like traditional oil paint. They blend, mix, and feel gooey - providing users with a highly life-like experience.

-- Enhanced! Digital Watercolor - Digital Watercolor produces life-like watercolor effects that react with the canvas texture. Significantly enhanced, Digital Watercolor paint now stays wet between sessions, enabling users to start one session where the last one ended.

-- New! Rubber Stamp tool - The Rubber Stamp tool makes it easy for users to set up point-to-point cloning. Located in the toolbox, this tool lets users set a source and destination reference point, enabling them to clone within a image file or between different areas of separate image files.

-- New! Eraser tool - Conveniently located in the toolbox, the new Eraser tool erases any medium on the canvas.

Learn to Draw and Paint Digitally!

-- New! Quick Guide Palette - Click on a palette, the toolbox, the Brush Selector bar, or the property bar and the Quick Guide displays relevant information about the options available and a link to more comprehensive Help. Providing context-sensitive information about the options available from workspace items, the Quick Guide palette makes it easier than ever to get started.

-- New! Training videos by lynda.com - Corel Painter Essentials 3 includes 10 new training videos created by lynda.com, one of the world's most renowned graphics training companies, to guide users through the Corel Painter Essentials workspace, tools, features, and techniques. Users can also sign up to download 10 more free training videos.

-- New! Animated Training Movie for Kids from GeeGuides - GeeGuides Painter Essentials 3 Lessons is a fun, Web-based interactive art education program appropriate for grades 3 through 6. It provides the tools children need to understand, interpret and enjoy art, while fostering critical thinking. In addition, GeeGuides keeps track of your child's learning growth and provides customized achievement reports. A sample GeeGuides Painter Essentials 3 Lessons training movie is included in the box. Additional movies are available for purchase through GeeGuides.

-- New! Welcome Screen - Getting started with digital art has never been more straightforward, thanks to the new Corel Painter Essentials 3 Welcome screen. The Welcome screen gives quick access to recently used files, tutorials, and settings. It also showcases original images from renowned Corel Painter artists, inspiring users to explore the application and create their own works of art.

-- New! Quick Start tutorials - These short, instructive tutorials guide users through basic tasks, such as transforming a photo into a painting.

Works with Popular Software and Hardware!

-- New! Support for Corel(R) Paint Shop Pro(R) and Corel Photo Album - Customers using Windows can optimize their photos with Corel Paint Shop Pro X, create personalized handmade paintings with Corel Painter Essentials 3, and then use Corel Photo Album 6 to easily use their final painted images in creative projects, such as calendars and greeting cards, that are perfect for sharing! From photo editing and digital painting to organizing image collections and creating keepsakes and crafts, Corel's digital-imaging product family delivers a new world of possibilities and helps users get the most out of their digital camera.

-- New! Support for Adobe(R) Photoshop(R) CS and Adobe(R) Photoshop(R) Elements - Users on Mac and Windows(R) can now seamlessly exchange files between Corel Painter Essentials 3, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Photoshop Elements. Layers and layer sets (layer groups) are maintained when users open and save files in the PSD file format.

-- New! Support for Apple(R) iPhoto(TM) - Mac OS users, including those using Mac OS X 4 (Tiger), can easily add art to their digital image collections, thanks to support for Apple iPhoto. Users can set their iPhoto preferences to designate Corel Painter Essentials 3 as their photo-editing software. Double clicking an iPhoto image will open the image for editing in Corel Painter Essentials 3 and saved changes are instantly updated in iPhoto.

-- Enhanced! Support for Wacom(R) Pen Tablets - Corel Painter Essentials 3 fully supports the most recent advancements in pen tablet technology from Wacom, including the latest Graphire(R), Intuos(R) and Cintiq tablets, as well as the 6D Art Pen.

Pricing and Availability

Corel is pleased to offer Corel Painter Essentials 3 as a stand alone application to customers in North America for the first time. Affordably priced at $99 US (SRP), the software is now available in English to customers in North America directly from Corel (www.corel.com) and will be offered through a variety of reseller partners including Amazon.com, CompUSA, PC Mall, CDW, and PC Connection, later this month.

For more information about Corel Painter Essentials 3, please visit www.corel.com/painteressentials3.