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So, what do you all want to see in future versions of Painter? PNG support is one of my big desires at the moment. About the only time I use Photoshop is when I need to edit or open a PNG file. I'd also love to see improvement in the animation feature, particularly improved handling of layers and objects, and more stability. (It tends to reshuffle frames when you are editing, play part of it, then try to go back to editing.)

My biggest wish for future versions of Painter is that it would be really great to have a live preview like photoshop when using , scale , distort etc in the orientation menu. Its really poor that Painter doesnt have that ability, as it eliminates the guess work when transforming.

My 2 cents :)

Being able to merge down a layer into the next layer would be nice. Right now you have to group two or more layers and then collapse that group, in PS you just hit "command E" and the layer merges with the next layer below.

What about making the canvas layer lift able into a layer other than watercolor? I forget if that's alreay in X or not, I don't remember seeing it though. I'm still stuck with IX.5 for now.

Karen i do have Painter 10 but have lots of problems with it so i use Painter 9 most of the time.......so guess what my wish is lol

 

cheers Bev

I'm glad to see this thread started here.  I've used Painter since version 2 for work, and for fun.  Also, I'm a Photoshop and Illustrator user, but a good 80% of my work is Painter.  In spite of my gripes below, I think Painter is the best damned graphics programs around.  There are very few things I can't do in Painter and have to go to Photoshop/Illustrator, although there are a few things that Photoshop and Illustrator can do better.  I'm working with version X.1 now, and it is by far the best incarnation of Painter.  My thanks for the work the Painter team is doing by maintaining and upgrading Painter. Thanks also to Steve for getting this forum going.

 

I do have a few wishes concerning Painter, a couple related to problems I have with it , and a couple of new things.

First off, the problems;

Crash to desktop with no warning.  I work with largish files, 50Mbytes plus with sometimes upwards of a hundred layers or more.  Iterative save helps here and I use it a lot, but when I start a complicated action, I always wonder if I'm going to be looking at the desktop or not with my next key stroke.  About one time in 5 I'll get the popup and the automatically saved file, but this is never predictable.

Inability to save patterns and gradients, sometimes, or to delete them.  Also sometimes a crash.

The ability to distort, rotate or scale an object without severe deterioration.  Photoshop also has this problem but a whole heck of a lot less Painter.

The ability to create a vector object that doesn't have negative areas within the lines or points that shoot out to nowhere when creating sharp angles and turns.

There some other problems too, but I'll let others add there opinions

 Now, the wish for some new stuff.

Navigation window that stays up and is movable.  Painter actually has a better Nav window than Photoshop.  The problem with it is the first time the stylus touches any other area of the workspace other than the nav window, it shuts down.

Png reading, as mentioned earlier in this thread, and will be mentioned lots more.  I'm not aware of any graphics program that doesn't use it.

As mentioned earier, larger preview windows, especially when applying surface texture.

Dual core support, Painter seems to be a bit slower now with my new machine, 2.4 gigahertz dual intel chips, than my old computer, a 3.2 gigahertz single chip.  The whole industry is going dual core.  Painter should be really keeping up with the hardware 

To Summarize

As I said before, Painter is the best!  My number one negative issue with it is it's stability.  With version X.1 it seems to be much improved, but it does have room for a lot more improvement.  On the positive side, anything I can think of, I can create with Painter.  Being able to emulate almost any media is an awesome thing.  Thanks again Painter team for a great product.

Karen F,

You can, also in much earlier versions of Painter.  With you layer adjuster, select the canvas layer, hit ctrl/command>A, click on it with the adjuster, and the canvas is now a layer with a new canvas underneath.

 

Dave Kyte:

Being able to merge down a layer into the next layer would be nice. Right now you have to group two or more layers and then collapse that group, in PS you just hit "command E" and the layer merges with the next layer below.

 

Hi Dave,

In Painter X.1 (I don't remember if also in Painter X), we can do just that (skip the Group command and go straight to the Collapse command):

1. In the Layers palette, hold down the Shift key and highlight the Layers you want to merge into a single Layer.
2. To Collapse the Layers into a single Layer, use Ctrl+Shift+X (Windows) or Command+Shift+X (Mac).
3. If the Layers are already Grouped, you can use the same keyboard shortcut to Collapse the Group into a single Layer.

Jinny

Is there a beta test now/soon/when?

I'd like to know whether it would ever be possible to control the angle of a brush using keyboard shortcuts - the arrow keys would be nice but I know they are otherwise occupied.  I use this function a lot and it takes up so many milliseconds moving all that way over to the palette and back again I'm sure I waste several minutes a day, tsk tsk!

Tina

 As stated with others:

 

Navigation Window.

PNG support

 

Little more menu consistency between the Papers, Patterns and other type libraries. For example Papers will ask if you want to Append or Load a new library but Patterns does not. I think all of them should have the same kind of consistency when it comes to opening libraries based off the Paper's Library when it comes to library management.

 

 

Arshes Nei:

As stated with others:

Navigation Window.

Hi,

A lot of us would like to have a larger, dynamic view of the working image, or a duplicate of the working image open at the same time as the working image,  that updates dynamically.

 

Since Painter 7, we've had the Navigation window accessible via an icon in the lower left corner of the image window.

Since Painter 8, we've also had a small dynamic view of the working image in the Info palette.

 

Navigation icon in the lower left corner of the image window: 

 

 

Navigation window open with current view indicated by the red square in the current shape of the image window, movable by the user to navigate to another area of the image and make that the current view in the image window:

 

 

 

Small dynamic view of the working image in the Info palette:

 

I can do that on the mac.  Found out how at the painterworld yahoo site.  Couldn't find it anywhere in the documentation.  It might have been Jinny who posted the answer.

•  select the canvas layer
• choose the layer adjuster tool
• hold down command/option keys and click in the layer

The canvas will duplicate itself to a layer. 

If you don't want the canvas, you can just turn it off, can't get rid of it though.  This isn't exactly what you wanted but it's close enough, I think.  I use this all the time when I'm playing with effects, then take the effects out to the max, then use the opacity slider to get it to the right amount.

 This is X but try in in IX.5 - it might work.  I don't remember if this worked in IX.5
 

 

Just read further and found out that Tom already answered this.  Oh, well. 

Suchin:

I can do that on the mac.  Found out how at the painterworld yahoo site.  Couldn't find it anywhere in the documentation.  It might have been Jinny who posted the answer.

•  select the canvas layer
• choose the layer adjuster tool
• hold down command/option keys and click in the layer

That last step would be Alt/Option key - Alt (Windows), Option (Mac) 

The canvas will duplicate itself to a layer. 

Right and that's not the same as lifting the Canvas to a Layer.

To lift the Canvas to a Layer:

1. Select > All (or Ctrl/Command+A).

2. With the Layer Adjuster tool, click inside the selection to lift the Canvas imagery to a Layer and leave the Canvas blank.

If you don't want the canvas, you can just turn it off, can't get rid of it though.

Making the Canvas invisible doesn't get rid of it.

The Canvas can't be moved, can't be unlocked, and can't be made transparent.

For example, if you Clone the image with the Canvas' Eye icon closed (invisible), the Canvas will appear in the Clone as if it had been visible all the time.

 

  This isn't exactly what you wanted but it's close enough, I think.  I use this all the time when I'm playing with effects, then take the effects out to the max, then use the opacity slider to get it to the right amount.

 This is X but try in in IX.5 - it might work.  I don't remember if this worked in IX.5

 

 

It's hard to know what you're talking about, or to whom you're talking without a reference in your post to a previous message.

 

Jinny 

In regards to library consistency, please see this thread:

 

http://painterfactory.com/forums/t/276.aspx

 

I'd like the library functions to be consistent. I like how the Paper library is set up and want the nozzles, patterns, etc behave in the same manner.