Interested in digital art? Enjoy all the versatility of Painter® Essentials™ 8, the fun and uncomplicated painting software for beginners that will inspire you to experiment and fall in love with digital painting.
Paint from a blank canvas using a curated collection of artist-created brushes.
Create amazing photo art using AI, Auto-Painting or Paint by hand.
Enhance your paintings with outrageously creative brush packs.
Check out our Quick Start Guide to get started
Quick Start GuideFrom traditional to uniquely Painter, every brush in Essentials was custom selected for new digital artists from our professional Painter art studio.
Mix and spread media on the canvas as though you were working with traditional paints.
Choose from hard variants that reveal texture to soft media that glides on to cover just when you need it.
Experiment with paint that will flow, mix and absorb just like the real thing.
Paint with brushes that produce continuous brushstrokes from discrete spots of color.
Physics-inspired brushes spring, flow and glow as they dynamically embellish your canvas.
From fine point to blunt, these brushes allow for natural color buildup and pooling.
Pencil brushes build to black and interact with canvas texture based on stylus pressure.
Looking for even more brushes for particular workflows? Check out our additional brush packs.
Take a look at what other artists are creating with Painter Essentials.
"Isabelle started creating art from her kitchen table at the young age of four. This culmination of time and passion has helped her become a worldwide recognized artist."
- Isabelle Staub
"Painter Essentials is an absolute steal. It was the only program I used for the first 3 years of my career as a freelance illustrator."
- Brandon McDonald
Preserve colors and layers with ease when transferring files between Photoshop and Painter Essentials
Support for stylus tilt, rotation, bearing and pressure control creates the most natural painting experience
Whether you’re a Mac or PC person we support both platforms with perpetual licensing
Sketch, draw, render and paint whatever you dream up or are inspired by.
Create your first paintingProduce incredible photo art with ease using AI, Auto-Painting and cloning tools.
Bring Your Photos to LifeImprove your overall Mac workflow in big ways! Watch video
On MacBook Pro and iPad, increase efficiency with new support for the Touch Bar that offers context-sensitive controls that change depending on the selected tool.
Responsive multi-touch Trackpad support allows you to perform useful actions by swiping and pinching, or spreading your thumb and forefinger on your trackpad.
Use Sidecar on macOS to use your iPad as a secondary display that mirrors your Mac desktop. The Painter Essentials UI will auto-adjust based on the resolution of your iPad.
With new tilt support for Apple Pencil, you can now tilt the selected brush while you paint to precisely control the shape of the brushstroke while using Sidecar.
Enjoy AI Auto-Painting presets that leverage Core ML and the powerful new Apple Vision Framework technology to determine areas of focus in a photo and intelligently paint details generating natural-looking paintings with a greater sense of depth and focus. By painting with more detail in the areas of interest, and using larger more gestural strokes in the background, the results more closely resemble what a trained artist can achieve. Choose from 10 new AI Styles to experience auto-painting with stunning artistic results on the Mac. Watch video
Launch the new Drawing and Painting Layout from the Welcome Screen to set up the UI with optimal tools for creating from scratch. Begin your painting by experimenting with 23 new brushes and many with enhanced smoothing for buttery strokes that react to stylus tilt and bearing. Watch video
Easily narrow down the perfect painting colors by using the new harmonies and color sets. The harmonies include complementary, light monochromatic and dark monochromatic color options that dynamically create balanced color swatches from your chosen color. Watch video
AI Auto-painting presets have added powerful new algorithms to provide richer, more natural looking results for portraits, still life and landscape type paintings from imagery. Choose from 10 new AI Styles to experience auto-painting with stunning artistic results. Watch video
Choose to create a landscape or portrait-oriented document right from the New Image dialog. While working with layers, the improved contextual menus, information dialogs, layer adjuster options and easy access to commands will greatly improve ease of use. Watch video
Improve your overall Mac workflow in big ways! Watch video
On MacBook Pro and iPad, increase efficiency with new support for the Touch Bar that offers context-sensitive controls that change depending on the selected tool.
Responsive multi-touch Trackpad support allows you to perform useful actions by swiping and pinching, or spreading your thumb and forefinger on your trackpad.
Use Sidecar on macOS to use your iPad as a secondary display that mirrors your Mac desktop. The Painter Essentials UI will auto-adjust based on the resolution of your iPad.
With new tilt support for Apple Pencil, you can now tilt the selected brush while you paint to precisely control the shape of the brushstroke while using Sidecar.
Enjoy AI Auto-Painting presets that leverage Core ML and the powerful new Apple Vision Framework technology to determine areas of focus in a photo and intelligently paint details generating natural-looking paintings with a greater sense of depth and focus. By painting with more detail in the areas of interest, and using larger more gestural strokes in the background, the results more closely resemble what a trained artist can achieve. Choose from 10 new AI Styles to experience auto-painting with stunning artistic results on the Mac. Watch video
Feature |
Painter®
|
Painter®
|
Painter®
|
|---|---|---|---|
Photo Art Specific Tools |
|||
| NEW Artificial intelligence presets | 10 new presets | 8 presets | |
| NEW Artificial intelligence presets powered with Apple Vision Framework technology (Mac only) | 10 new presets | ||
| NEW Photo painting brushes | 9 new brushes | ||
| Auto-Painting | |||
| Tracing & cloning | |||
User Interface & Tools |
|||
| NEW Drawing & Painting layout | |||
| NEW Color Harmonies | |||
| NEW Color Sets | 3 new sets | ||
| ENHANCED Image Dialog Box | |||
| ENHANCED Brush Library | |||
| ENHANCED Layers workflow | |||
| ENHANCED Layer Adjuster tool | |||
| Dark User Interface | |||
| Improved Application icons | |||
| Inline dab and stroke previews | |||
| Drag to zoom | |||
| Workflow UI layouts | |||
| Color mixer panel | |||
| Color wheel | |||
| Mirror painting | |||
| Kaleidoscope painting | |||
| Eraser tool | |||
| Fill tool | |||
| Crop tool | |||
| Selection tools | |||
| Transformation tool | |||
| Text tool | |||
| Effects menu | |||
| Rubber Stamp | |||
| Dodge | |||
| Burn | |||
Performance/Support |
|||
| NEW Apple Big Sur support | |||
| NEW Apple M1 support | |||
| NEW Apple Sidecar support | |||
| NEW Apple Pencil Tilt support | |||
| NEW Apple Touchbar support | |||
| NEW Apple Trackpad support | |||
| NEW Apple Core ML support | |||
| ENHANCED Performance for Sargent brushes | Up to 4X faster | ||
| Multi-Core support | |||
| Tablet support | |||
| Wacom multi-touch support | |||
| Windows touch support | |||
| RTS support | |||
| Pressure sensitive brush tracking | |||
| Unlimited layers | |||
| Layout switch for 2-in-1 devices | |||
| 64-bit Mac and Windows | |||
| Built-in learning resources | |||
Brushes |
|||
| NEW Auto-Painting and Touch-up | 9 new brushes | ||
| Dynamic Speckles | |||
| Glazing brushes | 2 new brushes | ||
| Dab Stencils | |||
| Blenders | |||
| Digital Watercolor | |||
| Image Hose | |||
| Artists Favorites | |||
| Acrylics & Oils | |||
| Airbrushes | |||
| Chalk, Pastel & Crayons | 1 new brush | ||
| F-X brushes | |||
| Sponges | 1 new brush | ||
| Pens | 4 new brushes | ||
| Pencils | 4 new brushes | ||
| Markers & Inking Tools | 1 new brush | ||
| Photo Painting General | |||
| Particles | 1 new brush | ||
| Pattern Pens | |||
Content |
|||
| NEW Patterns | 5 new patterns | ||
| Flow Maps | |||
| Paper textures | |||
Feature |
Painter® 2021 |
Painter® Essentials™ 8 |
|---|---|---|
User Interface & Tools |
||
| Customized artist layouts | 9 layouts |
4 layouts |
| Customizable user interface | ||
| Brush customization | ||
| Photo art quick palette | ||
| Thick Paint layer controls | ||
| Watercolor layer controls | ||
| Interactive gradient tool | ||
| Color ramps in sliders | ||
| Color Sets | unlimited |
4 color sets |
| Color harmonies | 5 harmonies |
3 harmonies |
| Perspective guides | ||
| Texture painting | ||
| Reference Image | ||
| Shape & Shape Editing tools | ||
| Image Navigator | ||
| Selection tools | ||
| Text tools | ||
| Eraser | customization options |
|
| Mirror painting | ||
| Kaleidoscope painting | ||
| Crop tool | ||
| Effects menu | ||
| Drag to zoom | ||
| Universal color picker | ||
| Fill tool | ||
| Color wheel | ||
| Transformation tool | ||
Brushes |
||
| Built-in collection of brushes | 900+ |
170+ |
| Thick Paint | ||
| Thick Paint Compatible | ||
| Real Watercolor | ||
| Artists Oils | ||
| Real Wet Oil | ||
| Erasers | ||
| Stamps | ||
| Impasto | ||
| Palette Knives | ||
| Selection Brushes | ||
| Audio Expression brushes | ||
| Cloners | ||
| Liquid Ink | ||
| Dynamic Speckles | ||
| Glazing brushes | ||
| Dab Stencils | ||
| Photo Painting | ||
| Sargent | ||
| Image Hose | ||
| Acrylics & Gouache & Oils | no gouache |
|
| Airbrushes | ||
| Blenders | ||
| Chalk, Pastel & Crayons | ||
| Digital Watercolor | ||
| Particle Brushes | ||
| Artists Favorites | ||
| F-X | ||
| Sponges | ||
| Pens, Pencils & Markers | ||
Photo Art Specific Tools |
||
| Artificial Intelligence Style | 12 styles with customization |
|
| Artificial Intelligence Presets | unlimited |
10 presets |
| Clone Tinting | ||
| Cloning with texture | ||
| Multiple clone sources | ||
| Resize clone sources | ||
| Auto-Painting with SmartStroke™ technology | ||
| Photo Painting panel | ||
| Rubber Stamp | ||
| Dodge | ||
| Burn | ||
Performance/Support |
||
| Brush Accelerator™ | ||
| Fast Brushes category | ||
| GPU acceleration for stamp brushes | ||
| Brush search engine | ||
| Apple Sidecar support | ||
| Apple Pencil support | ||
| Apple Touch Bar support | ||
| Apple Trackpad support | ||
| Apple Core ML support | ||
| Wacom multi-touch support | ||
| Windows touch support | ||
| Pressure sensitive brush tracking | ||
| Unlimited layers | ||
| Multi-Core support | ||
| Layout switch for 2-in-1 devices | ||
| 64-Bit Mac and Windows | ||
| Built in learning resources | ||
| Compatible with Photoshop | ||
Content |
||
| Textures | ||
| Selections | ||
| Weaves | ||
| Gradients | ||
| Images | ||
| Looks | ||
| Nozzles | ||
| Patterns | ||
| Flow Maps | ||
| Papers | ||
* Versions 1909 and later of Windows 10 are supported as well as versions that will be released during the life cycle of Painter Essentials 8.
** Additional space may be required for Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7
Find inspiration in our online gallery, featuring a diverse collection of artwork from Essentials artists from around the world.
