Corel® Painter™ IX.5 Simplifies the Photo Painting Process for Professional Users and Extends Support to New Intel-based Macs

ORLANDO, Fla., PMA Show Booth # 2261 - February 27, 2006 - Corel Corporation today unveiled the Corel® Painter™ IX.5 update to give professional photographers and artists new tools that make it easier than ever to transform photographs into paintings. Corel Painter IX.5 adds support for Rosetta™, enabling users to run Corel Painter on the new Intel-based Apple hardware. Corel Painter IX.5 is available now as a free download to registered Corel Painter IX customers and can be purchased directly from www.corel.com.

Corel Painter IX - the world's most powerful and enjoyable digital art studio - is the tool of choice for leading professionals and artists in industries including film, game development and photography. Photographers choose Corel Painter IX because it is the ideal tool to help them generate additional revenue by creating hand-crafted paintings from their photographs. The new Photo Painting Palettes that are now offered in Corel Painter IX.5 further simplify this creative process.

"Corel Painter IX is sparking an exciting trend among professional photographers who are offering their customers artistic renderings and beautiful painted portraits in addition to photographs. We want to make it simple for a photographer, who might not have artistic training, to start working in this exciting medium," said Sean Young, Product Manager for Corel Painter. "First introduced in Corel Painter Essentials 3, the Photo Painting Palettes in Corel Painter IX.5 add a new dimension of ease of use. Now photographers have new tools to help them get started with the photo-painting process, while still enjoying all the professional capabilities that can be found only in this industry-standard painting software."

New enhancements in Corel Painter IX.5 include:

• Photo Painting Palettes - The new Photo Painting Palettes, including the Underpainting, Auto-Painting, and Restoration palettes, work together to help users kick-start the process of creating a beautiful hand-painted work of art from a photograph.
• Support for Rosetta running on Intel-based Macs - Customers running the latest hardware from Apple can enjoy working with Corel Painter and their Wacom® pen tablet, including support for the Wacom Intuos® 3 and the 6D Art Pen.
• Eraser Tool - Conveniently located in the toolbox, the new Eraser tool erases any medium on the canvas.
• 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 an image file or between different areas of separate image files.
• Cloner Tool - Conveniently located in the toolbox, the Cloner tool provides immediate access to the last-used Cloner brush and brush variant.
• Corel® Paint Shop™ Pro Support for Windows Users - Users can now open Corel Paint Shop™ Pro files (versions 9 and X).
• Send to Corel® Photo Album™ for Windows Users - New integration makes it easy to send files to Corel Photo Album™, helping customers manage their images and paintings.
• In addition, new customers purchasing Corel Painter IX.5 will also receive 11 hours of lynda.com training videos on 2 CDs - a $65 (USD) value.