Whew…where to start with this one….
Philip,
The answer to your question is ‘no’. Painter 8 is a totally separate program, not a Photoshop plug-in, and is intended for different uses than Photoshop although there is some overlap.
Photoshop is a digital editing program primarily with lots of graphic design capabilities. Painter 8 is intended as a ‘natural media’ digital design program with some digital editing capabilities.
They are both awesome applications. I have both but tend to use Photoshop more often.
Jake
Phrased a little weird, true, but the answer is a resounding "It depends…"
I have Painter 7 & 8, and PS 7, and although my mainstay is Photoshop, I do jump between the two, as Painter provides you with artistic tools and brushes that you cannot easily create in Photoshop. The liquid ink and impasto effects are a couple that instantly come to mind. Also, some images are easier to work on if you can rotate the display to more match the angle of your hand on the tablet.
With PS7’s new brush engine, and some of the wonderful brush collections out on the Web, I’ve been getting some great watercolor and paint type effects to match a lot of what Painter offers, keeping me in this application more.
Painter is well worth the $149 upgrade price, though, and is a nice addition to one’s bag of tricks, along with KPT and BuZz.
Painter has better more realistic natural media painting tools. I don’t find for example water color brushes in Photoshop to look like watercolor but they do in Painter. Also, Painter has some very cool filters like Bevel World (I think that is what its called) for doing really amazing bevels as well as my favorite the marbled texture filter that turns any image in to marbled paper which is great for all kinds of things.
While Painter isn’t a plug-in both Photoshop and Painter work well together. For both however I do recommend a graphics tablet so you can get the most from them.
Robert
Amen. You definitely want a graphics tablet! I couldn’t live without my Intuos.
Jake
It still absoutely blows my mind (and I’m not easily amazed) that Adobe didn’t buy Painter, lock stock and barrel, when it was up for sale.
Perhaps when Corel bubbles under the surface for ther last time?
Painter would have been a perfect fit for Adobe. And, at the same time, they could have either incorporated Corel Draw into Illustrator or just eliminated it completely to remove more of the competition. It does make one wonder …
I had rumors at the time that at least for Painter Adobe offered to buy it. But the money they offered was too little and the offer was turned down.
Robert
