Corel Painter 2023 versus Rebelle 5 - A traditional Artists perspective (Fixed Audio)

Re-uploaded to fix the audio. In this video, I take a very quick look at Corel Painter 2023 to see how it compares to #Rebelle5 by #escapemotions and if it is worth the £180 upgrade for me.
Check out my free brushes at: www.basement-p...
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[@sunnyH821]

Kudos to your honest and very informative take on Corel, up to now, I still don't get why they keep coming up with newer and more expensive versions when they have not solved the same problem with the older versions, which is latency. The lagging and inability to merge different layers frustrate a lot of artists like myself.

[@BasementPicasso]

Yes, completely agree - I keep hoping that one year they will solve the layers' issues. It may just be too big a job to do now!

[@Geurtb]

Thanks for fixing and thanks for your effort in making the video!!

[@BasementPicasso]

Many thanks for pointing out the issue - much appreciated.

[@sidecars]

Superb content, As a retired, beginning artist, this is all very, very helpful. I am at your website, too., Thanks, Pete!

[@BasementPicasso]

Great to hear Bryan, hopefully, lots more interesting content in the future to help 🙂

[@kneelneil]

Great post Pete, thanks. I share your views on Painter. I too finally gave up on them in 2020, having been an annual upgrader from the early days,( I started on Painter X}Their only real way out of their problems is to start again, which they won't do of course. Their steady decline continues. Love Rebelle. Started with Rebelle 3 and my loyalty has grown with their continual improvement of the product. 5 Pro has just blown my socks off. Every day I find something new to use in the program and off I go down another rabbit hole! Also liking their interactive approach to their users, with the various competitions they come up with. Thanks too for all your other posts, i particularly like your use of stencils in your landscapes. Keep posting! Neil W.

[@BasementPicasso]

Hi Neil. I think it might have been Painter X I started with as well :-) Thanks for all the feedback much appreciated. Yeah, I keep hoping Corel will genuinely launch a new version, but no joy so far. Totally agree, Rebelle has overtaken it leaps and bounds in the last few years & their community engagement is really good.

[@ckmoore]

Thanks for this review. I'm still using Painter 2020, and I was planning on this being the year I finally upgraded. Then they increased the upgrade price. And so I wait again. In the meantime, I'm having quite a lot of fun with Rebelle 5 pro. Not only that, but I was blown away by all the new features they added in rebelle 5. Corel needs to take a lesson from this and up their game, and not by selling brush packs or subscriptions.

[@BasementPicasso]

You are welcome. Yes I agree, Rebelle is simply more fun to use and Corel needs to up it's game.

[@ckmoore]

​@LT There are things I absolutely love about rebelle. Most of my videos are done in rebelle, including the latest two timelapses. But, I also love corel painter. They actually had a deal where I picked up corel painter 2023 at the old upgrade price of $150. I've been drawing in it more lately, I just wish it had a good timelapse feature like rebelle. (Rebelle has the best timelapse feature I've seen). A lot of my favorite work has been done in painter, and I love it too. I use both of these more than clip studio, but that's not always so. I see multiple paint programs as... like going to different rooms or locations to paint. Sometimes a change of location is a great thing. I see Clip Studio as my photoshop replacement, because it has the best photo-editing type tools compared to rebelle and painter. This means I often edit my final pictures in clip studio as the last step before showing the world. However, CSP is ALSO a great painting application. The more I learn about the program, the more I realized it did everything I actually used in photoshop and more, and did it better for digital painting. It's will give a more photoshop like experience to painting, but better. If it were me, and if you have the budget, ... you already have CSP, I'd start trying it out and pick up a cheap copy of the best real media painting software to date (rebelle 5 pro), and also painter at a humble price. If you don't really care for a real media simulator, just keep CSP and try it out. I'd say it will get you out of a PS subscription, but CSP is also going subscription lol. LOL... my response doesn't sound very helpful. They are all good! If I couldn't get both to try out, I'd at least get rebelle. Pro if possible, as it has better features.

[@ckmoore]

@LT Do they have a sale right now for the desktop version of CSP, or are you talking about the iPad version? For the iPad... CSP is my favorite drawing app hands down. And yes, 25 bucks a year for that subscription is a darn good deal. Especially when most of the updates they do are really good. It's a very solid program. And the brushes just feel right to me. It's hard to explain, but I can't get any other paint program (including procreate) to feel as good as CSP does. Anyway, I mostly draw on desktop though. And that's where Rebelle exists, so back to desktop... If you want a program that really feels like paint, or as close as we have today, the best I can recommend is Rebelle. And for $10? Man... I paid $80 bucks to upgrade from rebelle 4, and I have no regrets. $10 bucks? That's a no brainer. I also have realistic paint studio and artrage. These are fun to mess around with, but I much prefer rebelle. I know some people really prefer artrage, but I just can't get into the interface and how the brushes feel. I prefer Rebelle 5, which reminds me more of a photoshop like interface. And the brushes are amazing. And how they mix is very believable. And the timelapse feature is the best I've found. It comes packed with brushes for thick paint and for "express oils" for thin paint. It can mimic acrylic very well. I think you'll love it. I stopped photoshop CC one year after it came out. Just long enough to find alternatives, and I've been pretty satisfied with what I've been using :).

[@BasementPicasso]

@LT $30 for Corel 2022 is a very good price. It is a very capable and complex product and while not as natural as Rebelle, is still more traditional than digital feel. I might even pick up that upgrade myself! Rebelle is much more traditional feel than digital and overall a slightly simpler and easier program compared to Corel. Maybe worth trying some trial versions, and see what you prefer.

[@Armlesscrayon]

Painter is just too complicated when you just want to create IMO. Rebelle 5 is really good, as a traditional artist I love it, but it got really expensive IMO. I just still love ArtRage as my go to, have to say it’s my favourite. Although Artstudio pro has my attention these days. Thanks for the video.

[@BasementPicasso]

Well said!

[@barthandelus8340]

Perfect timing, I have Painter 2020 and wanted to upgrade, then I saw Rebelle, and your video showed up.

[@BasementPicasso]

Happy to help - Hope you enjoy Rebelle

[@judilynn9569]

I absolutely love Rebelle, but don’t use it because I mostly paint on my iPad Pro and they refuse to port Rebelle to iOS. I have it on my Windows machine, but don’t really like using my Wacom tablet in place of my iPad Pro. Sad. :(

[@BasementPicasso]

Agree - a native version would be great (except I am now on Android - see my latest vid :-). But I did do one on AstroPad which might be an option for you ...

[@M3K1E]

I got Rebelle 5 Pro for $10 sale and I love playing around with this software, only if I got a dedicated GPU, and I agree with your take on Corel Painter 2023. In Rebelle, we have real color pigment and nanopixel. The same about nanopixel goes for Expresii (Watercolor software that's best for eastern calligraphy) which we have this engine called Youji. Thanks for the video though!

[@BasementPicasso]

You are welcome. I am aware of Expresii, but haven't used it personally. Might check it out at some point

[@48dobrien]

I totally agree with you.I have used Painter since version 1. Rebelle has the best natural feel and look.

[@BasementPicasso]

My main concern for Rebelle over the coming years is the risk of "feature bloat" making it increasingly complicated. And maybe Corel will re-write their engine and try to genuinely innovate, rather than just "milking a brush engine" every year.

[@lindagriffiths7913]

Thank you so much Pete for your 2 free Rebelle brushes. I did not find anywhere on your website to leave a message for you. I clicked on the Subscribe button but it doesn't seem to be working for me at the moment. Also I enjoyed this video comparing Painter 2023 and Reb5. Yes I agree with you. Until now I've purchased the Painter annual upgrades for the last many years but decided not to do so this year. It is clearly too expensive now. It's an old program and I've enjoyed it a lot and I will still use my Painter 2022. However I am far more excited with Rebelle 5. Your brushes are wonderful, thank you, and I hope you will be offering more Reb 5 related brushes, classes, an interactive blog perhaps.... unlike many I am not into most of the social media, prefer painting....

[@BasementPicasso]

Hi Linda - Thanks for the comments, much appreciated. Yes, I agree, Painter is suffering from a legacy of bolt-on ideas. I still hope that they will sort it out one day ... :-)

[@simoncossettini9680]

Thanks for a very informative video, I am at the crossroads between choosing corel painter 2023 and rebel 7. I am coming from a graphic design background previously using illustrator and corel draw and want something that can produce large canvas prints( 1m x 2m )and scaling but with more of an interactive, organic brushes colour mixing and feel and the possibility of adding /adjusting layers, tints etc . Although photoshop might be able to handle the task I am trying to avoid the subscription business model.

[@BasementPicasso]

@simoncossettini9680 You are welcome. Corel Painter 2023 can be picked up on sale occasionally through things like Humble Bundle sales which is how I upgraded. I don't see it being worth a full price upgrade. I am not sure if it is still being worked on - I will be doing a video on "where is Corel Painter 2024?". Rebelle 7 is much more stable now (although not perfect) and for me is the better all round package with much better traditional feeling tools. Hope that helps

[@tomslaterdesignillustratio4391]

As a Painter user since the 90’s, I just cannot part with the 20% that I absolutely love about the program - despite the very convoluted 80% that I could do without. To your point, Painter outshines Rebelle when it comes to image compositing and for developing concept art. But from here on in, once that image prepping is complete, it’s into Rebelle I go!

[@BasementPicasso]

Hi Tom, indeed, I still use Painter 20/20 a lot for image manipulation and some filters. Just very rarely for actual painting!

[@neobscura]

Thank you for this video, I've been looking at Rebelle 6 after skipping all versions since 3. Art Rage has been my go to for thick paint because Corel is a constant disappointment (for the reasons you mentioned), and you convinced me to pay the steep price of Rebelle 6 because apparently nanopixel (which fixes my biggest grief with most "thick paint apps", aka low pixel density making each small brush strokes feel "undefined") and their brush engine is exactly what I want.

[@BasementPicasso]

You are welcome. Yeah I have ArtRage Vitae and it can do some nice things, but the thick paint just isn't quite what I am looking for. I might play more with the custom brushes for that. Rebelle just generally has a more natural feel out-the-box. Still not perfect, but at the top of the tree for quality combined with ease-of-use

[@torinux4980]

I knew about Rebelle a few months ago, and I like it a lot. It feels more natural than Corel. I love Rebelle's Perspective and Rulers tools so much, that I can't see myself using any other software in the foreseeable future.

[@BasementPicasso]

Yes, I very much agree with the feel of Rebelle being much more intuitive than Corel.

[@wildmagic520]

Take advantage of Humble Bundle deal for Corel Painter 2023 and more for about $30! I did and will check it out how Painter 2023 works. Agree that I still love Artrage Vitae for its simplicity and clear iterface and Rebelle 6 Pro after.

[@BasementPicasso]

Ah, brilliant, thank you. I picked up 2022 in a bundle to keep up to date last year. Have just picked up the 2023 bundle. Thanks for pointing it out.

[@scottyboy6269]

Funny Artrage Vitae does NOT mix blue and yellow into green on the ipad... Also Corel Painter 2023 was $30 on humble bundle

[@BasementPicasso]

Interesting - I presume ArtRage is using standard RGB mixing then. Yes I picked up CP 2023 on humble, just to keep it up to date. It was largely underwhelming :-(

[@HCBurlingame]

I use both for animation work Rebelle's system is based on PNG files which have far superior transperancy for water colors.

[@BasementPicasso]

@HCBurlingame interesting to know, thanks.

[@ravenbeast8639]

You gotta enable "pick up paint" from under layer. Painter is a real PRO tool. Most other apps can be used similarly. But after you get used to painter you can't go to the others. I use almost everything but NONE of them even come close to the Painter's "real" brushes with tilt.

[@BasementPicasso]

Yeah, painter does have a lot of sophistication in some of the brushes. I did pick up a copy of 2022 recently and have a new monitor on the way so I might revisit it.

[@ravenbeast8639]

@@BasementPicasso Their real pencils, chalks & pastels are amazing and if you do layer painting make sure to experiment. It's not as simple as some of the other programs. You gotta mess around with the settings. But when you do, you'll see why it's so beloved by conceptual artists. They also added a very nice glazing effect to the recent versions, Try the glazing brushes. You can pretty much turn every brush into a glazing brush.

[@richardhaas1989]

What tools does Corel offer that can't be done (or is difficult) in Rebelle?

[@BasementPicasso]

Corel is still a bigger and more complex package. It has more filters and better ways to customize the layout and UI experience. It can do effects that Escape Motions have across multiple packages. You have more control over canvas lighting for bump map texture. Animation features. Easier to work with multiple documents. Text tools etc. It does a lot that I generally don't need, and it is just hard work to do the basic things well.

[@alanhuang8165]

Thanks for the video, I'm a Rebelle software user (started from Rebelle 4), and thanks for the comparison between Corel Painter and Rebelle.

[@BasementPicasso]

You are welcome - thanks for the feedback. Do you share your work anywhere?

[@Morailson]

lol, you can see with the naked eye the texture pattern of the paper and canvas repeating itself in Corel

[@BasementPicasso]

Yeah, the canvas samples are usually pretty small

[@cisp360]

I like Rebelle a lot more than corel painter, but Corel Painter's Real Oil look much more realistic and have more definition. Rebelle's oil look too sticky and oily. And we cannot get thick layers of paint.

[@BasementPicasso]

Yes, agree Corel does have some good brushes. I always liked the pastels as they have a nice directional feel too them and blended very well.

[@creative-trauma]

I have the same irritation, constantly being forced to start a new layer making it impossible to work in just one layer for everything. This means I would need many canvases if I was working on a natural canvas. The moment I changed my way of painting, I would have to do that on a new canvas. And the next time I wanted to use different things again, I would have to start on another canvas. On and on. My painting spread about in bits on many different canvases. Absolutely ridiculous. Painter is good at some things and fails miserably at others. Rebelle is designed by a painter. I think that is a significant difference.

[@creative-trauma]

Coral Painter gives you many options but won't allow you to use them how your want or need them

[@BasementPicasso]

Yup, completely agree!

[@HDStencils]

Thank you for your review! Rebelle it is for me then!

[@BasementPicasso]

Hope you enjoy it!

[@laniakeas92]

I don't see the point of comparing Rebelle 5 pro has Pigments function that basically simulates real life color mixing. Rebelle 5 pro and Realistic paint studio are only 2 programms on the market which do this :D I really feel sorry for those who are stuck with Clip paint studio, Corel Painter and Photoshop Thank you for this video.

[@BasementPicasso]

I agree - for natural media - Rebelle 5 & Realistic are hard to beat!

[@weebobart]

Great video to see the differences in Corel Painter as it is not a software that I have used. My journey started with Photoshop, I wasn't aware of a lot of the painting packages. I started using sketchbook and then eventually moved to Rebelle 5 which is now my main painting package. I have had my frustrations with Rebelle, mainly in performance, you may have seen me ask a question in the forum about this and it would be good to know what your setup is, in regards to computer etc. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here and hope you are having a good day.

[@BasementPicasso]

Hi, Rebelle can be slow if you use very large brushes at very high resolution, even on my system. it is a 4Ghz i7 4700, 32 Gb ram and an RTX 2080 graphics card, so reasonably beefy! If you have the pro version, using lower resolutions and the nano-pixel export is highly recommended - the brushes and painting will be much more fluid. Make sure you have enough memory - you can set how much the program uses in the preferences, which might help too.

[@htsunmiku]

So basically. If you use other software (for me I use clip studio) but you want a software that offers something different and closer to traditional. Get Rebel? (I picked up Rebel during their recent sale. Corel has the annual humble bundle now. While it is cheap, I think I'll hold off for another time)

[@BasementPicasso]

Lots of art packages offer things that can create some form of natural/realistic look, but I think Rebelle is the closest in terms of how it works while you are using it & the realistic results it creates. I still occasionally use Corel Painter for some things and picked up the 2022 version in the Humble Bundle sale, but Rebelle is my main program by far.

[@olingillis4630]

This is an older post, but I agree with you, but maybe from a slightly different angle. I have been using Painter for a decade or more. I recently upgraded from 2021 to 2022. It did not take long for me to roll back to 2021. It is infuriating that Corel insists on a yearly release cycle, no matter how well (or not) the current version is working. No matter how many defects went unaddressed (year after year). Rarely is there a patch to address current version issues. As a career-long software developer, I can tell you that these forced release cycles are not being driven by the developers. Developers at Corel, like the rest of us, would love the luxury of time to fix what must be a horrendous backlog of unresolved defects. As an end user of Painter, I could not care less about ANY new and well-hyped features (most of which, I will never use) when they have not corrected the ongoing issues that can make this application maddening to use. If I am fighting the software, all inspiration and creativity goes out the window. Like you, I started looking around a couple of years ago, and Rebelle was the best alternative. Glad to have that decision confirmed by you in this video. Thank you.

[@BasementPicasso]

Agree 100%. Thanks

[@asavchuk]

How do you achieve mixing when brushing with the same brush without using a special blender? Rebelle always seems to paint over the top when using a regular brush.

[@BasementPicasso]

There are three pain modes - paint, which will cover without ever blending. Paint& Mix and paint and blend. In rebelle 6 there is also a length slider that works very well in the paint & mix mode. They are the brush ixcons at the bottom of the properties panel. The length slider can be enabled via the properties menu - show sliders - length, Hope that helps.

[@Cjphylac]

Where can I get that “abstract shape brush” that runs over the shape of the oils in rebelle ?

[@BasementPicasso]

Hi, the brushes I have made available for free can be found at www.basement-picasso.com/galleries/rebelle-brushes/

[@michalbradw]

Thank you very must for the review still usefull in 2024. 👍🏼(greets from the Netherlands.)

[@BasementPicasso]

@michalbradw My pleasure! It's always much appreciated when someone takes a minute to provide feedback. Thank you.

[@gurujot951]

That layer thing sounds frustrating. Thanks for letting me know. I'll stick with Rebelle.

[@BasementPicasso]

Yeah, frustrating sums it up perfectly

[@nerdyandy3101]

Sounds like a most realistic & honest estimate for choosing among 2 powerful pieces of painting software which, I guess, quite a number of users will side along with. Many thanks.

[@BasementPicasso]

Thank you, you are welcome.

[@abstractbybrian]

I hope you can help me. How do you simulate acrylic paint in rebelle 5 pro? Is it just a matter of turning the oil setting to 1 or something else?

[@BasementPicasso]

Hi. For thick acrylic, then oil paint tools with loading will do it. for dry acrylic use painting option 1 (paint) rather than paint & mix (2) or paint and blend (2). For thin wet acrylics, then the watercolour tools can do most of what acrylic can do. I frequently use oil and watercolour working with thick paint and wet washes, which is more like acrylic in many ways. hope that helps

[@EvilMP5]

Basement Picasso try Paint Storm, it is very close to real painting and the paper textures are amazing also.

[@BasementPicasso]

Interesting. So I looked at PaintStorm a while back (on iPad) but had missed some of it's texture features. (or maybe they are newer?) Anyway - bought it to have a look. It is a very comprehensive package and some of the texture control is quite nice indeed, but it doesn't do any form of thick paint that I can see. I would still use Art Set and Infinite Painter on the iPad ahead of it, but thanks for pointing it out - it was good to have another look

[@kim258TV]

Layer madness with diff media is my problem too!

[@BasementPicasso]

Rebelle is great, but not perfect. I am still on the hunt for the perfect tool ...

[@4thNebula]

I am getting to use Rebelle 5 more. Am looking into getting a pen display but not sure any other than Wacom will work well with Rebelle. Would be helpful if reviewers would specifically review XP Pen and Huion in reference to working with Rebelle.

[@BasementPicasso]

Hi Michael - good suggestion thanks - I will add that to the list of videos to do

[@MaoRatto]

I got a huion kamvas 20, it works

[@jancaers5286]

I'm using Rebelle 5 with An xp-pen pen display, and it works fine- pen pressure and tilt works fine

[@dbeidesign]

I’ve used Painter since the Fractal Design Days, but Rebelle 5 pro blew my mind. It’s great!

[@KINGLIFERISM]

This

[@BasementPicasso]

And I thought I had been using Painter for a long time ... :-)

[@macshadow1167]

Audio is unbearable in 2022. Stopped after few minutes. (Sorry)

[@BasementPicasso]

Appreciate the feedback - I will continue to try and improve :-)

[@stephensakai1081]

Nice job. I’m particularly interested in painting on a photograph in Rebelle. Do you have any tutorials on this subjects? Thanks.

[@BasementPicasso]

Thanks. Appreciated. I have some future material planned around photographic reference, and ways to use photos in Rebelle.

[@theblowupdollsmusic]

Very informative video thank you! I have been thinking about Corel. But it seems that or simple easy of wet media simulation Rebelle is king. Have you tried Corel Essentials?

[@BasementPicasso]

Thanks Matt. I hadn't tried Essentials, but just took a look at the trial. It is literally the same download - it is painter 2023 with some features disabled. All the layer and tool problems I mentioned are there from the start. Price is far more respectable though for what you get.