My job asked me to learn to use the Painter 7 software to enhance photo portraits. They bought the software for me and I'm having a problem already! The interface looks as if it's highlighted in...a teal color and if I bring up a New file it's also teal?! Someone told me this could be a video driver problem??

Apart from that, does anyone know of a good place for Painter 7 tutorials or have a suggestion for how to get started....or ANY thoughts on or examples of Painter 7 in action?

Carrie

Carrie,
I'm have Painter 6. I don't use it very often so I can't help you with your teal problem but here are some sites for tutorials.

Painter On-Line (http://graphicssoft.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mica.edu%2Fpainter%2Fon_line%2Findex.html)

Painter Resources (http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/painter/)


Odd 'n' Ends Tutorials (http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/tuthome.html)


Talking Graphics Painter Forum (http://talkgraphics.infopop.net/1/OpenTopic?q=Y&a=frm&s=98519178&f=048197611)

Talking Graphics Painter tutorials (http://www.talkgraphics.com/frameset.asp?where=http://www.rapartz.com/tutorials/tutorials.htm)


Procreate Painter 7 tour (http://www.procreate.com/product/painter7/)

Hope these help you out. Some have Painter 6 tutorials but it's basically the same.
DJ

DJ, ok, thanks, so never mind the whiney private message I sent just now. These sites should come in handy, if I could only get the software to work....

But anyone out there know how to update the video driver so that it might read my Painter 7 software??

Carrie,

To update the video driver, you'll need to know which video card you have - then go to the manufacturer's website and look for either "downloads" or "drivers" or something similar. Most manufacturer's post driver updates on their websites for free download.

Good luck!

Jeanie

Jeanie, have I told you lately that I love you? I knew it was something like that but wasn't sure how to go about it. I may be jumping the gun here as I've yet to go do it, but...I have a feeling.

TY!!!
Carrie

ok...I have a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 4X AGP Graphics Card (yes, I'm stupid) Is this what I need to update?

Hi Carrie:

Here's some info that should get you moving in the right direction.

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Corel/Procreate Newsgroups
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Invaluable for their products. Great resource for posting tech questions, finding out about patches, getting info on books, tutorials, etc. Very active place & fast answers.

http://www.corel.com/support/options/online_newsgroups.htm

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Patch for 7.0.
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If you haven't installed this yet, you'll need to deinatall Painter 7, reinstall it and (before opening it the first time), install this patch:

http://www.procreate.com/go/painter_update/index.html

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Possible fix for goofy screen colors, try this:
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Had the same problem. The following change fixed it for me.

Menu – EDIT/PREFERENCES/WINDOWS…

(x) No Device Dependent Bitmaps

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If this Preferences setting doesn't do it, try 'lowering' the refresh rate just a smidge on your monitor. (This worked for some folks who posted a similar question on the Painter newsgroup - see above.)

If neither of these do it, I'd hike on over to the Painter newsgroup and ask for help there.

Hope this helps...
DannyR

Carrie,

It sounds like Danny has provided a ton of relevant information for you. If you try all of that and/or still want to update your driver, check out this page (http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaks/geforce/index.shtml). (I found this through a google search of GeForce and it looks quite promising - for any video drivers actually.)

Good luck!

Jeanie

I GOT IT!!!!! THANK YOU!!! Danm, I don't know what did it, but... I had already updated the driver (Thank you Jeanie) but that didn't work. Danny, I changed the Bitmap thing you said and nothing...then I was reading further and just popped back over to P. 7 and BOOM, it was fixed! Must've been the bitmap setting, but took a sec for it to take effect, I guess.
I can't thank you guys enough. ha, now I can get down to the biz of learning the thing. Thanks everyone for all the great info, I have more than enough to keep me busy for a while. WHEW, what a day!

Thanks all.
Carrie

Yeah!! (I know the elation when you finally get your computer to work the way you want it to! ;) ) Sounds like you've been much more productive than me today. :) (Don't forget to get out and enjoy the spring weather - assuming it's a nice day where you are.)

Jeanie

Hey, that's great Carrie. I'm glad you got things going. Now you can start playing around with Painter. It is kind of neat and if you have a Wacom you can definately get all the features to work in Painter like the tilt feature. Also when you check out how neat those image hose nozzles can be, there are lots of places you should be able to download extra nozzles. Have fun and let us know how you like it.
DJ

Carrie: Glad you're moving again...

One of the great things about forums like this is that many times somebody else has already encountered (and solved) the problem at hand, or at least can point you to other resources.

Speaking of which... :) -- here's a couple more sites to check if you haven't already...

The person who developed/maintains the following site (Karen Sperling) appears to be a real Painter whiz... you might check it out to see if any of her CDs (or other services) might be worth a look.

http://www.artistrymag.com/

Before I got Painter 7, I tried 5 and 6 (but, believe it or not) they would not run on a PC with more than .5MB of RAM. In the mean time I picked up a few books on painter, Painter 5 FX, Painter 6 FX and The Painter 6 WOW book. These are quite good for beginners. (I'm a total Painter rookie.) There's a couple Painter 7 specific books available through the major online booksellers, e.g., bn.com or amazon.com, but new editions are pretty spendy.

It appears that a lot of the functionality of 5, 6 was carried forward into 7, so if your company is a little tight on training/education $$, you could probably get the version 5 or 6 books real cheap vs. 7, and still get quite a bit of value from them.

http://www.half.com
This site has become my favorite site to shop for discount Painter and Photoshop books.

http://www.ebay.com
can be another good source for discount Painter and Photoshop books if you're into online auctions.

Happy Painter Trails!
~DannyR~

Wacom (http://www.wacom.com) has some tutorials specifically for Painter also that are worth checking out. Go to the tips page and you should be able to choose which program tutorials you want such as Photoshop, Painter etc.
DJ