Painter Essentials 8 Beginner painting software for WindowsMac

  • Easy to use interface
  • Industry-acclaimed brushes
  • Incredible painting speed
  • Extensive built-in learning resources
  • AI-based photo painting
  • Apple-powered AI capabilities
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Guarantee
Isabelle Staub

Digital art made simple

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.

Pavel Goloviy
Create

Blank Canvas

Paint from a blank canvas using a curated collection of artist-created brushes.

Customize

Photo Art

Create amazing photo art using AI, Auto-Painting or Paint by hand.

Extend

Brushes

Enhance your paintings with outrageously creative brush packs.

Brandon McDonald
Toolbar Layers
Cris Delara
Thoughtful Dandelion
Painting panel
Noha Eilouti
Color wheel Mixer
Scott Payne
Chris Freeman

Everything you need to get started with digital art

Brushes, adjustment tools and built-in learning are easily accessible through the UI so you can focus on your art.
Quick Start Guide

Artist-trusted brushes!

From traditional to uniquely Painter, every brush in Essentials was custom selected for new digital artists from our professional Painter art studio.

Show and tell

Take a look at what other artists are creating with Painter Essentials.

Compatibility

Photoshop

Photoshop

Preserve colors and layers with ease when transferring files between Photoshop and Painter Essentials

Drawing tablet

Drawing tablet

Support for stylus tilt, rotation, bearing and pressure control creates the most natural painting experience

Mac/PC

Mac/PC

Whether you’re a Mac or PC person we support both platforms with perpetual licensing

Essentials was created to provide the ideal paint software for beginners to ease into digital art

Blank canvas
Karen Bonaker

Blank canvas

Sketch, draw, render and paint whatever you dream up or are inspired by.

Create your first painting
Photo art
Nikhil Goyal

Photo art

Produce incredible photo art with ease using AI, Auto-Painting and cloning tools.

Bring Your Photos to Life
What's New
Apple support

Apple support

Improve your overall Mac workflow in big ways! Watch video

New

Touch Bar Support

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.

ENHANCED

Multi-touch Trackpad support

Responsive multi-touch Trackpad support allows you to perform useful actions by swiping and pinching, or spreading your thumb and forefinger on your trackpad.

Apple Pencil
New

Sidecar Support

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.

NEW

Apple Pencil Tilt

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.

Core ML support
New

Apple Artificial Intelligence

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

What's New
NEW and ENHANCED

Painting tools

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

Drawing and Painting Layout
Matthew Magnus
Color options
New

Color options

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

Edward Dennis
New

Artificial Intelligence

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

  • After
  • Before
ENHANCED

Document and layer control

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

Michelle Webb
Apple support

Apple support

Improve your overall Mac workflow in big ways! Watch video

New

Touch Bar Support

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.

ENHANCED

Multi-touch Trackpad support

Responsive multi-touch Trackpad support allows you to perform useful actions by swiping and pinching, or spreading your thumb and forefinger on your trackpad.

Apple Pencil
New

Sidecar Support

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.

NEW

Apple Pencil Tilt

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.

Core ML support
New

Apple Artificial Intelligence

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

Which version is right for you?

Feature

Painter®
Essentials™ 8

Painter®
Essentials™ 7

Painter®
Essentials™ 6

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

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

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

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

NEW Patterns 5 new patterns
Flow Maps
Paper textures

Feature

Painter® 2023

Painter® Essentials™ 8

Key features

Built-in collection of brushes 1000+ 150+
NEW Fluid Paint
Real Watercolors
Thick Paint
Create and customize brushes
Customize your workspace
Import & Export your own brushes, papers, textures etc.
Advanced photo painting
Advanced editing tools
GPU acceleration for brushes

Fluid : Build and Sculpt brushes
Fluid : Paint and Blend brushes
Real Watercolor
Pigment Watercolor
Brushes compatible with Watercolors
Thick Paint
Brushes compatible with Thick Paint
Watercolor Sumi-E
Oils
Gouache
Erasers
Stamps
Impasto
Palette Knives
Selection Brushes
Color Selection brushes
Sargent
Liquify
Liquid Ink
Cloners
Texture brushes
Acrylics
Airbrushes
Artist Favorites
Auto-Painting & Photo-Painting brushes
Blenders
Chalks, Pastels, Crayons
Dab Stencils
Dynamic Speckles
Digital / Fringe Watercolor
F-X
Glazing brushes
Image Hose
Markers
Particle Brushes
Pattern Pens
Pens, Pencils
Sponges

Artificial Intelligence Styles

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

Paint Opacity controls
Color Selection control for Selection brushes
Overlay mode for selections
Selection overlay presets
Selection Opacity Threshold for Marquee and Overlay
Captured dab library
Dab Effects
Brush size library
Brush favorites & filters
Grayscale in the Navigator
Clear layer content with Delete
Lock, Move and Covert multiple layers
Color Dodge blend mode
Color Burn blend mode
Photo art quick palette
Interactive gradient tool
Color ramps in sliders
Brush customization
Customizable user interface
Perspective guides
Texture painting
Reference Image
Customized artist layouts

9 layouts

4 layouts

Color Sets

unlimited

4 color sets

Color Harmonies

5 harmonies

3 harmonies

Shape & Shape Editing tools
Image Navigator
Selection tools
Text tools
Eraser

customization options

Mirror painting
Kaleidoscope painting
Crop tool
Effects menu
Drag to zoom
Fill tool
Color wheel
Transform tool

Brush Accelerator™
GPU acceleration for enhanced cover methods
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
Tablet support
Layout switch for 2-in-1 devices
64-Bit Mac and Windows
Built-in learning resources
Compatible with Photoshop

Captured Dabs
Textures
Selections
Weaves
Gradients
Images
Looks
Nozzles
Papers 75+ 32
Patterns 35+ 35
Flow Maps 25+ 14

Tech Specs

Windows

  • Windows 11 or Windows 10* (64-Bit), with the latest updates
  • Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor
    • 4 physical cores/8 logical cores or higher (recommended)
    • AVX2 instruction set support (recommended)
  • 4 GB RAM
    • 8 GB RAM or higher (recommended)
  • 1.9 GB hard disk space for application files**
    • Solid-state drive (recommended)
  • 1280 x 800 @ 100% (or higher) screen resolution
    • 1920 x 1200 @ 150% (or higher) (recommended)
  • Mouse or Wintab-compatible tablet
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 or higher, with the latest updates
  • To activate your product, you must connect to the Internet and register it first

Mac

  • macOS 15 Sequoia, macOS 14 Sonoma, macOS 13 Ventura with the latest updates
  • Multicore Intel or Apple M1 processor
    • 4 physical cores/8 logical cores or higher (recommended)
  • 4 GB RAM
    • 8 GB RAM or higher (recommended)
  • 900 MB hard disk space for application files
    • Solid-state drive (recommended)
    • Case-sensitive file systems are not supported
  • 1280 x 800 @ 100% (or higher) screen resolution
    • 1920 x 1200 @ 150% (or higher) (recommended)
  • Mouse or tablet
  • To activate your product, you must connect to the Internet and register it first

* 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

Apple, Apple Pencil, Core ML, iPad, Mac, MacBook Pro, macOS, Sidecar, and Touch Bar are trademarks of Apple Inc.