I have received a number of requests from different places to help folks with brush installation in Painter 12. I have a video for the subject in my class Painter 12, a New Beginning. I have decided to post that here to help folks with brush installation.
REVISED INFORMATION: Dated 2/28/2012
Painter 12.1 has changed the way brush management works significantly. This video recommends installing brushes in what I refer to as the Applications Area, which we had to do for Painter 12 and Painter 12 with SP-1. Now, I would recommend installing in the User Area. I have a new page, Brush Management for Painter 12.1 that is specific to the changes in 12.1. If you are not upgrading, then this page has the information that you need. I highly recommend that everyone upgade to Painter 12.1.
Back to the original material:
You will also learn about brush libraries and why you need them. One of the problems that is occurring has to do with a problem in the software. Normally, I would suggest loading brushes in the user area, but the software will ultimately think the brush category is empty. So, in this video, I am showing how to load in the application area. If this changes in a later patch, I’ll change the video. If you have questions, please let me know.
Enjoy,
Skip
Hi Skip,
I downloaded the brushes. I have a mac and I can see them under brushes in the application. I cannot seem to get them to load into the brushes. Do I need to do programming as you did? I do not know how to do that.
Help!
Joyce Davis
Hi Joyce,
No, you do not need to open painter the way I did from the c: prompt. When I did the video, the SP1 patch was not out and I was trying to tell painter how many cores it could use. I probably should do the video over again. Please ignore the way I opened Painter.
But, based on what you have said, I believe that you have loaded the brushes incorrectly, but I’m not sure. It is very helpful when asking a question that you give me more information than less. You tell me you can see the downloaded brushes under brushes in the application, which is good information, but best information would be to give me the whole path and not just pieces of it.
The path is Applications > Corel Painter 12 > Brushes and if I understand it correctly, you put the downloaded files here, right? If so, that isn’t correct. Painter would think that the Brush category folder would be a library and not a brush category folder.
Your path should look like this: Applications > Corel Painter 12 > Brushes > Cool Spring (that would be the library name) > Cool Spring folder with the companion jpg.
Now open Painter and go to the Brush Selector Bar and open the Brush Library Panel. Click on its Option Button and go to bush library. Look for Cool Spring in the list and select it.
The Cool Spring library will open and the Cool Spring category will show plus the variants.
Let me know if you get it working.
Skip
Hi Skip,
Thanks for your prompt reply. I followed your dialogue and the only library that shows and has continued to show is soft water.
I have taken a screen capture which would show you precisely my progression but I do not know how to get that to you.
Joyce Davis
Hi Joyce,
I sent you my email and we can finish our conversation through emails.
Thanks,
Skip
So ? could you solve the problem for Mac users ?
Hi,
In the video I discuss the paths to use for MACs, so I am unsure of your question. If you can tell me the specific problem you are having, I’ll see if I can give you an answer.
Thanks for visiting and posting a comment.
Skip
Hi Skip,
I just recently took the plunge and bought an iMac plus Painter 12 last month.
So, I’ve had a lot to digest during the past several weeks as I’ve been running on an old HP Widows for the past decade.
I didn’t think I was doing one of your brush sets any justice, so I deleted the folder that I created for them. I was mostly experimenting, so please don’t take it personally.
My path was HD>Applications>Corel Painter 12>Brushes.
The title that I gave for that new folder is still appearing in my Brush Library window. It does not appear anywhere on my iMac. I even did a thorough Finder search. As far as my iMac is concerned, it is deleted, gone. But apparently Painter 12 thinks otherwise. How can I delete this title from the brush library? It’s as if Painter does not recognize that iMac deleted the library folder.
The other thing I wanted to inquire about is that I had downloaded Nature Water .
I believe I did that first and then came over to visit your site. I had moved that brush folder category and jpg icon into Painter12. But would you believe….I actually have Nature Water appearing as a Library in my Brush Library window!
It isn’t there in my city of Brushes. If the whole downloaded folder was first moved over there, I may have noticed that it was labeled P12 and decided to just take the NatureWater folder and jpg icon and move it into the neighborhood of Painter 12 Brushes and delete the title folder P12 Nature Water from the main Brushes area. But Nature Water is located in Painter 12 Brush folder, so I don’t understand why there appears that title in the Brush Library. This doesn’t make any sense to me.
I don’t want to appear long winded, but I’m still interested in learning from you and Karen. I realize that I’ve missed the class that has just started, but maybe it’s just as well until I’m more confidant with what I’m doing here.
Sincerely,
Mary
Hi Mary,
Hi Mary,
How exciting to get a new computer. I know you will love it, but there is always that initial set up time that can be frustrating.
About your questions, I think the solution to them both is the same. If I am understanding you correctly, you deleted the library files or moved them from the brushes folder. That is good. But, Painter also writes an identical library in the user area and places any changes you make in the identical library. The new MAC OS has a different path, I think. Here is the path that I know works for the older OS.
User Folder > Library > Application Support > Corel > Corel Painter 12 > Default ( Workspace name if your are using a workspace other than the default)> Brushes >
You would follow this path and delete Nature Water and Splashing Water under the Brushes Folder.
Like I said, this may not be the path for your particular OS. If it isn’t, please let me know what OS you are using and I will try to find out what path you do use.
Hope this helps,
Skip
Thank you! I bought the OS Snow Leopard then downloaded my free upgrade of OS X Lion. I did not know to check out this path going to the Library. I was just going to Applications; not the Library route. So I did as you said.
I am the sole user so I went to my iMac HD>Library>Application Support>
There is no Corel or Painter 12 folder listed.
Now I am disturbed! How can I learn to make or move brush libraries? What would happen if I loaded those extra libraries that came with Painter 12 and I didn’t want them all in my Library Window? I would not be able to get rid of those titles even though I moved the libraries out of there.
Sincerely,
Mary
Hi Mary,
The problem is with your OS X Lion. For some reasons Apple decided to hide the files. Here are two articles that should help you.
http://www.karthikk.net/2011/07/how-to-access-user-library-folder-in-mac-os-x-lion/
http://www.se7ensins.com/forums/topic/428277-unhide-library-folder-in-mac-os-x-107-lion/
If these two articles do not help, you will need to contact Apple support and ask them to help you.
Once you are able to get to the files, then you will be able to delete the user libraries of Cool Spring and Nature Water.
Hope this helps,
Skip
Skip, thanks for your informative videos. Once clarification is needed. It is not the drive letter for the OS but the drive letter where Painter was installed. For example, I have partitions and store most programs on my D: drive, so that is where the Brush library is located D:/Program files/Corel/Painter12/Brushes in my example.
Hi Ron,
You are absolutely correct. Thank you so much for taking the time to make that clarification. Gosh, I hope folks that partition their drive or drives will know the path is dependent upon where Painter is loaded. I don’t think I have ever discussed this issue before.
Thanks again for posting and helping out.
Skip
Hot dog! I went to the first link you gave me. After reading I took the challenge and here’s how it worked for me.
I typed in the word Terminal in my Search finder window. It opened up a page where I was then able to type: chflags nohidden ~/Library/
This will give you access to your Library folder. This is just the beginning.
Now, if I go through the HD>Library>Applications Support a Corel folder still does not exist; just as before! My Adobe folder has always existed there and I still couldn’t understand why I was not able to see a Corel folder. Then it dawned on me. I bought CS5 for Mac. So that was specifically written for Mac., but Painter is written to use for either Windows or Mac. So somewhere along the line this may need to be corrected in the future so Mac users don’t have this problem under the HD area. Or, Painter needs to run a line in so that the Administrator has access to the Corel folder in the HD area Library.
Ok now, here’s something else. I was not able to access through the All Files area as suggested in this link tutorial. But I was able to access my Library folder where everything opened up now through my User area marked Home with the little house on it. It is HERE where you are able then to access the Library with the Corel folder! Even though I am the Admin and sole user of this machine, I can only have access to this Corel file folder under the Home area Not the HD area.
I was able to then delete the 2 titles in my Brush Library.
Home (where I’m considered a user)> Library>Application Support>Corel>Painter 12>Default>Brushes.
I am a glutton for punishment and do want to redownload your brushes again, but not right now. This whole thing sorta wore me out. I still have Cool Spring and Happy Zen Raw 2 in my Documents area. The Happy Zen and Nature Water are loaded in my Painter 12 brush area and my Brush Library window is back the way it was when I first got Painter.
Sincerely,
Diane
By the way, my friends call me Diane
Hope I can be a friend and call you Dianne. Thanks for the feedback. Did you try the second link?
In your post you said,”It is HERE where you are able then to access the Library with the Corel folder! Even though I am the Admin and sole user of this machine, I can only have access to this Corel file folder under the Home area Not the HD area. ”
I’m no expert here but the above statement isn’t correct. There are two separate folders and two separate areas where the folders are kept.
Basically, when you make a change to a brush…say an Acrylic brush…Painter records the changes in the “Home” area, or what I call the user area. PC users have a similar issue, we have to go and unhide folders as well, but once done, then we can access the user area as easily as the Applications area. I suspect that if you look at the Adobe files in the “Home” area, they will be different from the ones in the Applications area. But, I don’t have a MAC and this is speculation on my part.
If you would like to follow up with this issue and tell it to the folks that count.
…go to http://painterfactory.com/. This is Corel Painter official site and you can ask questions and post defects and ask for enhancements…bunches of stuff. It is where I found the two links I provided. It is a great place to find out everything you wanted to know about Corel Painter.
Good luck with reinstalling the brushes.
Thanks for posting, Dianne…
skip
One more comment about brushes. When downloading a new brush, the folder and Icon are usually inside another folder. If you place the top container folder into the Brushes folder of Painter, it doesn’t recognize it. This has happened to me . Only the new Brush folder with its icon should be dragged and dropped into the Painter Brushes folder.
Hey Ron,
Now this time I take issue with what you are saying…at least if I understand what you are saying.
Brushes folder is the container for Libraries. Painter Brushes folder is a library. Libraries contain Brush Category folders and the companion jpg.
That means that if you drop your brush category folder and the icon into Painter Brushes, it will show up in Painter Brushes Library. However, if you drop a Library folder that contains the Category folder and icon under Brushes, then you will not see the brushes in Painter Brushes, but will see them in the newly created library. To see those brushes in Painter 12, you would open the brush library panel and open the option button or fly out menu and select brush libraries and pick the new library. Now you will be able to see the brushes.
I hope I understood what you said and this helps clear it up.
Thanks again for making comments,
Skip
Thank you very much for this tutorial… it really helped me a lot. I was searching for a tutorial on how to load brushes to Corel Painter 12 for ages, lol… thank god I found your blog… again – thank you soooo much!!!
Thanks for dropping by and I am glad the information is helpful. Be sure that you go to the later post and review the new information for loading brushes with Painter 12.1. It has changed significantly from my first video on brushes.
Thanks again for stopping by and posting a comment. I really appreciate it.
Skip
Thanks Skip,
After watching your video how to install brush lib. and the extra brushes that came with Painter 12, I was finally able to do it.
Rouben
Great…that is good news. Not everyone has had the same good fortune. Once we get use to the new way of loading brushes, we will love it.