OTTAWA--May 8, 2003-- Corel Corporation today announced that Corel Painter(TM) 8 is available for purchase across North America. Corel Painter 8, the premiere software for digital painting and sketching, provides professional artists with creative power, features for enhanced productivity and improved compatibility with Adobe Photoshop. With over 400 new brushes, a variety of new creative features for professionals and a re-designed user interface, digital artists will find countless ways to be creative using Corel Painter 8. New features include: Mixer - mix your own paint colors interactively as you would with paint and a palette, allowing you to create, save and reuse custom colors Brush Creator - design your own brushes with the Brush Creator by customizing an existing brush, combining two brushes or fine-tuning brushes using advanced controls Sketch Effect - create simple sketches and line drawings from photographs with control over the amount of paper grain, the heaviness of the pencil line and the desired level of detail New Brushes - experiment with over 400 new brushes in over 30 different mediums User interface - work more efficiently with a redesigned, more familiar user interface including a new Toolbox, a context-sensitive Property Bar that puts commonly used controls at your fingertips, and a Brush Selector that simplifies brush selection Layer Masks and Channels - hide and reveal areas of a layer and using layer masks, load and save selections easily with the redesigned channels, providing a consistent workflow with Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop file compatibility - focus on the art, not the software, thanks to enhanced Adobe Photoshop file compatibility Corel Painter 8 has already become an essential tool for many digital artists who make their living selling their design work. Sam Kennedy is a digital art instructor and professional video game animator who has been using Corel Painter for years. "I love the new Mixer. The paint mixing process is so real now - it replicates the traditional experience of paint being mixed together and without the paint clean up or expensive supplies." Mike Reed, known for his illustrations in children's books, loves the sheer volume of tools available. "I am continuously impressed by the endless supply of tools in Corel Painter 8. I can work on an image forever without running out of tools and materials. There isn't any other software on the market the lets you sketch and paint with real media and in real time." "Corel Painter 8 features sophisticated tools, making it the ideal software for creating original digital artwork," said Brett Denly, Vice_President of Global Marketing at Corel Corporation. "We've made incredible advancements in this latest version and our pre-order sales are already telling us that we've focused on exactly what our customers need. The wide range of art that you can create with Corel Painter 8 makes it a powerful and artistic complement to any digital art studio." Digital artists, illustrators, pre-visualization artists and photographers - all frequent users of Corel Painter 8 - will benefit from the new pricing available for customers. Corel Painter 8 is available at a suggested retail price of $299 US for the full package, $149 US for the upgrade and $99 US for the academic version. In addition, customers can now purchase at the upgrade price if they are users of any previous version of Painter, Painter Classic(TM) or Adobe Photoshop 5.5, 6 or 7. (i) "The new price of Corel Painter 8 is ideal for our customers," said Dan Devries, Executive Vice President of Marketing, PC Mall Inc. "Our customers will save significantly when upgrading to version 8 and the brand new upgrade qualifications for our customers will ensure significant sales for this incredible painting and sketching application."