All Things Painter Help! I'm Lost! by John Derry

A couple of years ago I purchased a handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. This remarkable device works in concert with a network of satellites circling the earth. My GPS can tell me within a few meters where I am on the globe. By combining this location ability with a complete set of built-in highway data, my GPS receiver acts as an interactive map that provides directions.

I recently put this capability to use when I got caught in a major traffic jam on one of our interstate highways. After a few minutes of not moving, it became clear that I would be sitting for a long time. I turned on my GPS and saw exactly where I was on the highway. I also saw that there was an exit about a mile in the other direction and an alternate route to my destination. I was able to cross the median safely, backtrack to the exit, and continue on my way via the previously unknown alternate route.

Now imagine that you are working away in Corel® Painter . You open up a new-to-you dialog box and have no clue how to proceed. You adjust a few sliders, click a couple of radio buttons, but you're just not getting anywhere. Wouldn't it be highly useful to have a GPS of sorts that could provide you with directions and get you on your creative way? Have no fear: the satellite system circling Corel Painter is the Internet, and your GPS device is the program's robust Help capabilities, which are just a few mouse clicks away.

Located on the menu bar, the Help menu is your personal information valet. Using this menu, you have an amazing set of Painter resources within easy reach. Help Topics is the topmost menu item. It launches your default browser to provide you with an indexed, searchable Help system. I find the search function particularly useful; type in a keyword, and you'll be presented with all instances of that word in the Help. Related concepts are hyperlinked, enabling you to quickly jump to other areas of the documentation.

The Tech Support menu item provides you with an international list of Corel Customer Support Services phone numbers. The Tutorials menu item connects you directly to the Corel Painter IX Web site and offers a number of highly useful tips and tutorials. The content on this page is frequently updated, so repeat visits yield new information. Be sure to check out the Shortcut Keys tip. The shortcut keys are hidden gems in Corel Painter IX. You can completely customize the keyboard shortcuts to your liking (to make them more like those in Adobe® Photoshop®, for example). You can also save your customized key sets and interchange them as needed (or swap them with other Corel Painter users!). Finally, you can even print out a nicely formatted page that lists your customized key set. Pretty cool!

When you click the Corel Classroom menu item, you are provided with information about both online and traditional educational resources. Be sure to check out the other educational and training topics listed at the top of the Web page. There are courseware resources available for educators, as well as a listing of Corel Painter books. If you haven't noticed, the location for all of this information is the Corel Painter IX Web site, which contains even more goodies.

Select the Community Goodies item on the Web page, and then choose Painter Sites to access an exhaustive hyperlinked list of Corel Painter Web links. In particular, check out the Corel Painter Newsgroups section. You owe it to yourself to try out the newsgroups if you haven't already done so. Newsgroups are virtual meeting places where Corel Painter users congregate and assist each other with various technical and aesthetic issues relating to the program. You can post a question to one of these newsgroups and receive a number of informed responses within a short amount of time. And it's free! Also in the Community Goodies section are upcoming Corel Painter events, wallpapers for your desktop, and even back issues of this column.

Finally, don't forget that the Corel Painter IX PDF User Guide is on your Corel Painter IX CD. It is searchable, so you can type in a keyword for a quick solution to your problem. If all of the above strategies fail to provide you with the answer you seek, check out the Corel® Support Services™ Web page, where you can access the Corel® Knowledge Base™ and e-mail your questions to Corel for free.

Whether on the highway or in Corel Painter, you can't get lost if you have the right tools.

John Derry
Somewhere in Kansas

John Derry is a pioneer of digital painting and one of the original authors of Corel® Painter™. Since 1985, John has leveraged his background in drawing and painting to advance the look and experience of traditional art-making tools on the computer. John has a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in Fine Art and is a practicing artist and photographer. He is the Art Director at Strauss Peyton Imaging, a fine art printing company. John's Web site is at www.pixlart.com.