In the real world, a marking tool has different results when applied to surfaces with different textures. Corel® Painter™ IX allows you to control the texture of the canvas to achieve the results you'd expect from natural media on a given surface—pencil on water color paper, felt pens on cotton paper, chalk on the sidewalk, and so on.

You can use paper textures in many ways. Brushes interact with paper "grain," just as natural tools react with the texture of the surfaces beneath them. Working with paper grains is useful when you use the Apply Surface Texture command or other effects, such as Glass Distortion. You can create your own Paper Texture.

Of course, some brushes, like those in the Airbrush category, don't reveal paper texture in their strokes. This behavior follows that of the natural tool.

To begin, you'll create a paper texture by using the Make Paper command. Once you save textures, they are available from the Papers palette.

1. Choose Window menu > Library Palettes > Show Papers.
2. On the Papers palette, click the palette menu arrow, and choose Make Paper.
3. In the Make Paper dialog box, choose a pattern from the Pattern pop-up menu to use as the basis of your paper texture.
4. Adjust the Spacing slider.
   Moving the Spacing slider to the right opens up space between rows and columns in the selected pattern.
5. Adjust the Angle slider.
   Moving the Angle slider changes the direction in which the pattern's rows are lined up.
6. When you like the look of the texture, enter a name, and click OK.
   Your new texture appears as the last item in the Paper Selector.

Tip: You can also use the Paper Selector in the toolbox to create paper. Click the Paper Selector, click the selector menu arrow, and choose Make Paper.

Next, you'll choose a Paper Texture from the Papers palette. The Papers palette is where all paper textures are stored.

1. Choose Window menu > Library Palettes > Show Papers to display the Papers palette.
   If the Papers palette is not expanded, click the palette arrow.
2. In the Papers palette, click the Paper Selector to display the available paper textures.
3. Choose a paper texture from the Paper Selector.
   The Papers palette shows the dimensions, in pixels, of the selected paper. Corel Painter tiles the paper to cover as much canvas as needed.

Note: In addition to using the Papers palette to select papers, you can use it to invert, resize, or randomize paper grain; control brightness and contrast; or open other paper libraries.

You can also choose a paper texture from the Paper Selector in the toolbox.

Corel Painter uses the currently selected texture. You can make a few strokes, and then change the paper and make a few more strokes to get different results.