Essentials Cafe

 Hi,

I am new to the forum but have been browsing for a few weeks.  I have the Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 which came bundled with Corel Paint Shop Pro X2.  Can anyone tell me what the difference between the two programs are and is it worth buying Corel Painter Essentials 4.

 Hi jondave - I only have the E4 version, but I believe the photo essentials 4 to be a taster, a simplified version with certain functions disabled or removed, and at the price painter essentials 4 is an amazing programme, and well worth the investment. Many folks then go on to get the full blown painter x eventually, but as an intermediate it will take you some time to run out of ideas whilst using it.

Jondave -

I too have have Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 which came bundled with Corel Paint Shop Pro X2.

As far as I am aware, the difference in Photo Essentials 4 and the full version is that the full version has a "Drawing & Painting" feature which allows you to paint on a blank "canvas", whereas the Photo Essentials version only has "Photo Painting" capability which is by and large an "Auto Paint" feature.

- Gary

 Thanks both, when I get some spare cash I will definetly upgrade.

Like you, Jondave, I have the Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 which came bundled with Corel Paint Shop Pro X2.  Did you actually get the software installed on you pc?  I've added and deleted in on my win 7 laptop a few times trying to get it to work.  The program just freezes on me. Corel doesn't have it online as product to download, so I suppose I feel cheated that my free bundled software is useless.  I do know what I'm missing because I downloaded the trial software of Corel Painter Photo Essentials.  In my humble opinion and unless you tell me otherwise... that you actually got the software downloaded and working on your pc ..the bogus free bundled software is little more than an advertisement for me to check out the real goods and pay up for it.  Man oh man, I sure miss my old Corel Photo-Paint software with all my heart.  I paid a ton for it, too, and it stopped working long on, I think on WindowsMe. 

Zoo, there is an issue with launching Painter Photo Essentials on Windows 7. While not ideal, there is a work-around you can use to get the product launching, I have posted it in other threads on this forum, but here it is:

As a work-around to get the application launching on Win 7, can you please do the following:
Browse to wherever you installed PE4 to your hard drive, and in the Corel -> Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 folder, inside the "Resources" folder, create an empty folder called "Color Profiles".

I hope that helps,
Jennifer

 I'm using vista and my painter photo essentials free bundled software does not work, also feel cheated... I also downloaded trial painter essentials 4 and found my serial doesn't work and as said there is no download for the photo essential that doesn't work; spent all day trying to make it go?  appears bogus free software that got me to upgrade to ultimate from X2 through corel... I am sure I am owed a fix on this and I sure wasted a lot of time. 

 again attempting post my message didn't show... my free software photo essentials does not work, tried download of essentials 4 as it is the only available and of course doesn't except my serial so bogus software and I feel cheated since I upgraded to ultimate from photo X2 for photo essentials; I have several corel programs long time believe you owe me fix on this? and I am on vista 64bit.

Hello wuotan:

Can you please be more specific when you say the software does not work?  Are you having a problem launching the application?  Or are you able to launch and are having an issue with the software?

Thanks,

Wendy

hey Wendy,

 the program starts to launch, but the actual program window opens blank and a small window opens in front of it saying "the progam has encountered a problem and needs to close" press send report and it closes.  The trial versian of painter 4 essentials seems no problems.  I spent hours reloading programs trying to get photo essentials to open.  now i've put it on my old laptop and it works there, not a real solution but I have more pressing demand of my time currently, to actually use it more than learning it a little;  same with trial painter essentials, i watched the lessons and explore it breifly... probably expire before i use it, so when I have time prefer avoid open the program failure.  still seek answer why it will not complete launch on my 64 bit vista?

Wuotan

Ran into the same problemSame responses

tried on both 32 and 64 bit windows Win7

Hello: 

There is a patch available for Painter Photo Essentials 4....I posted this as a separate thread - here's the link to the thread:  http://essentialscafe.com/forums/t/6647.aspx

This patch should solve any launching issues on Windows 7 with Painter Photo Essentials.  After applying the patch, please launch Painter Photo Essentials while holding down the shift key and reset the application to the factory default.

Thanks,

Wendy

 i thought the patch was for only painter essentials 4 only,not painter photo essentials 4?

This one is for Photo Essentials 4 :)