This is a great book – if you aren’t already an owner of the Painter X WOW! Book. If you own that earlier volume, you already have all but about a dozen pages of this book. Frankly, what’s missing isn’t worth buying the book again.

When I received the Painter XI WOW! Book and started paging through it, I kept having the feeling, “I’ve seen this image before.” It got so bad I went through my bookcase and pulled out my copy of the Painter X WOW! Book. I sat down at the kitchen table with both books and went through them simultaneously, page by page.

They’re the same. The same topics, the same instructions, the same illustrations, the same screenshots, the same graphic examples. The only thing I could find that was different was the program name. It looks like a simple search-and-replace was run, and a very few new additions made.

Most disappointing, the new features added to the program (the ones I most wanted to learn about) weren’t covered. Painter XI has added a new category of brushes and new brush controls I was very interested in learning about. I guess I need to look for another resource.

Don’t get me wrong – if you’re new to Painter XI, this is a pretty good book from which to learn the basics. My review of the Painter X WOW! Book can be found in the December 2007 TCS  eJournal.

But if you already own the Painter X WOW! Book and have upgraded to Painter XI, my advice is not to bother purchasing this “updated version.”

Peachpit Press – www.peachpit.com
ISBN-10: 0321685792
ISBN-13: 978-0321685797