is disabled.This section provides troubleshooting tips and offers answers to frequently asked questions. If your problem or question is not included in the following list, visit the Corel Knowledge Base.
| • | I am trying to install/reinstall Corel Painter but I get a warning that my serial number is invalid. What do I do? |
| • | How do I repair my Corel Painter installation (Windows)? |
| • | How do I uninstall Corel Painter properly (Windows)? |
| • | How can I get the thumbnails of my Painter files to show in Windows Explorer? |
| • | My brushes stopped working. |
| • | My blending and smearing brushes paint with white or don’t interact with underlying colors. |
| • | My brush doesn’t use the color I chose or doesn’t work as expected. |
| • | Where do I find my previously purchased brushes after reinstalling Corel Painter or installing it on another computer? |
| • | My tablet doesn’t work as expected with Corel Painter. What do I do? |
Workspaces, user files, and layouts
| • | What’s the difference between user files and a workspace? |
| • | What’s the difference between a layout and a workspace? |
| • | I was given a custom workspace, but I can’t use it. |
| • | Some palettes in the workspace I just imported appear cutoff (Windows). |
| • | Lately Corel Painter has been taking longer to start. Can I do something to shorten its startup time? |
| • | What settings do I use to ensure the optimal performance of Corel Painter? |
| • | I was using Corel Painter without any problems for a while, and now it no longer works as expected. What do I do? |
| • | I know that restoring Corel Painter to its default settings may help with unexpected performance problems, but I don’t want to lose my custom brushes and palettes. How do I keep my custom items? |
| • | I have read that renaming my application data folder (Windows) or application library folder (macOS) may help improve the performance of Corel Painter? How do I rename this folder? |
| • | Corel Painter stops responding on startup (macOS)? What do I do? |
How do I repair my Corel Painter installation (Windows)?
| If you suspect that your installation of Corel Painter is corrupt, you may need to repair it. To do this, close all applications, and click Uninstall a program on the Windows Control Panel. Double-click the product name on the Uninstall or change a program page. In the Installation wizard, enable the Repair option, and follow the instructions. |
How do I uninstall Corel Painter properly (Windows)?
| Always use the Corel Painter Installation wizard to uninstall Corel Painter. Close all applications, and click Uninstall a program on the Windows Control Panel. Double-click the product name on the Uninstall or change a program page. In the Installation wizard, enable the Remove option and the Remove User Files check box, and follow the instructions. |
| The Corel Painter installation includes Corel Painter Thumbnail Previewer, which lets you view the contents of Corel Painter (RIFF) files in Windows Explorer by generating thumbnail images. This utility must be uninstalled separately. To do so, double-click Corel Painter Thumbnail Previewer on the Uninstall or change a program page. |
How can I get the thumbnails of my Painter files to show in Windows Explorer?
| • | Check the Layers palette to make sure that the Preserve Transparency button is disabled. |
| • | Make sure the active layer is visible. If the eye icon  next to the layer name in the Layers palette is shut, click the icon to make the layer visible. |
| • | Sometimes the brush marks don’t show because the brush opacity is set to 0. Increase the opacity in the Opacity box on the property bar. |
| • | You may be painting underneath a layer that is hiding your brushstrokes. Check the Layers palette, and make sure you are painting on the layer you want. If there are layers blocking the active layer, hide these layers by clicking the eye icon. |
| • | There may be a small selection in the image, and brushes cannot paint outside selections. Choose the Select menu, and click None (if it is not already grayed out) to remove the selection. |
| • | You may be trying to paint on a white canvas with a brush that uses the Glow technology. Glow brushes don’t leave a mark on white or very light backgrounds. To make sure you are indeed using a glow brush, check if there is an enabled Glow control on the property bar, or if the brush uses the Glow subcategory. |
| • | Click the Reset Tool button on the property bar to restore the brush to its default settings. |
| • | Some composite methods can make the paint appear invisible. For example, if the layer’s composite method is set to Multiply or Gel and you are painting on black, you won’t be able to see your brushstrokes. In general, if you are having difficulty seeing your brushstrokes, try changing the layer’s composite method to Default. |
| • | Blender brushes do not add color; they blend existing colors. |
My blending and smearing brushes paint with white or don’t interact with underlying colors.
| • | In the Layers panel, click the Pick Up Underlying Color button  to enable it. If the brush still doesn't work as expected on the active layer, choose the canvas in the Layers palette and try painting over existing colors. If it works, consider painting on the canvas - some brushes use methods that don’t work on layers. |
| • | For brushstrokes without white fringes, take advantage of enhanced blending, which is supported by many brushes. Choose Window  Brush Control Panels Brush Media Blending, and enable the Enhanced Layer Blending check box (if available for the selected brush). |
My brush doesn’t use the color I chose or doesn’t work as expected.
| • | In the Colors palette, check if the Additional Color swatch appears selected. If so, click the Main Color swatch so that your brush uses the main color. |
| • | In the Layers panel, check the composite method assigned to the active layer in the Composite Method list box, and make sure it is set to Default, not Gel, Multiply, Overlay, or another method that changes the appearance of the main color when it interacts with underlying colors. |
| • | Make sure that the Hue ring and Saturation/Value triangle in the Color palette do not appear grayed out. If they are, then the Clone Color option is enabled, which means that the brush is using a color or pattern from a clone source. In the Color palette, click the Clone Color control to disable it. |
| • | Sometimes your brush may be customized beyond recognition. In the Brush library panel, click the Brush library options button  , and choose Restore Default Variant. |
| Click Help menu Restore Purchases, and follow the instructions to download and install your previously purchased items. This method can help you restore only brush packs that you purchased from within Corel Painter. For more detailed information, see To restore your purchases. |
My tablet doesn’t work as expected with Corel Painter. What do I do?
| Unplug the tablet, and try to connect it to your computer by using another USB port. |
User files, workspaces, and layouts
What’s the difference between user files and a workspace?
What’s the difference between a layout and a workspace?
| A layout (also known as "palette arrangement") displays, hides, and positions workspace elements such as palettes and panels to suit a specific workflow. For example, the New to Painter layout displays only the most essential controls together with the Hints panel to help you get started quickly with Corel Painter. You can switch layouts while working in the same workspace by clicking Window Layout. |
| A layout arranges the elements of a workspace in a specific way; a workspace includes specific content such as brushes, textures, papers, and more. |
| You can arrange palettes and panels and save the arrangement as a custom layout. For more information, see To save an arrangement of palettes as a workspace layout. When you restore Corel Painter to its default settings, you can choose to keep custom brushes, papers, textures, and other assets, but all your custom layouts will be lost. |
I was given a custom workspace, but I can’t use it.
| Workspace files have a .pws extension. To use a custom workspace that was shared with you, you must import it by choosing Window Workspace Import Workspace. |
Some palettes in the workspace I just imported appear cutoff (Windows).
| Before closing Corel Painter, make sure to close all panels and palettes that you rarely use. |
What settings do I use to ensure the optimal performance of Corel Painter?
| • | Set performance options in the Preferences dialog box. For more information, see Performance preferences. |
| • | (Windows) Optimize the settings of your device, be it a Microsoft Surface Pro laptop, Cintiq Companion, or a desktop computer. Change the power settings of your device from Power Save mode to High performance (Control Panel Hardware and Sound Power Options). You can also disable programs that are running in the background, turn off search indexing, clean the registry, disable visual effects, and more. For detailed information, see https://www.computerworld.com/article/3029168/microsoft-windows/windows-10-quick-tips-8-ways-to-speed-up-your-pc.html. |
| • | Set the rotation of the canvas to 0°, especially when using impasto. |
| • | If you are using impasto but you don’t need to see the impasto effect while painting, choose Canvas Hide Impasto to improve performance. |
| • | Hide the Navigator panel (Window Navigator) if you don’t need it. |
| • | Adjust the following brush settings: |
| • | Move the Boost slider on the Spacing panel (Window Brush Control Panels Brush Shape Spacing) to optimize the performance of brushstrokes. Start with low boost values (under 10%) to significantly increase brush performance. Note that high boost values may produce less accurate brushstrokes.This setting applies only to specific brush dab types, such as Flat and Camel hair. |
| • | Check if the selected brush uses Brush Loading by choosing Window Brush Control Panels Brush Media Blending, and disable it to improve performance. For more information about this control, see Blending controls. |
| We recommend that you follow these troubleshooting tips in the order they are listed. |
| • | Restart Corel Painter. This may improve application performance. |
| • | Start Corel Painter by holding down Shift. This action will restore Corel Painter to its default settings and may solve unexpected problems. For more information, see Restoring the default Corel Painter settings. |
| • | If restoring Corel Painter to its default settings did not improve performance, the problem may be some custom items such as brushes, papers, or custom palettes that you created earlier and decided to keep. Start Corel Painter while holding down Shift again, and try disabling one or more items under the Keep some customizations option. |
| • | When you restore the application to its default settings by holding down Shift and starting it, choose the Keep some customizations option in the dialog box that comes up. You can choose to keep your custom brushes, custom palettes, and customized libraries (papers, patterns, scripts, textures, and more). |
| • | You can also export custom content or custom palettes before restoring Corel Painter to its default settings. |
| (Windows) Press the Windows key + R, type %appdata% in the Run dialog box, and press Enter. Next, browse to the Corel/Painter [XX] folder, where XX is the version number of the product, and rename the folder to Painter XX_old. Start Corel Painter. |
| (macOS) Start Finder. Choose Go Go to Folder, type ~/library in the Go to folder box, and click Go. Next, browse to the Corel/Painter [XX] folder, where XX is the version number of the product, and rename the folder to Painter XX_old. Start Corel Painter. |
Corel Painter stops responding on startup (macOS)? What do I do?
| For troubleshooting tips, check out this article on the Corel Knowledge Base. |
