Painterly Brush tool and stylus input
Overall, a stylus provides superior control and interactivity compared to a mouse, ensuring a responsive drawing experience by seamlessly synchronizing the movements of your hand and brush. While a mouse is constrained to a flat, two-dimensional surface, a tablet stylus can detect the nuanced motions of your wrist, hand, and arm, delivering a genuine feel, increased accuracy, and precise control in the creative process.
CorelDRAW lets you produce realistic brushstrokes that fade in and out; change size, transparency, and angle based on stylus input data such as pressure, tilt, bearing, and direction. Just as real-life brushes exhibit diverse responses to factors such as pressure, tilt, and bearing — some are more sensitive to these changes, while others may not respond at all — Painterly brushes incorporate brush dynamics that adapt to varying levels of pressure, tilt, and bearing. For example, when using the Worn Square Pastel style from the Pastels and Chalks category, pressure influences transparency rather than width. In contrast, when using the Tapered Brush and Thin Detail Brush styles from the Inks category, pressure affects width rather than transparency. Additionally, pressure has no effect on the Large Scumble style from the Watercolor category.
Note that only styluses with pressure sensitivity and other advanced controls offer greater precision over Painterly brushstrokes.
Many brushes respond to stylus pressure. Pen pressure lets you vary brush size and transparency.
When you use a pressure-sensitive stylus or pen tablet, the amount of pressure that you apply controls the transparency and width of your strokes.
Each brush exhibits unique pressure sensitivity characteristics — some brushes adjust size in response to pressure, some modulate transparency, and others integrate both effects. The specific behavior depends on the brush type. Many brushes aim to emulate traditional art materials; for instance, an acrylic brush may alter size with varying pressure, while a chalk brush adjusts transparency.
Some brush styles react to stylus tilt (how close to vertical the stylus is held). Pen tilt lets you vary the flatness of the brush nib.
An example of an airbrush style that reacts to tilt. (left) The stylus is perpendicular to the tablet, (middle and right) varying degrees of tilt produce different marks.
The pencil mark varies in width as you change the tilt of the stylus. When you hold the stylus straight up, you get a fine line; as you start to tilt the stylus, the line gets thicker.
Pen bearing (the compass direction in which the stylus is pointing) lets you use the direction in which the tilted stylus is rotated to vary brush marks.
Examples of brushstrokes that are affected by pen bearing
Brushstrokes can respond to the direction in which the stylus is moving.
As you change the stroke path, the fur hairs change direction.
For information about adjusting pen settings, see Pressure-sensitive pens and devices.