User Guide
7
Using Water Color
Corel Painter features two ways to 
work with water colors: the Water 
Color layer and Digital Water Color. 
The Water Color Layer
Water Color brushes paint into a 
water color layer, which enables the 
colors to flow and mix and absorb into 
the paper.
In Corel Painter, you can edit the 
Water Color layer as you would any 
other layer, including erasing and 
blurring, without changing anything 
in the image layer. For example, you 
can draw pencil outlines in the image 
layer, then overlay water color shading 
without smudging the pencil lines.
You can lift the canvas to the Water 
Color layer, which transfers 
information from the canvas to the 
Water Color layer. This is useful if you 
want to apply Water Color effects to a 
photograph, for example. 
You can wet the entire Water Color 
layer, which activates a diffusion 
process that you can control.
Unless a Water Color layer is already 
selected, a new Water Color layer is 
automatically created when a Water 
Color brush is applied to an image. 
The Water Color layer appears on the 
Layers palette and is characterized by 
a blue water droplet icon. When the 
icon is falling, it indicates that the 
drying process is underway. It is a 
good practice to monitor the Water 
Color icon while painting with Water 
Color brushes. If too many strokes are 
laid down, particularly with respect to 
slow-drying brushes, the application 
can become slower. In this situation, it 
is best to wait for the drying process to 
finish before continuing.










