Corel to Unveil Painter(R) Freestyle(TM) for Leap Motion Controllers at SXSW

First Digital Painting App Controlled by Motion Gestures


OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Feb. 27, 2013) -

Editors Note: There is a video associated with this press release.

Corel today announced Painter® Freestyle™ Beta, the world's first motion-enabled digital art app for Leap Motion Controllers, to be showcased at South by Southwest (SXSW). Using a motion sensor, Painter Freestyle lets you paint with your fingers and control basic tasks such as selecting brushes, media and key commands, simply through gestures (no mouse or keyboard required!). Painter Freestyle is powered by the Corel® Painter® engine and includes several familiar brushes for artists of all levels to easily get started.

Pushing the Boundaries of Digital Art

"As pioneers in the digital art world, we're always looking for ways to push the boundaries of digital art and to bring new forms of expression into the digital art experience. By integrating the Leap Motion technology into Painter Freestyle, we've built a completely new, but very natural and expressive way to paint digitally," said Andy Church, Senior Product Manager for Corel Painter. "We're eager to see how this new technology will evolve the digital and performance art worlds. By introducing a beta version of Painter Freestyle, we're able to listen to hobbyists, professionals and new artists, which will help us create an optimal user experience for our full line of art software."

"Leap Motion is excited by the application Corel is developing-tools that help people create digital art are a natural fit with our vision for using motion-control technology," said Andrew Miller, President and COO of Leap Motion. "As Leap Motion works to evolve the future of human/computer interaction and provide a fundamentally better computing experience, Corel's Painter Freestyle offers new possibilities for general consumers as well as artists by developing new brush capabilities, digital canvas interaction and forms of artistic expression."

Creating New Artistic Expression Capabilities

Motion control digital painting provides a more expressive and natural way to paint or draw with the computer. Whether art is a passion, career or hobby, Painter Freestyle expands your creative possibilities and is an entertaining way to experiment with digital art.

"The seamless Painter Freestyle experience with Leap Motion makes the process of digital painting all the more attractive and accessible to people-it's simply so much fun!" said Jeremy Sutton, Corel Painter Master. "As a professional artist, I can make marks in Painter Freestyle that simply wouldn't exist otherwise with any other tools or media. For instance, the use of multi-strokes, essentially paint coming out of our fingertips, is something that could only have been dreamt of previously. This is not just an incremental improvement in a paint medium or art tool. This is truly a dramatic paradigm shift that will revolutionize the way we create and interact with the computer."

Painter Freestyle Feature Highlights

  • Select from several brushes including graffiti, airbrush, sargent, oil, chalk, ink or fractal
  • Add multiple paper textures including wood grain, pebble board or fine dots
  • Create multiple strokes using up to 10 fingers
  • Control brush and color selection and brush resizing with motion gestures
  • Use non-reflective objects such as chopsticks to provide more granular control

Demo Painter Freestyle at the Leap Motion Experience During SXSW

The public will have its first chance to try Painter Freestyle and other applications in development for the Leap Motion Controller during South by Southwest (SXSW) 2013 in Austin, Texas at the fun and immersive Leap Motion Experience. Join Corel Painter Jeremy Sutton who will be painting live and demonstrating the expressive capabilities of Painter Freestyle. Visitors can let their hands and fingers explore what makes Leap Motion one of the most exciting technologies today. The Leap Motion Experience will be open at 515 Cesar Chavez (the Old Iron Works parking lot) between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Central time, March 9-11.

Availability and Pricing

Corel Painter Freestyle Beta will be available as a free download for Mac and Windows users from Airspace, the Leap Motion application store on May 13, 2013. A Leap Motion Controller is required to use Painter Freestyle and can be pre-ordered directly from www.leapmotion.com for $79.99 (USD). To learn more about Painter Freestyle Beta, visit www.corel.com/painterfreestyle.

Media & Blogger Resources

For members of the media who will be at SXSW on March 9-11, please get in touch to set up a demo.

Meet the Painter Community

About Corel

Corel is one of the world's top software companies providing some of the industry's best-known brands, including Roxio®, Pinnacle™ and WinZip®. Boasting the most comprehensive portfolio of graphics, productivity and digital media products, we've built a reputation for delivering innovative software that's easy to learn and use, helping people achieve new levels of creativity and productivity. The industry has responded with hundreds of awards for innovation, design and value.

Used by millions of people around the world, our product lines include CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite, Corel® Painter®, Corel® PaintShop® Pro, Corel® VideoStudio®, Corel® WordPerfect® Office, Pinnacle Studio™, Roxio® Creator®, Roxio® Toast® and WinZip®. For more information on Corel, please visit www.corel.com.

© 2013 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved. Corel, the Corel logo, the Corel Balloon logo, CorelDRAW, Freestyle, PaintShop, Painter, Pinnacle Studio, Roxio Creator, Roxio, Toast, VideoStudio, and WordPerfect are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation and/or its subsidiaries. WinZip is a registered trademark of WinZip International LLC. All other names and any registered and unregistered trademarks mentioned are used for identification purposes only and remain the exclusive property of their respective owners.

To view the video associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://youtu.be/1Ij0ZWx6dNQ.

Contact Information:

Corel
Liz Mitchell
613-728-0826 ext. 1223
Liz.Mitchell@corel.com