Corel Painter IX

Corel announced that Painter IX is now shipping. If you have already tried it, please, post your thoughts here.

There is a trial version avaliable, though I have very little information of what are the features avaliable there.

the official overview of the full version:

Corel® Painter™ IX—the world's most powerful Natural-Media® painting and illustration software—features unique digital brushes, art materials and textures that mirror the look and feel of their traditional counterparts. The newest version of Corel Painter takes digital design to unprecedented levels with the revolutionary Artists' Oils Painting System, Snap-to-Path Painting, Quick Clone for photographers, and brushes that perform up to 10 times faster than in previous versions. Corel Painter enables some of the world's most accomplished creative professionals—including commercial designers, artists and photographers—to extend their natural talents and techniques to create original works of breathtaking digital art.

Corel Painter IX adds a range of tools and features that increase performance, fuel creativity and further extend compatibility with other industry-standard tools and applications. With improved Help features, tutorials by world-class digital artists and free access to selected lynda.com training videos, getting started with Corel Painter IX is easier than ever.

I have and use Painter IX. I dont see a real reason to upgrade if you have version 7 or 8. Alot of the functions seem slower on this version. I have since migrated to sketch book by alias. But if I have to do some matte painting or soemthing I go back to painter 7 .

Is this better than painting in photoshop? I've always liked painting in photoshop! Just my opinion, and I have never tried Corel Painter before, so since people use it here I might just give it a try!