Creating a Custom Brush Library in Painter 11

The documentation in Painter 11 states that large brush libraries take up more RAM. Creating a new Brush library and then loading it from within Painter is one solution. Before we begin we need to understand the terminology and the file structure of the brushes. In Painter, the default library is a folder called Painter Brushes along with an associated xml file of the same name. The purpose of the xml file for the library is to index the brush categories so that the Brush Selector in Painter will properly display them. Within this library folder are the Brush categories and associate image files in JPEG format. Within each category are stored the brush variants.


Setting Up the Files

The first thing we should do is navigate to the brushes folder (Program Files/Corel/Corel Painter 11/Brushes). Then copy and paste the Painter Brushes xml file and rename it. In our example I am going to name it “myWatercolors”. Then create a new folder called “myWatercolors”. We now have a new empty brush library folder with its own xml file which we will edit next.

Editing the xml file

Right click on the new xml file(myWatercolors) and select edit. Note that we have all of our brush categories listed with index numbers. For example “Acrylics” is listed first with the number “1”. Note that the last one is “Markers” with number “37”. Select and delete all the lines that index the brush categories except the first line and change it to number “38” and call it “Watercolor”. It should look like this:

We cannot re-use these index numbers or we will get the names that the default library uses. Therefore we use the next unused number.

Putting Brushes in the Library Folder

We’ll want some Brushes in the library to get started with so let’s copy from the Painter Brushes library folder the Watercolor folder (the brush category) and the watercolor.jpg file, and then paste them into the myWatercolors library folder. The thing to remember is that our index name in the xml file, the brush category folder name, and the image file name should be the same. In this case it is “Watercolor”. If we want to call it something else, make sure to change all three.

Open Painter as usual and then click the black triangle at the upper right of the Brush Control Window and click “Load Brush Library…”. You should get a dialog box that allows you to select your new library (myWaterColors) and if you did everything right it should load and contain only the watercolor brushes from the default library. From here you can create and delete brush variants to your heart’s content. If we want other categories in this library (such as a pencil category) we can close out of Painter, and edit the xml file by copy and pasting the watercolor brush line and changing our number “38” to “39” and calling it “Pencils”. We can then copy the Pencils folder and the pencils JPEG file from the Painter Brushes library folder, and copy them into our new myWatercolors library folder. When we re-open Painter the Pencils will show in our Brush Selector along with our Watercolors. I hope that helps you get started.

Good luck and happy painting!