Corel Painter x is the last version I used... I actually taught "Painter and Photoshop for Artists" at University but I never used Painter for my own work since it was called Monet IRC in 1995. I found I could replicate all the Painter effects in Photoshop but with more control. I liked the watercolors in Painter at first but reverted to Photoshop after a while. ArtRage seems much more tuned to the working method of traditional media artists in my opinion. But obviously it is just an opinion... different strokes for different folks, right? I prefer Corel PaintShop Pro X for "Natural Media" to Corel Painter. I believe the natural media module of PSP was written by Ambient Design... sure looks like it. The price of PSP is nice too - I think I paid about $99 for it. I don't love the interface but the program has all the functionality nearly of Photoshop and Painter combined. Really though it is all a matter of taste but IMO Corel is a great cheap alternative to Photoshop and ArtRage is a cheap alternative to Corel Painter at a fraction the price. Don't take it that I am knocking your choice - I just feel ArtRage is a huge bargain but not neccessarly well known so...