'Evening Tomsde . . . I have & use, Photoshop 5.5 / Painter 6.1 / Deep Paint & also ZBrush. Painter is somewhat more powerful than Deep Paint, but with a price - it's loaded with bugs or maybe I should call them unusual occurrences. I do know that Painter is an extremely difficult program to learn, although I have seen some very nice work created with Painter. I've had Painter 6 since it came out & Painter 5 before that, but to this day, I still don't know much about it, due to the fact that I find it a lot of trouble to try to work with. I also find it very un-intuitive. I have used Deep Paint since it was released, & I find it a lot more user friendly. It seems to me that I can create images quicker & easier than Painter, but, there are some things that Painter can do, that Deep Paint can't. So it's kind of a trade-off. I have also used ZBrush for about a year now, & it is a very powerful program, but, it's in a different category than either of the other two. It's a 3D modeling / 2D painting / & painting (real time) onto 3D models. Everything you do in ZBrush, is real time, so you don't have to wait for any rendering or such. You can also import DXF & OBJ objects created in other programs, & create textures for them, then export the objects & textures back to the program they originally came from. You can edit imported objects in ZBrush. You can paint in 2D, with colors & or textures in ZBrush. There's very little you can't do in ZBrush. But, again there's a steep learning curve. If you give yourself the time it takes to learn ZBrush, you'll have one of the most powerful programs out there, for the money. That's my opinion anyway. As far as the DEMO goes, you get 30 days to use it, then if you want more time to make up your mind, all you have to do is, e-mail Pixologic to get another temporary serial number & your good for another 30 days. Some have repeated this process a number of times, before purchasing the full program. One more thing, the tech help is in my opinion, the best out there, & the users on their forum ( ZBrushCentral ) are a very nice group of friendly people, who if you ask a question, someone will give a reply ASAP. I guess that's about all the information I can give at this time, I hope it will help you in your decision. You could always post a message or question about what your thinking about at ZbrushCentral & see what answers you get there? Either way, I hope you enjoy whichever program you end up buying. Have a good one . . . Mark.