Coreldraw Graphics Suite X5 Limited Edition drawing and painting package with graphics tablet

Coreldraw X5 is a ‘vector' drawing program that allows users to manipulate drawings more flexibly than photo-editing software would.

It includes its own photo-editor, Corel Photopaint, several handy utilities, and this ‘Limited Edition' also contains Corel Painter 11 and a Wacom Intuos 4 Small graphics tablet.

Such tablets (not to be confused with tablet computers) give more control than mice and are as close it gets on a computer to drawing on paper.

Although the A6-sized Intuos 4 Small is, well, small, it's a fully-fledged touch-sensitive and speed-sensitive pad. A pen-like stylus is used to draw on the surface, and the other end of the stylus erases unwanted bits.

A series of buttons down the side of the pad makes it easier to do things like shift-clicking, when you want to use the pen like a mouse. There's even a little pen holder to protect the tip.

The tablet worked well with Coreldraw X5, which has lots of features. It now includes improved colour management and new or improved drawing tools. There's a new coordinate tool that helps align parts of different objects and guards against fill colours spreading outside shapes.

The tablet worked better with Painter 11, which is designed to mimic natural painting on physical media. It can create drawings and paintings that look as though they've been created with pen, charcoal, oil paint or other instruments. Among the improved features in this version are better overlaying tools and extra dry bristle effects.

Stock photos from the Fotolia library are also included, but only 21 of them and you have to select and take them three at a time on seven consecutive days. This is a big package of drawing and painting tools, and the Wacom tablet itself is worth over £150, but the list price is high.

An upgrade version is cheaper but you'll need to have certain old versions of Coreldraw or Painter in order to use it. At the time of writing the full edition can be bought for £480 but still, in practice, the pricing will limit this software to professionals and aspiring professionals.