PaintShop Pro 2018 Ultimate

I haven't found any posts about PSP 2018. I have PSP x8 but don't use it much. But I need to replace Zoner Photo Studio 18 as my DAM (it has lots of issues after upgrading Windows 10 to vers. 1709 on Jan 15th).

Internet search didn't yield any results to sway me one way or the other.

The upgrade price is under $50 USD, and may or may not expire on Feb 14.

If there's no strong opinions one way or the other, I'll just go with my gut. Or maybe go with ACDSee Photo Studio at under $40. Or go have another beer and think about it tomorrow.

Thanks,

--George

I've used PSP for years and pretty much it does everything I need it to do. I also use Affinity and Capture One. PSP is my goto for editing JPG images. The key is, whatever you use spend some time learning how to use it.

JustGeorge said:

I haven't found any posts about PSP 2018. I have PSP x8 but don't use it much. But I need to replace Zoner Photo Studio 18 as my DAM (it has lots of issues after upgrading Windows 10 to vers. 1709 on Jan 15th).

Internet search didn't yield any results to sway me one way or the other.

The upgrade price is under $50 USD, and may or may not expire on Feb 14.

If there's no strong opinions one way or the other, I'll just go with my gut. Or maybe go with ACDSee Photo Studio at under $40. Or go have another beer and think about it tomorrow.

Thanks,

--George

Click to expand...

A few months ago I upgraded my PSP x4 to 2018 for $24.99. Compared to x4 there are a few things that seem to run faster, I no longer see the 'proofing' window when I adjust the USM settings. I've been using a free copy of PS Elements 11 that came with the computer along with PSP x4 for the last few years, and since I don't do a lot of editing those serve me well enough. I don't use DAM, so I can't comment on any PSP differences between x8 and 2018 there, but my experience with any of these kinds of tools is they change incrementally, not dramatically from version to version.

Your best bet is to go over to the PSP forum and ask there.

Austin Stevens said:

I've used PSP for years and pretty much it does everything I need it to do. I also use Affinity and Capture One. PSP is my goto for editing JPG images. The key is, whatever you use spend some time learning how to use it.

Click to expand...

I agree. What I learned with PSP x8 was that it was very slow, compared to everything else I use. But I stuck with it for a while, and learned a lot. Then I tried Affinity, and it did most things faster, so for a while I used PSP as a front-end for Affinity, Topaz and the Nik plug-ins, but went back to Zoner because it was faster.

I'm still looking at PSP 2018 as a replacement for Zoner, and it what I have read is that it's faster than x8.

Thanks for replying, much appreciated.

--George

dwalby said:

A few months ago I upgraded my PSP x4 to 2018 for $24.99. Compared to x4 there are a few things that seem to run faster, I no longer see the 'proofing' window when I adjust the USM settings. I've been using a free copy of PS Elements 11 that came with the computer along with PSP x4 for the last few years, and since I don't do a lot of editing those serve me well enough. I don't use DAM, so I can't comment on any PSP differences between x8 and 2018 there, but my experience with any of these kinds of tools is they change incrementally, not dramatically from version to version.

Click to expand...

Maybe it's just me, but I think that the Win 10 1709 upgrade is causing issues in some image programs, but I've been wrong many times before. I'm hoping the new version of PSP would behave better, as I really don't want to roll back. So maybe a small incremental change would be significant in my case?

dwalby said:

Your best bet is to go over to the PSP forum and ask there.

http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewforum.php?f=56&start=50

Click to expand...

Thanks, I may have to sign up and start a thread there.

--George

I've used versions of PSP since before the X series - until fairly recently, I still kept going back to the old JASC v8.1

I find the latest version of PSP to be very good. It may sound silly, but the one reason why I keep looking for alternatives is the continual unwanted advertising, which I find very irritating. Despite their support insisting that it can be turned off, it just keeps coming back.

JustGeorge said:

I haven't found any posts about PSP 2018. I have PSP x8 but don't use it much. But I need to replace Zoner Photo Studio 18 as my DAM (it has lots of issues after upgrading Windows 10 to vers. 1709 on Jan 15th).

Internet search didn't yield any results to sway me one way or the other.

The upgrade price is under $50 USD, and may or may not expire on Feb 14.

If there's no strong opinions one way or the other, I'll just go with my gut. Or maybe go with ACDSee Photo Studio at under $40.

Click to expand...

I have PSP Ultimate x9 and ACDSee 2018 Ultimate. I've not yet had any reason to use layers in U2018, so am using it essentially as Studio.

I much prefer the ACDSee, both for its UI and for the ease and quality of results compared to PSP.

ACDSee U2018's Smart Erase is the best content-aware erase and replace tool I've found. Don't know if Studio has it, and since I don't use PhotoShop, I can't compare it to what PS offers.

That said, I need to be clear that the difference may be due to my greater experience with ACDSee products - I've used them for a number of generations.

I suggest you dl the trial of Studio and see for yourself.

And have that beer in any case. :-D

BTW, I'm on Win7, so don't know how well either program works on 10.

SantaFeBill said:

I have PSP Ultimate x9 and ACDSee 2018 Ultimate. I've not yet had any reason to use layers in U2018, so am using it essentially as Studio.

I much prefer the ACDSee, both for its UI and for the ease and quality of results compared to PSP.

ACDSee U2018's Smart Erase is the best content-aware erase and replace tool I've found. Don't know if Studio has it, and since I don't use PhotoShop, I can't compare it to what PS offers.

That said, I need to be clear that the difference may be due to my greater experience with ACDSee products - I've used them for a number of generations.

I suggest you dl the trial of Studio and see for yourself.

And have that beer in any case. :-D

BTW, I'm on Win7, so don't know how well either program works on 10.

Click to expand...

I'm a regular user of ACDSee PSU2018 and think it does a lot of things well, but smart erase is not one of them. For simple fixes it's adequate, but it struggles with more complex removals and there is no option to vary hardness. My hope is that the next version will have an improved algorithm and additional controls. For repair work, Affinity Photo does a much better job in my experience and if I know an image is going to require complex selections, masking, cloning/removal, and/or layers - I'll develop the raw in ACDSee, export to TIFF, and then work on the final retouching in Affinity. With that said, ACDSee does suffices for 90% of my work and continues to get better but it still has room for improvement.

SantaFeBill said:

I much prefer the ACDSee, both for its UI and for the ease and quality of results compared to PSP.

ACDSee U2018's Smart Erase is the best content-aware erase and replace tool I've found. Don't know if Studio has it, and since I don't use PhotoShop, I can't compare it to what PS offers.

That said, I need to be clear that the difference may be due to my greater experience with ACDSee products - I've used them for a number of generations.

I suggest you dl the trial of Studio and see for yourself.

Click to expand...

I've actually been using the trial for ACDSee Photo Studio. It was relatively easy to use, as it is somewhat similar to Zoner, and works quite well as both a manager and a front end for my other programs. There have been a couple of hiccups when switching between Manage and View or Edit, and I keep forgetting to hit refresh after coming back from an external editor, and a few other minor quibbles on my part. And it doesn't seem any faster than Zoner 18, which I find surprising.

It does have a problem with some of my older edits from Topaz, esp. TIFFs generated in photoFXlab and a couple of other Topaz plug-ins, just like a few other programs (FastStone, one or two others, don't recall exactly).

SantaFeBill said:

And have that beer in any case. :-D

Click to expand...

That was yesterday's beer. Today's beer will be later today.

SantaFeBill said:

BTW, I'm on Win7, so don't know how well either program works on 10.

Click to expand...

FWIW, I don't see any problems specific to ACDSee.

Thanks for the response, quite helpful.

--George

bmcnich said:

With that said, ACDSee does suffices for 90% of my work and continues to get better but it still has room for improvement.

Click to expand...

"room for improvement". Unfortunately, that seems to be true for most software. :-(

With more searching the net, including Amazon, also reading thru the "Lightroom replacement" thread, I'm not finding enough love for PSP 2018, so I've decided on ACDSee 2018, but thinking of going with Professional instead of Standard, as Professional has "native 64-bit support", and that must be a good thing right? :-D Anyway, I have 3 more days to decide before the sale ends, I'm downloading the trial to give it a look-see.

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to respond, it is truly appreciated.

--George

I can understand that. I had ACDSEE Ultimate, Affinity , and PSP2018. I've used PSP for a long time and feel it is good. I'm learning ACDSEE and feel that some tasks are easier to perform. Affinity is still maturing and had issues with Adobe plugin compatibility. For $50, it's still a great option.