Just tried Paintshop Pro. Pretty nice.

[BigMike]

My oldest son, and my favorite photography book both suggested trying Paintshop Pro. I have never used it before, but thought I would download the demo and give it a look. No, it's not at the level of Photoshop, but I am really impressed at what it can do, and at such a low price. I find it extremely simple to use, and with a host of nice features. I haven't had much time to mess around yet with it's manual editing features, but I did take a couple of badly exposed shots I had, to see what Paintshops auto-fix could do, and it really did an amazing job on both of them. I found the sharpening tools to work extremely well also. I will go ahead and play around with it for a while, because it is fun to use. I'm not expecting all the features of photoshop, but I am never the less impressed it. Anybody else using it, or have tried it?

 

[Jan Shim]

The folks over at the DPREVIEW ~ PC Tools forum know I'm a big fan of Paint Shop Pro 8.10. I've used it for many years and have found the current release to be an extremely capable photo editor. The One Step Photo Fix produces very effective results but at time I have found it to be too aggressive in its use of Clarify (can be hard on skin tones). Perhaps the best feature of rel. 8.10 is its compatibility with Photoshop plug-ins and also for the feature set that you do use, PSP does it much quicker.

Having said that I also use Photoshop 7.10 for results I absolutely cannot obtain from PSP. For instance, Motion Blur ~ Radial to make stationery wheels appear rotating at high speeds.

My oldest son, and my favorite photography book both suggested
trying Paintshop Pro. I have never used it before, but thought I
would download the demo and give it a look. No, it's not at the
level of Photoshop, but I am really impressed at what it can do,
and at such a low price. I find it extremely simple to use, and
with a host of nice features. I haven't had much time to mess
around yet with it's manual editing features, but I did take a
couple of badly exposed shots I had, to see what Paintshops
auto-fix could do, and it really did an amazing job on both of
them. I found the sharpening tools to work extremely well also. I
will go ahead and play around with it for a while, because it is
fun to use. I'm not expecting all the features of photoshop, but I
am never the less impressed it. Anybody else using it, or have
tried it?

 

[Chillihead]

I also have PS7, which I use if I need to do anything super funky that I can't do in PSP.

 

[chuot]

I've been using PaintShop Pro since version 4 (I have 8.10 now) and I love it. It's more user friendly than PhotoShop and it can almost do everything that PS does and sometimes more (red eye removal). And the price is right.

My oldest son, and my favorite photography book both suggested
trying Paintshop Pro. I have never used it before, but thought I
would download the demo and give it a look. No, it's not at the
level of Photoshop, but I am really impressed at what it can do,
and at such a low price. I find it extremely simple to use, and
with a host of nice features. I haven't had much time to mess
around yet with it's manual editing features, but I did take a
couple of badly exposed shots I had, to see what Paintshops
auto-fix could do, and it really did an amazing job on both of
them. I found the sharpening tools to work extremely well also. I
will go ahead and play around with it for a while, because it is
fun to use. I'm not expecting all the features of photoshop, but I
am never the less impressed it. Anybody else using it, or have
tried it?

 

[Jim N'AZ]

Not sure what you mean by PSP not having this ability to make unmoving wheels appear to be moving, but PSP has the "Motion blur" tool for expressly this action. I submit this photo of me and my car sitting stock still and applying this filter to the wheels and selective motion blur to the background. Admittedly, this was a quick manipulation, but PSP can do this and many other actions with its built in filters. Also, the clarify tool you mention as being too aggresive, can be modulated in my vers. 7.0 from 1 to 5 in its strength.



Regards, Jim

Having said that I also use Photoshop 7.10 for results I absolutely
cannot obtain from PSP. For instance, Motion Blur ~ Radial to make
stationery wheels appear rotating at high speeds.

My oldest son, and my favorite photography book both suggested
trying Paintshop Pro. I have never used it before, but thought I
would download the demo and give it a look. No, it's not at the
level of Photoshop, but I am really impressed at what it can do,
and at such a low price. I find it extremely simple to use, and
with a host of nice features. I haven't had much time to mess
around yet with it's manual editing features, but I did take a
couple of badly exposed shots I had, to see what Paintshops
auto-fix could do, and it really did an amazing job on both of
them. I found the sharpening tools to work extremely well also. I
will go ahead and play around with it for a while, because it is
fun to use. I'm not expecting all the features of photoshop, but I
am never the less impressed it. Anybody else using it, or have
tried it?

--
Jim N'AZ

 

[BigMike]

Regards, Jim

Having said that I also use Photoshop 7.10 for results I absolutely
cannot obtain from PSP. For instance, Motion Blur ~ Radial to make
stationery wheels appear rotating at high speeds.

My oldest son, and my favorite photography book both suggested
trying Paintshop Pro. I have never used it before, but thought I
would download the demo and give it a look. No, it's not at the
level of Photoshop, but I am really impressed at what it can do,
and at such a low price. I find it extremely simple to use, and
with a host of nice features. I haven't had much time to mess
around yet with it's manual editing features, but I did take a
couple of badly exposed shots I had, to see what Paintshops
auto-fix could do, and it really did an amazing job on both of
them. I found the sharpening tools to work extremely well also. I
will go ahead and play around with it for a while, because it is
fun to use. I'm not expecting all the features of photoshop, but I
am never the less impressed it. Anybody else using it, or have
tried it?

--
Jim N'AZ

 

[BigMike]

I've been using PaintShop Pro since version 4 (I have 8.10 now) and
I love it. It's more user friendly than PhotoShop and it can almost
do everything that PS does and sometimes more (red eye removal).
And the price is right.

My son agrees with you on all of this, and now, so do I. It's a great program...

 

[BigMike]

The folks over at the DPREVIEW ~ PC Tools forum know I'm a big fan
of Paint Shop Pro 8.10. I've used it for many years and have found
the current release to be an extremely capable photo editor. The
One Step Photo Fix produces very effective results but at time I
have found it to be too aggressive in its use of Clarify (can be
hard on skin tones). Perhaps the best feature of rel. 8.10 is its
compatibility with Photoshop plug-ins and also for the feature set
that you do use, PSP does it much quicker.

Having said that I also use Photoshop 7.10 for results I absolutely
cannot obtain from PSP. For instance, Motion Blur ~ Radial to make
stationery wheels appear rotating at high speeds.

I did notice the auto-fix boost the saturation a wee bit too much for me, so I went in an turned it down a notch manually and it looked great. I was amazed at how the autofix seemed to add a type of fill-flash to bring out dark colors that were lost in the exposure. I could not get Photoshop's auto-fix to come even close to fixing these photos. Of course, manually it can be done, but I couldn't get it to look this good myself

 

[jwh]

I use PSP and PS and I believe you will find very little that you can do with PS that can't be done in PSP. The scripting in PSP is better than actions in PS since it is based on the Python programming language and can do more than simply record keystrokes. PS has a more sophiscated color management system than PSP but hopefully that will change in the next release. It's well worth the small investment.
--
http://www.pbase.com/myeyesview
http://www.myeyesviewstudio.com/
jwh

 

[mojo104351]

PaintShop Pro has been a stalwart tool for both work and play. Version 8 has a nice redesign of the GUI. I use it everyday and compares well with Adobe Photoshop on a technical level and beats it hands-down on cost.

I also like to toy around with GIMP, cause it's free. Pretty powerful in its own right...and version 2.0 is coming out soon!

http://www.newsforge.com/software/04/02/23/1914218.shtml

-Mojo

My oldest son, and my favorite photography book both suggested
trying Paintshop Pro. I have never used it before, but thought I
would download the demo and give it a look. No, it's not at the
level of Photoshop, but I am really impressed at what it can do,
and at such a low price. I find it extremely simple to use, and
with a host of nice features. I haven't had much time to mess
around yet with it's manual editing features, but I did take a
couple of badly exposed shots I had, to see what Paintshops
auto-fix could do, and it really did an amazing job on both of
them. I found the sharpening tools to work extremely well also. I
will go ahead and play around with it for a while, because it is
fun to use. I'm not expecting all the features of photoshop, but I
am never the less impressed it. Anybody else using it, or have
tried it?

 

[knickles]

The scriptings great try it.

Try the soft focus script. I like this effect. Beats putting Vasline on my lense.
Much better help than PS who for some reason switched over to HTML.

Use PS only when absolutely necessary.

Use PSP 'cause its easy and enjoyable and professional quality.

 

[BigMike]

The scriptings great try it.
Try the soft focus script. I like this effect. Beats putting
Vasline on my lense.
Much better help than PS who for some reason switched over to HTML.

Use PS only when absolutely necessary.

Use PSP 'cause its easy and enjoyable and professional quality.

I agree. The more I use it, the more I like it. There seems to be a more logical approach to how it is layed out.

 

[jwh]

A few things to play with would be the Histogram adjustment, clarify (not found in PS) which is under adjust> brightness and contrast, an excellent black, grey and white point adjustment. Also remember that it can be easily customized. You can make your own toolbars with the items you use often and get rid of the rest.

The scriptings great try it.
Try the soft focus script. I like this effect. Beats putting
Vasline on my lense.
Much better help than PS who for some reason switched over to HTML.

Use PS only when absolutely necessary.

Use PSP 'cause its easy and enjoyable and professional quality.

I agree. The more I use it, the more I like it. There seems to be a
more logical approach to how it is layed out.

--
http://www.pbase.com/myeyesview
http://www.myeyesviewstudio.com/
jwh

 

[Boo]

My oldest son, and my favorite photography book both suggested
trying Paintshop Pro. I have never used it before, but thought I
would download the demo and give it a look. No, it's not at the
level of Photoshop, but I am really impressed at what it can do,
and at such a low price.

I use it daily and for the vast majority of my image work. I just wish it had Lanczos3 resampling, I use Photo Brush for that (that also has some super features, like proportional cropping and perspective correction and is only about 40 US dollars) and copy and paste images back and forth between the two.

I think it has a poor rep by some PS snobs and is wholly undeserving of it - it's well featured and looks easier to use than PS - the interface is much friendlier and intuitive.

And I personally totally abhor the use of the phrase 'Photoshopping' - some of us manage perfectly well without it and have done for several years.

--
So many photos, so little time . . .
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio & tutorials
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://imageevent.com/boophotos/ - holding page for recent images

 

[cchammond]

I have Paintshop Pro v8...love it!!! Still learning to use it though!

My oldest son, and my favorite photography book both suggested
trying Paintshop Pro. I have never used it before, but thought I
would download the demo and give it a look. No, it's not at the
level of Photoshop, but I am really impressed at what it can do,
and at such a low price. I find it extremely simple to use, and
with a host of nice features. I haven't had much time to mess
around yet with it's manual editing features, but I did take a
couple of badly exposed shots I had, to see what Paintshops
auto-fix could do, and it really did an amazing job on both of
them. I found the sharpening tools to work extremely well also. I
will go ahead and play around with it for a while, because it is
fun to use. I'm not expecting all the features of photoshop, but I
am never the less impressed it. Anybody else using it, or have
tried it?

 

[Povl H. Pedersen]

GIMP is trying more to be a free Photoshop clone, and is also great. Been using it a lot, but just bought Photoshop for the $250 anyway. (6.0 OEM + Upgrade).

GIMP is out in version 2.0 as far as I kniow. See http://www.gimp.org
Runs on Mac, Linux and even Windows.

 

[Tony SD]

The folks over at the DPREVIEW ~ PC Tools forum know I'm a big fan
of Paint Shop Pro 8.10. I've used it for many years and have found
the current release to be an extremely capable photo editor. The
One Step Photo Fix produces very effective results but at time I
have found it to be too aggressive in its use of Clarify (can be
hard on skin tones). Perhaps the best feature of rel. 8.10 is its
compatibility with Photoshop plug-ins and also for the feature set
that you do use, PSP does it much quicker.

Having said that I also use Photoshop 7.10 for results I absolutely
cannot obtain from PSP. For instance, Motion Blur ~ Radial to make
stationery wheels appear rotating at high speeds.

I did notice the auto-fix boost the saturation a wee bit too much
for me, so I went in an turned it down a notch manually and it
looked great. I was amazed at how the autofix seemed to add a type
of fill-flash to bring out dark colors that were lost in the
exposure. I could not get Photoshop's auto-fix to come even close
to fixing these photos. Of course, manually it can be done, but I
couldn't get it to look this good myself

Totally agree! Can't afford full PS, but I have Elements 2 which is very capable, but the 'Enhance photo' in PSP is mile ahead of 'levels' in Elements.

The ability to include the icons you want and use most on the main toolbar is a great feature and saves no end of time.

I've been using PSP for more than 5 years and love it!
--
TonySD

 

[Negative287]

GIMP is seriously lacking in several areas that may not yet be obvious to you but the more you use Photoshop you'll see the program has a long way to go and PSP has most of the tools that Adobe Photoshop has.

GIMP is trying more to be a free Photoshop clone, and is also
great. Been using it a lot, but just bought Photoshop for the $250
anyway. (6.0 OEM + Upgrade).

GIMP is out in version 2.0 as far as I kniow. See http://www.gimp.org
Runs on Mac, Linux and even Windows.

--

'The only real currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with each other when we're being uncool.' -- Cameron Crowe

 

[Negative287]

Paint Shop Pro 8 is excellent and has about 95% of the tools Photoshop CS has.

Paint Shop Pro 8 has...

Actions style visual macros
Color Management (HSL = LAB, CMYK and Adobe RGB support)
Curves
USM
Levels
Noise Filters
Sharpening Filters
Built in Frames
Layer Masking
Channel Masking

Supports most Third Party Adobe Photoshop Plug-ins (Including NIK and Neat Image)

So basically there isn't much that you can't do with Paint Shop Pro that you might otherwise need to do...

The biggest Minuses are...

Lack of Healing Tools (Patch tool and Healing Brush)
Lack of Panetone Color support
Lack of 16-bit editing tools
Lack of Exif compliant JPG format
Lack of JPEG 2000 format.

If you can live without these things then Paint Shop Pro can be every bit as effective as Photoshop can for most of your needs.

--

'The only real currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with each other when we're being uncool.' -- Cameron Crowe

 

[Negative287]

Histogram shows in both the Raw converter and the levels tool in Photoshop.

The scriptings great try it.
Try the soft focus script. I like this effect. Beats putting
Vasline on my lense.
Much better help than PS who for some reason switched over to HTML.

Use PS only when absolutely necessary.

Use PSP 'cause its easy and enjoyable and professional quality.

I agree. The more I use it, the more I like it. There seems to be a
more logical approach to how it is layed out.

--
http://www.pbase.com/myeyesview
http://www.myeyesviewstudio.com/
jwh

--

'The only real currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with each other when we're being uncool.' -- Cameron Crowe