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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best photo editor of all!, 23 April 2005
This review is from: Paint Shop Pro 9 (CD-ROM)
I started using (the then shareware) Paintshop Pro (version 2?) way back in the 1980's. In those early days its' file format conversion and browse facilities were simply unrivalled. As time went on, and my photographic needs became more sophisticated and ambitious I kept being told that I should migrate to Photoshop. I did this several times, but have always returned to what seems an equally versatile but more intuitive and easily learned product. Most recently I invested in Photoshop CS instead of upgrading from Paintshop Pro 8. Yet again, I have reversed the decision and forsaken Photoshop for Paintshop Pro 9. I fail to see any relative deficiency in the product. Maybe it is because I learned Paintshop Pro first that I find it so much easier; but I do believe it to be the superior programme. Working methods may differ, but the many features of PSP including masks, layers and plug-ins really do offer the same range of creative options. As it is so much less expensive than its' rival, and does not require an irksome product activation procedure - it seems surprising that more educational institutions do not adopt it as standard. It would be good to see more high quality books describing and inspiring the use of Paintshop Pro. I am very happy with PSP and see no value in spending considerably more just for the satisfaction of using the "industry standard". On Amazon the bundle with Photo Album 5 offers particularly good value. (For raster digital art I use Painter IX, which complements it splendidly.)
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good photo editing and graphics software, 4 Aug 2005
This review is from: Paint Shop Pro 9 (CD-ROM)
I have used Paint Shop Pro 7 Anniversary Edition and Paint Shop Pro 8 on Windows ME, and Paint Shop Pro 8 and 9 on Windows XP. I also have Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 and Corel Painter Essentials on my computer. I must say that of the above programmes PSP Version 9 is the one that really gets used. I love the vector capabilities which are particularly useful for drawing lace diagrams, and I also like the digital camera noise feature and One Step Photo Fix. However One Step Photo Fix is not always the best answer for fixing photos and it's well worth exploring the other tools if your picture doesn't quite come out as you want it to - and sometimes it's necessary to run One Step Photo Fix two or three times. I'm also not too happy with the length of time it takes for my Plugins folder to load in PSP9. When I launch PSP8, the Plugins are there listed immediately, but in PSP9 just as in PSP7 they take several minutes to load into the computer RAM. I also find on my current computer which has Windows XP Service Pack 2 with 1 GB RAM that PSP9 does freeze and crash from time to time but PSP has always done that on any computer I have owned so I find it is essential to save your graphics regularly as you work - as is recommended in nearly every online graphics tutorial. Many problems with crashing and freezing can however be resolved by ensuring that you have a good graphics card and at least 512 MB, preferably 1 GB or more of RAM. I found a lot of my problems with PSP7 on my old Windows ME computer disappeared when I increased the amount of RAM although ME's system resource issues are such that problems do remain with using any graphics programme on the Windows ME operating system. I don't have these issues on my Windows XP computer. It's very disappointing that Corel have chosen not to provide good support for PSP users, but many people thought that that would happen when Corel purchased PSP from Jasc. However there are many online resources and PSP graphics schools and it should be possible to find answers for most problems. That said I enjoy playing with the new Art Media tools and working with photographs, and I really don't use the other graphics packages I have on my computer system at all - PSP was the first graphics programme that I learned thoroughly and I'm so comfortable with using it that I wouldn't really want to move to anything else. I do think it's an excellent computer graphics programme and will fulfil the needs of most users more than adequately.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pay Up, 24 July 2005
This review is from: Paint Shop Pro 9 (CD-ROM)
I've used the free edition Paintshop Pro for years. A while ago I bought a full retail copy complete with manual. I'm glad I did. Running through the various tutorials made it possible for me to get some amazing results. Version 9 comes with Scripts, and batch file handling that I have found so useful. I use it every day. Good value
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