PaintShop Pro X4 Ultimate (PC)

PaintShop Pro - must surely now be the best in class.

First thing I noticed about the latest version of PaintShop Pro is that it is called just that - the 'Photo' that was introduced at version X1 has been dropped! Common sense prevails!

When I upgraded to Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 (PC DVD) (from Paint Shop Pro 8) I was concerned that the package may have become merely a photo editing package rather than the full graphics package it was before. Via the Amazon reviews and comments system I learned that X3 retained all of the graphics creation and editing tools, including the fantastic vector and layers functionality that makes these type of packages so powerful. The addition of the word 'photo' to the name appears to have been to only to highlight that the package is also good for editing photos - an unnecessary cluttering of an established name in my opinion.

Well, to be honest, that PSP was good for photo editing was debateable at the time. While PaintShop Pro _can_ edit your digital photos, I wouldn't have said it was the best. I have also reviewed Serif PhotoPlus X4 (PC) which I would consider a better photo editing package than PaintShop Photo Pro X3 - BUT that all changes with Paint Shop Pro X4.

As I have said in previous reviews of this software, I have never been a fan of Adobe Photoshop and have always considered PaintShop Pro to be far superior. The interface has always been better, it's easier to use, and is just as powerful, not mention being far cheaper. It even supports the same plug-ins as Photoshop. I've always had a niggling feeling that PaintShop Pro is a bit sniggered at by PhotoShop users though. Probably because PSP started out as a free package by a company called JASC and grew from these hobbyist roots into what it is today. PhotoShop, on the other hand, had always been a professional package.

So why do I now consider PSP has come of age with the X4 version?

The interface:

PSP has had a major overhaul for this version. X3 was nice, and the interface has always been easy to use, however the new version is leaps forward. It now takes the approach that many video editing packages do by splitting the interface into three workflow screens - Manage, Adjust and Edit.

I should point out that I have never liked photo / media managers much. But the 'Manage' function within PSP X4 is actually very useful. In the past PSP included a 'Browse' function that, though limited, was quite useful. This function disappeared at some point, but the 'Manage' tab more than makes up for that as it is essentially a really nice, very powerful image browser.

The 'Adjust' tab is where you effectively do your photo tweaking - remove red-eye, ajdust brightness and colour temperature etc. The kind of things you would find in a photo editing package basically. Most functions are presented in a handy side-bar here.

The Edit tab is effectively the PaintShop Pro of old. Here you still have access to most, if not all, of the photo editing functions but via the more typical menu bar structure. But here you also have the very powerful graphics creation and editing tools. You can work with bitmap or vector images of just about every conceivable format. You can mix vector layers with bitmap layers, as you would expect. There are adjustments and blending layers to create some clever layering effects. To be honest I could go on and on and on - basically if a graphics tool is available in another graphics package, the chances are it's also present here. This package is just so powerful.

The whole interface is now a dark theme as well - which I would consider much better for photo editing and graphics work as it is less distracting than light themes. That's probably a personal preference though - I like all my screen themes to be dark!

What's new:

It's not so much new features (other than the interface) as improvements to old features - some of these improvements being almost complete overhauls.Everything just seems to work a bit better and a bit quicker. (I didn't actually have any stability issues with X3 under Windows 7, but I know others have.)

The HDR function has been massively expanded and is now equal, if not superior, to dedicated commercial HDR plug-ins for other software. And there is a photo-merge function which allows you to take the best bits of a series of photos - for example those family get together photos where there is always someone gurning on each photo you take; you can now combine the photos so everyone has the perfect smile.

There are other new features though, and it would be wrong not to mention a few of them.Selective focus and the new Vignette effect are nice for creating special effects and the package also supports dual monitors now - another nod to video editing which will allow you to organise your workspace more effectively.

Ultimate edition:

Is the ultimate edition worth the extra tenner? Not for the picture tubes and Fotolia images, but defintely for the NIk effects.

The inclusion of 200 Picture Tubes is a bit of a waste of time in my opinion. They can be fun but you're unlilkely to use them for anything other than a childrens party invitation! Royalty Free Fotolia images - this seems like more of an advert for Fotolia than really being any great addition to the PSP package.

That leaves the Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 package. Rubbish name, brilliant set up plug-in filters. The package is actually at version 4 from Nik Software, but version 3 is included with PSP. Beautiful black and white conversion, bi-colour filters, film grain, glamour glow, fog, high key... and many more. This package is brilliant. The v4 'select' package costs the best part of £100 (£72.41+vat), so if you want this functionality then a tenner is not a lot at all to pay for a slightly out of date version.

Zip it:

As another reviewer has mentioned. This package comes with a license code for a download of WinZip Pro. That's another £50 of software right there!

To upgrade or not to upgrade?

This is most defintely a worthy upgrade - even from X3 just for the interface and HDR improvements. If you using an earlier version then I would say it is definitely time to upgrade - this is by far the best PaintShop Pro version yet, and quite possibly the best photo and graphics package for the PC at the moment. There will be those who will stick with PhotoShop, but now they are simply throwing their money away.

What's more, you are getting over a hundred quids worth of extra software with this package (Winzip and Nik Efex) for much less than a hundred quid. If you look at it that way they are almost paying you to upgrade to the best PSP yet!

I have used various version of PSP since 3.2.

Things have moved on a lot since those days :)

The latest version has many more features and to me perhaps more important is an actual printed manual which is about A5 size and is 180+ pages long.

The program can now auto post your output to Facebook or Flickr as well as do HDR images.

Installation was as expected easy and operation is also fairly straight forward.

The program auto catalogs all your photos (I have just over 18,000) so they can then be found by the date taken or by various other search criteria.

What is missing that surprises me a little is anything on Geotagging or the ability to show on a map where a photo was taken.

I also found that when loading the program sometimes by double clicking on an image that it could take a very long time to load (minutes).

All the features seem to work and are fairly easy to use.

Happy editing...

Up to now I have always used Adobe Photoshop but when I saw Corel PaintShop Pro X4 Ultimate advertised I decided to give it a try.
What impressed me the most is the fact that the box came with a full colour User Guide - a real treat not having to look through a PDF upload when wanting to know something!
For me, personally, after installing the package, I found it useful to go through the manual and play around with the Manage, Adjust and Edit tabs. I particularly found the adjustments through photo-editing tools very useful and pre-knowledge with Adobe was quite useful here.
To get the best out of this package, I recommend spending time to sit down and play with the photos - ensuring to keep the original safely backed up - and remembering to save any alterations in a way to go back to them if you so desire.
One word of caution: before loading this package, make sure that your system - Windows 7, Vista or XP - has the latest service packs installed.