Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2

Author's product rating:   

Instructions / Help	Satisfactory
Ease of use	Easy
Ease of Installation	Good - quick to install
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Affordable, massive range of tools, accepts many Photoshop plugins, easy to learn
Disadvantages:	It's not Photoshop .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I've been using Paint Shop Pro since around 1998/9, when PSP5 was out. Since then, it's been through many different upgrades, and I've learnt much about photo and image editing along the way.

Until version 10, or Paint Shop Pro X to give it its proper title, the software was developed and sold by Jasc. From version 10 onwards, however, it has been part of the Corel family of software, alongside the likes of Corel Draw and, of late, Winzip. From version 11 onwards, the software gained the word 'Photo' in its title, becoming Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI.

It's impossible to give a review that covers absolutely everything about a product like Paint Shop Pro. Certainly, I doubt there are many people in the world who could claim to use everything it has to offer confidently enough to give a worthwhile opinion.

I'll try my best, however, to give a good feel for how well the software performs.

Installation of PSP X2 was very simple, with Corel's usual installation options offering either a simple install, or other value added products. Available from this menu is:

- simple install of PSP X2
- installation of VideoStudio 11 Trial
- installation of Nik Color Efex Pro Sample Filters
- Lynda.com Tutorials
- User Guide

Once loaded, the first thing that will strike users upgrading from previous versions of PSP is the swish new Graphite workspace. It doesn't suit all users, so the option to switch back to the Windows colour scheme based interface is available. I find the Graphite workspace most useful however, as it gives a much better contrast when working with photos.

My primary use of PSP is for digital photo editing, and PSP X2 has a whole host of tools ready to improve many images. Beware, though... photo editing software cannot improve really bad photos.

Available with ease in PSP X2 are many adjustment and editing tools. There is an excellent one-click "Smart Photo Fix", which suggests colour and contrast adjustments, and can be tweaked further by the user to gain the desired result.

There is also a one-click Noise Reduction button, which can very effectively reduce digital camera 'noise', caused when taking pictures in somewhat dull environments. Other features that I commonly use (though for some reason Corel chose to hide them as 'unused' commands) are the auto-contrast and auto-saturation controls.

Of course, although PSP offers a wide range of one-click commands, all of these adjustments can be carried out manually, bit by bit.

PSP offers the ability to effectively remove the background from an image with ease. Within reason, if you had taken a picture of a building, with a bright sky behind it, you may find that the building can be looking rather dark.

By duplicating the original image onto two identical layers, you can delete the sky from the top layer. The sky can then show through from the bottom layer. It is now possible to perform contrast and other adjustments on the building independently from the sky.

PSP X2 can also perform geometric adjustments to your photos. Imagine that you had taken a picture of some stained glass windows in a church. If these images were reasonably high on the wall, then the top of the window will appear narrower than the bottom. By plotting points on the original image, showing PSP X2 the four corners of the window, it can perform some wizardry on the image, and remap it, so that it appears that the glass is being viewed straight-on.

PSP X2 has many other fun aspects which can be used with your photos. You can subject your images to the 'Time Machine', producing output which looks like images from various points of the last two centuries. You can posterize your images, reducing colour depth. You can add sunlight, turn your images into pencil drawings, oil paintings or charcoal drawings and much much more.

PSP X2 has cosmetic photo fixing options available, like red-eye removal, blemish remover, suntan applicator, thinify (yes, it can make fat people look a little slimmer), and eye drops (to make the white of the eye look more white). There is even a toothbrush option, for whitening teeth. All that's missing is the bad breath spray…I'm sure that will come one day, about the same time as smellyvision!

A new feature of PSP X2 is the Express Photo Lab, which enables photos to be bulk edited within a simpler, photo-oriented environment. Buttons are larger, and the range of tasks is simpler, making simple en masse editing of holiday snaps a much less daunting task. For fine editing, however, the main program interface will remain the tool of choice.

PSP X2 now sports HDR image merging. For the uninitiated, HDR is an acronym for High Dynamic Range, and it's used to create images that would not be possible from a single shot. Put simply, several identical images of a scene are taken, with varying exposure settings. This can mean that, for instance, the foreground stands out clearly in one image, alongside an overexposed sky, whilst on another image, the sky is perfectly exposed, but the foreground is incredibly dull.

HDR offers the ability to stitch together both of these images automatically, so that the best parts of each end up on the final picture. Even minor alignment issues can be detected and corrected.

Alongside other new features, PSP X2 also now offers a 'Crop To' function, which allows for the quick separation of many scanned images. For instance, if you scanned six postcards at once, just one operation is required to move each postcard to its own image, rather than having to cut and paste multiple times.

PSP X2 can output in any common file format you can mention, including, Photoshop drawings (PSD). PSP X2 has full support for vector drawings, making it suitable for all types of graphic design work. It offers full touchpad compatibility, for freehand drawings, and also has a full range of picture tubes, which contain popular shapes of many genres...for instance, a pets tube will place random pre-rendered images of dogs, cats and other animals onto your drawing.

All-in-all, PSP X2 offers absolutely outstanding value for money. True, it will never be Photoshop, but then again, it costs but a fraction of the cost of Photoshop. It is far superior in many ways to Adobe's budget 'Photoshop Elements', as PSP X2 is not a cut-down version of something superior, but is a complete application in its own right.