Ive used the paint shop pro series for many years and,for my use, much prefer it to the top rated 'photoshop' . Photoshop is professional standard and has every feature you can imagine but for my use, (a lot of fun photography and a little professional work) paint shop is much better suited to my needs. Like many photo and WP packages you will never use all the features, the trick is finding the ones you need and becomming familier with them. This is made easy with the quickly mastered interface used by paintshop pro.
This system was developed by Jasic and only recently sold to Corel and with their large buget and expanding outlook I was expecting big things from PPXI over previous versions and there are some good ones but on the whole I actually prefer version 7 for ease of use . It seems to me Corel have realised that 'photoshop will always be the proffesional choce so they have(perhaps rightly) adjusted PP to suit the private user. Their 'one stop photo fixes' and auto correction features are much improved and quick and easy to use, Cropping and size adjustment have been made simpler and there are some interesting 'style' options. I particually like the 'time machine' options. These alow you to change photos into the way they would have looked in the past, these range from sepier tints through black and white to early colour, and even the effects used in the 60's caused by mixing different developing chemicals.
There are a couple of things missing from this version that still make me use version 7 at times, the browse feature has been much changed and dose not suit me at all, I much prefer to see a full range of 'thumbnails' and pick from them than have a selection displayed across the bottom of the work space,I find this inconvenient and distracting. I also miss the very simple multi selection page builder of the old version, this still exists as a feature but seems long winded compared to the old version.
Bottom line is, it is true that this software needed to be updated to bring it up to modern graphic card standards and I think Corel have made the right decision to target it at private users,but make no mistake we are talking serious private users here,you cant take this out of the box and quickly transform your photos into master pieces,it takes time to master espically the use of layers which is the key feature in both this and Phototshop.
If you want to just crop out the mother in law and make a dull day look sunny then go for a cheaper package like Roxio but if you are serious about your photos but not a professional then this is the best around. Dont try and learn it all,find what you need (even this takes time) and learn it well then and only then this is a fast , easy and VERY useful programme.
The package usually comes with several add ons like albums and presentation software,these I have been told are first rate but I do not use them so cant comment.
Pictures of Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI
Colour corrected,cropped,enhanced using Paint Shop pro XI
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