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June 20, 2007
[ REVIEW—COREL PaintShopPro Photo XI ]
Price: $200
Highly Recommended
The low-down: We took a quick look at the trial download of Paintshop Pro back in March and now we have had a chance to live with the licensed copy for a few weeks. This alternative to Photoshop Elements offers one-click fixes for the person who can’t be bothered, as well as serious editing tools for those who want them. Some of the single clicks work well – noise reduction and high pass sharpening will be a boon for anyone with noisy or soft images. One step Photo Fix is a hit and miss affair but Smart Photo Fix is an excellent tool – it proposes a set of image corrections in a dialogue box that allows for user adjustment. There is an excellent set of one-click picture frames. A depth of field simulation effect will create an out-of-focus background, and lens distortion and perspective correction effects are well implemented. The program uses layers, the same as Photoshop, and will be easy to use for anyone who has used Adobe’s programs.
Like: Our Nikon RAW files opened instantly in Paintshop and we assume that other camera RAW formats will also open. Of course this misses the point of RAW, which is to adjust the image before opening in an editing program, but it is still a handy feature. The best feature, and the point at which it defeats Photoshop Elements, is Scripts. These are automated routines created by the user, like macros in Word or Actions in Photoshop. There is a 120 page user guide covering the basic functions which saves the cost of Paintshop for Dummies.
Dislike: When an edited file is saved as a JPEG the compression setting is hidden in another Options dialogue, and even that doesn’t show the file size. Choosing Export Optimiser does the job, but that is an odd way to do something as simple as save a file.
Verdict: At this price point Paintshop Pro Photo X1 is the photo editor to buy. It has its gimmicks but they don’t obscure the serious application underneath. And being a leaner program than Photoshop CS it is lightning fast, so for the RAM battlers on 512MB, Paintshop Pro won’t keep you sitting around while it does things. Highly recommended.
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Posted by terry at June 20, 2007 11:45 PM
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