Paintshop Pro - What do you REALLY like?

[Amamba]

The fact that it combines a nice organizer interface with full featured suite of local edits, and at $40 is pretty inexpensive. GIMP is great, and free, but doesn't have any organizing abilities; LightRoom is expensive and doesn't have much editing abilities; PSE is too dumbed down; Photoshop is too expensive; PSP seems to have the best value for the money.

[junker404]

the customization, ease of use, the look, alpha tools are superb

why did i hesitate to migrate from photoshop

[hartpaul]

I started with PSP 8 , then X2 , X3 and now X4.
I love:
1. The ability to open a folder and drag and drop images to the PSP workspace. There are some programs that force you to go through the menu File Open- browse to folder etc. It also makes that folder you have dragged from, the default save location as well so I hardly ever do a Save As and just hit the Save button. (the images in the aforesaid folder are not the originals but copies made to a works in progress folder - saves so much time)

2. The ability to use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out and also to zoom to any area of the image including the corners (scroll bars are not needed) (X4 does not fully encompass this feature.
BUT thats not all when you click on an item eg opacity, size of clone brush, that item becomes the default action for the scroll wheel so that you can get an approximate size and then having the brush outline on the image use the scroll wheel to continue sizing til it is just right. This seems unique in all the programs and is a default setting (wheras in photoshop you have to go to a customisation feature just to allow the scroll wheel to zoom ) Certainly beats setting a size in photoshop from a slide bar then finding it not quite right having to leave the image go back to the slide bar and again guess at the size.

3. The auto hide feature that operates with many palettes even while floating (I use with the History so that when I move the cursor over it it drops down to show the steps made and if not pinned folds up when moved away. In PSP 8 this could beapplied to Layers, Histogram, Materials, Learning Centre (History not present in that version) . X4 has this feature only allowed for docked palettes.

4. When preparing a montage on a canvas with say 4 images on 4 layers the ease of moving each layer and the intuitive way in which PSP changes the active layer as you move to each image. In Photoshop you have to select which layer you are working on on the Layers palette then do that move. So 4 images would require 4 trips to the layers palette to select the next layer while PSP just bounces to each layer as you move the cursor around. Brilliant!!!!

5. The right click context menus that allow you to right click on a large area of a layer on the layers palette and choose a new layer , mask , adjustment layer etc - all the things that The Layers drop down menu on the Menu bar does and without leaving the layers palette area. This has been removed from X4.

6 The brilliant Skin Smoothing feature where you do not even have to choose the area to be softened as in so many other programs, even the much vaunted Portrait Professional is a pain. This allows batch processing of skin smoothing to be done using a script. I have found that using levels first and moving the middle slider left to give a milky skin helps the smoother to do its business well as it slips up on suntanned skins. Then a reapplication of levels and moving the middle slider to the right re-establishes the skin tone.

7 The picture tubes, photoframes, Effects Browser, useful basic blend modes , blend ranges feature , layer styles, text features and on and on.

8 . Simple things like the straighten button, the warp brush, right and left buttons being used for source and target in cloning - such that moste of the work can be done without having to touch the keuboard and just use the mouse hand.

9. The effect brushes for spot increases in saturation, lighten and darken dodge and burn.

10. the overall way in which all thes fit together to make a photographers job easier but still with enough functions to suit the graphic artist.
Photoshop may do a little more if you want such oddball functions but Paintshop Pro does it faster , better and easier - and cheaper.

(when I talk to so many hobbyists and camera club members I find that so many of them use illegal copies of the program because it is so expensive - with PSP it is such a bargain that you never need to pirate)

[hartpaul]

Just remembered another thing I love about PaintshopPro and which seems to be little used or mentioned. That is the screen capture function. I looked up Photoshop screencapture and all the methods mentioned there suggest using the keyboard Print Screen or Xontrol Print Screen. And as recent as 10 months ago someone made a wish list for a screen capture in Photoshop. *** it up Photoshoppers ( in case you didn't realise I hate Photoshop!!)

Painshop Pro has its own built in screen capture ability which can also capture the cursor which Print Screen does not do. And we have had this ability since Paintshop Pro 8 at least and according to wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_Shop_Pro
that has ben since April 2003 . (Three cheers - nah, nah, ne ,nah. na - Photoshop - [in case you did not realise I am fanatical about Paintshop Pro.])

For those unfamiliar here is how it works:
1. File ->Import -> Screen Capture -> Setup. And the following dialog box shows.
http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr140/hartpaul/PSPX2screencapturedialog.jpg

This shows my setup and as you can see it has captured the cursor as well.
2. when the set up is complete click OK . Then Shift C to activate. The PSP window minimises leaving you free to set up a page . web page . program and when ready hit Shift F1 (Function 1) key to activate. (You can go to Help Keyboard Map to see if other hot keys are available)
3. The web page complete with cursor then appears in Paintshop Pro ready for editing, as any other image.

I captured this image from PSPX2 using PSP8 running concurrently - they do not seem to interfere with each other - ain't Paintshop Pro great???

[LindaSue]

Painshop Pro has its own built in screen capture ability which can also capture the cursor which Print Screen does not do. And we have had this ability since Paintshop Pro 8 at least and according to wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_Shop_Pro
that has ben since April 2003 .

PSP5 has screen capture and it hasn't changed at all since then. I don't recall if PSP4 had it or not. I only used PSP4 for a very short time and I don't remember anything about it anymore.

[printchesco]

I agree with all of the points listed here especially the one about scripting. Do you really think, though, that the developers will get rid of this feature if people don't explicitly mention that they like this feature?

[Cassel]

They might not remove features explicitely, but sometimes, in order to add a new feature, they might change an old one. I am sure some of these features are there to stay, but some MIGHT be tweaked in a way we wont like anymore, so we might as well list all that we like and want to keep (to be on the safe side, i guess!)

[AllenDigitalFineArt]

I am a photographer who uses PSP4 to creat amazing works of art that win awards and sell. I love the Effects that I can use and modify; the scripts I can use and create; and the ability to work in different ways with histograms. Keep up the good work and don't remove any of the effects in future editions because that is what makes the application above and beyond what is available elsewhere.

[Paul J]

Thanks for this thread. I'm just a raw beginner and am struggling to keep up with the learning curve, and in just reading the above I've learned about processes that were not evident before. This is an amazing product, and at just $40, it's an absolute bargain. I love it! Thanks!

[ADonahoo]

In X4, I like that the Align function on the Objects menu works on raster objects. I like the text being on the image rather than in a floating box. I love the colored icons after they were finally added back.
I liked the mirror and flip commands the way they used to work before X4; i.e. on the whole layer. I love scripting, when it works. I liked the browser/organizer in X2 except for its funky sorting method. Love being able to customize the workspace, but need more options. The batch process commands.

[SJS]

The summary: I love the combination of tools that let me be creative, and to change and add to existing photos or scans, OR to start from scratch to create something new. I need the basic tools and the special ones, the raster with the vector tools in the same package. It is the rich combination that makes PSP a great tool, NOT flashy themes/appearance, or emphasis on digital photography, PSP is more than that still, and I hope in future.

I am using PSP for ART, not just photo manipulation, but I often do start with scans or photos of my art.

* mirror, rotate, flip, resize, crop (with lots of control!), zoom
* greyscale, color manipulation, contrast manipulation (with LOTS of control!)
* straighten, perspective correction
* scripting
* paintbrushes
* clone brush!!!!
* text
* vector lines & shapes (vector stuff is important)
* UNDO! & history
* LAYERS
* All the selection methods
* mesh warp (love it!)
* gradient fills and patterns
* various special effects (edge, distortion, illumination, etc.)
* special brushes (lighten/darken, etc.)

[321]

RAW processing "Highlight recovery", followed by fill light/clarity in the edit tab window. This combination SAVED most of my photographs from a Europe trip of mostly white skies, restoring the clouds that I had all but given up on. My usual RAW processor which I like a lot for its straightforward workflow, Digital Photo Professional, simply could not extract the cloud detail the way that PSP Pro X4 did.

Scripting. If you take a crack at programming, be aware that Python doesn't know how to divide unless the numerator or denominator is specified as a float...this unusual programming quirk cost me about 8 hours of frustration one night. But beyond that little hurdle, scripting has been an invaluable tool. I use it to create up to 3 or 4 thousand 1920x1080 images that pan across a huge panorama, which then can be imported into the time-lapse-photography capable video-editor VisualStudio. You can also do things like batch resizing operations or adding watermarks. Many scripts can simply be recorded and require no programming.

For fixing speckles on old photograph scans, the salt and pepper filter saves a lot of headache.

The soften/saturation/etc. brush is an occasional miracle worker.

The object remover, sometimes in conjunction with the clone brush can really produce astonishing results in a relatively short amount of time.

[nfam]

What I'd really like is better sharpening tools. My camera, SPUZ570, generally gives excellent pictures, but I've lost a number of photos because they aren't quite sharp enough. I know this relates primarily to the camera, but I'd love to be able to sharpen photos.

[spitfrog]

1 - All the old versions with their patches, version X2 less worse, but love new look and icons of X4 (except the 3 tabs eating space)
2 - Interface highly customizable (menu + tools) and Workspace
3 - All the editing tools (layer, selection...) and (push, smudge, dodge, flood, warp, clone...)
4 - All photographics corrective tools (they are all here) and all batch commands (including scripting)
5 - Brush variance palette
6 - Writing on vector
7 - Compatibility with plugins
8 - Picture tubes and brush tip, and the new velocity of Arts tools
9 - The way to save and use parameters tools from differents folders
10 - The hope to see one day a real reliable version.

[grumpfuttock1]

Apart from all the previously mentioned features which I too appreciate greatly, the one thing that has always kept me using PSP, is the ease of use, most importantly not needing to memorize keyboard short cuts, being able to use the mouse scroll button to zoom in and out or from side to side makes life so much easier and quicker (I'm useless at remembering keyboard shortcuts and telephone numbers ).
I've always found PSP to be very powerful, full of possibilities and logical. I also appreciate optional the dark skin, i find it so much more restful on my eyes and seems to make photos more striking.