[Sticky] -- What Do You Like/Not Like About PSP 2021

[jukka]

Really corel, really??! You show this ****ng ad in my screen multiple time in a day even if psp is not open! It's not your screen to show anything!

Toggled off already but no effect



https://pasteboard.co/JBc3qJB.png

[bobthegoat2001]

Under noise removal Corel has decided to replace jpeg artifact removal with AI artifact removal in 2021. What the heck? There is no control with the AI artifact removal which makes it totally inferior! At least with the Jpeg artifact removal you could control the strength and crispness. Bad Bad Bad descision

Could you post an example 'old tool' vs 'AI tool' showing the AI bad result?

Here you go (may need to open to see full image):

Once I upgraded to 2021, I instantly regretted it. Between this, the ads and the minor "upgrades" between versions, I believe this will be my last purchase, and I've purchased most upgrades since the Jasc days with version 5. The jpeg artifact removal was one of the last few "features" that I used in PSP.

I think Corel should at least have both versions, at least implement the old one back.

Update: Didn't realize there were 4 pages of comments and just saw your comments. But hopefully my image can also help show the difference.

[Jean-Luc]

Here you go (may need to open to see full image):

Could you point me to the REAL original? I cannot test with your actual image.

I made a test with an image and I could not obtain a better result using the "old" JPEG Artifact Removal Tool.
The result was better with the AI in PSP 2021.
Here the result (original vs AI):

Click to see full size.


Here the original file (JPG AI before.pspimage) you may load and test:
http://www.paintshoppro.fr/viewtopic.php?p=14098#p14098

[bobthegoat2001]

Here's the real original:

frog2.jpg (5.81 KiB) Viewed 1023 times

I'm not saying the new Ai version never works, the main point I want to say is that they should still have both options, not to completely delete the old feature and and replace it with something new. They both work differently and in some cases the old one works better, but it looks like for you the new one works better. So why not have both?

[Jean-Luc]

I'm not saying the new Ai version never works, the main point I want to say is that they should still have both options, not to completely delete the old feature and and replace it with something new. They both work differently and in some cases the old one works better, but it looks like for you the new one works better. So why not have both?

I agree.
You are right about the need to conserve both tools.

And you are also right about your example. The old tool gives a better result. I suppose the AI works better on bigger images or on square artifacts like the one in my example.

[SGarriott]

I have to agree,

The AI is really good in most cases ... for removing noise. However, as has been correctly pointed out, it offers no control over how much noise reduction is accomplished, or how much sharpness is achieved.

On a side note. I often used the jpg artifact remove tool to create a controlled amount of nice "grain" since it interjected its own. I could then blend this with other layers to achieve exactly what I needed. Now I simply have noise/artifacts or totally smooth. Maybe the old jpg artifact tool could be added and renamed as a form of "add noise" tool since these don't provide that nice, even "grain" that jpg artifact remove tool did.

[SGarriott]

As with a few previous versions, the crop tool does some very strange jumping and changing itself at times. If I zoom into an image so that I can no longer see the edges and I pick the crop tool, I will grab a corner or edge of the crop tool and push the image boundary to move the crop area. It moves - let's say to the upper left corner of the image and I drop the corner. As soon as I zoom out to go grab the lower right corner, the upper left corner suddenly leaps to another location. Sometimes when pushing the a crop tool handle into the image view boundary, it moves steadily toward a corner and then refuses to move any further forcing me to go grab both image sliders to drag to the corner in turn. Sometimes it cancels the crop tool location entirely - recentering it on the image!

[SGarriott]

again - as with several previous versions of PSP, the directional zoom functionality (not sure what else to call it) works in a strange way that makes it almost helpful, but really not!

By directional zoom, I mean the way in which the image is panned/moved as the user zooms with their mouse scroll wheel. In older versions I could move my pointer toward the upper right corner, scroll to zoom in and the entire image would move to bring me to the upper right corner area. In the last few versions it is as though there is a non-linear effect going on where I can point to the upper right corner and zoom, and it will move the image in that direction, but not far enough - as though there is a buffer or fall-off region where it refuses to move further. Even if the mouse pointer was right in the corner, the image extents are no longer visible after zooming in. I am forced to go find the little scroll bar and finish moving the image manually. It might as well just zoom to the centre of the image like ancient programs that then forced the user to use the scroll bars after the zoom to get to where they needed to be. This is really annoying.

[StacyMetheron]

I Think update in 2021 PSP provide good update and tools for better Photo Editing and also user friendly as well. The guide is also helpful for beginners so overall its a good update.

[Shokakusan]

What's with resize and AI Powered?

So as a user who has replaced PSP 2018 with PSP 2021, I am bewildered by the resize function defaulting to AI Powered and FREQUENTLY switching back to AI Powered. In PSP 2018, I used bicubic for 90% of my work and then used SmartSize for the occasional, problematic, resizing.

Given that AI Powered resizing takes anywhere from 10 to 40 seconds in comparison to Bicubic taking 1-5 seconds, I see no reason to have to constantly switch back to Bicubic when I want to resize images. I've discovered that if I accidentally start a resize with AI Powered, I can hit the Esc key and use Bicubic mode faster than it would take for AI Powered mode to finish! Yikes!

PSP 2021 should remember the last resample mode used and present that mode upon the next resize.

[mithra]

The fact that it just hangs all the time.

It opens quickly, you can select an image using the manager, the image opens and then for some reason when you select some of the tools it just hangs and locks up the whole PC. You can't even access any of the other open programs on the PC until you close Paint Shop Pro.

I've never had this with any previous version from version 6 onwards.

What a disappointment.

[ADonahoo]

When trying to use some plugins, the ones that DO work, sometimes PSP 2021 just closes with no error message.

[migf1]

What's with resize and AI Powered?

So as a user who has replaced PSP 2018 with PSP 2021, I am bewildered by the resize function defaulting to AI Powered and FREQUENTLY switching back to AI Powered. In PSP 2018, I used bicubic for 90% of my work and then used SmartSize for the occasional, problematic, resizing.

Given that AI Powered resizing takes anywhere from 10 to 40 seconds in comparison to Bicubic taking 1-5 seconds, I see no reason to have to constantly switch back to Bicubic when I want to resize images. I've discovered that if I accidentally start a resize with AI Powered, I can hit the Esc key and use Bicubic mode faster than it would take for AI Powered mode to finish! Yikes!

PSP 2021 should remember the last resample mode used and present that mode upon the next resize.

I think it defaults to AI Resize only when the targeted dimensions are bigger than the current ones (even when they come from the last use). Otherwise, it defaults to Bicubic.

I agree that it should keep the Last Used mode.

[duckofdeath]

The strange lack of HEIF support, not even with the help of plugins, is definitely my biggest gripe.

I bought PSP 2021 to have something a bit more serious than Paint.net to work with on my photos, saving images in jpeg on my Galaxy S21 Ultra means I've already ruined the photo with over-compression and using "Pro mode" for everything isn't a realistic option either for a little hobby phone photographer. Had I noticed this omission before I bought the license, I would most likely have looked elsewhere.

[Pinetree]

Hi there, first time poster, long time user of PSP. Just recently upgraded from X7 to 2021 Ultimate and I'm finding the text tool is a lot slower than X7. The current Image I'm working on has a lot of vector objects and text in vector groups but each text object is no more than 6 characters. I had brought over my X7 workspace over so thought it might have been that and reset the program but even working on the default workspace, it's still very sluggish compared to X7. I've actually gone back to X7 in the meantime.