Alternative to PI?

[kamiller42]

I purchased the upgrade. I am disappointed. It has a lot of great features, but it is not stable and is sluggish, even on my AMD X2 4200+. The PhotoExplorer is locks up a lot. I see no efforts from Ulead to patch this suite, and it really needs it. (Right now, I am looking at an empty window when PI is loaded because the whole My Space has lots its marbles. Only a status bar appears, nothing else.)

What I like about PhotoImpact is its two personalities, image editing and web development. Most programs I see in this price range focus heavily on image editing, specifically photos.

What other programs are available in the PI price range and has a similar set of features? Paint Shop Pro X?

[groundhog]

I too am looking for a replacment for PI 11. Hope you get sme good suggestions for us both to consider. Can't really understand Ulead. It would seem that fixing the program flaws would not be much of a problem compared to all the programing it took to make the original suite.

Anyway, I have had the same problem of the menus disappearing (after "memory errors" - and me with 2gig). Someone sent me this fix & it worked, except you loose the custom menus you have saved. I am going to back up the file and see if that works next time & gives me my custom menus back. Before using this fix I had to reinstall.

Here it is & hope it helps.

try to delete the file
<disk>:\Documents and Settings\<your account>\Application Data\Ulead Systems\Ulead PhotoImpact\11.0\profiles\Current.xum

Groundhog

[MaryLouW]

Since this is a Ulead forum, I kind of doubt if you're going to get many recommendations for a competitors software!

[Xyzzy2]

I purchased the upgrade. I am disappointed. It has a lot of great features, but it is not stable and is sluggish, even on my AMD X2 4200+.

I agree that PI11 is a failure for many and Ulead customer care/support is failure for all users.

You may consider Corel PaintShopPro and Adobe Elements 4 as alternatives.


X.

[sjj1805]

You may be interested in the following link:
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=7995

Steve J

[J_fike]

If I had the money, Photshop. Adobe has support, Ulead doesn't.

[Ron P.]

There are plenty of other image editing programs available. I personally now have PI-11. While it does have it's quirks, I find it rather impressive for the cost.
I do agree that Ulead lacks in support. Something that hopefully they will learn to improve. They are not the Lone Rangers in this.

I also have Corel Draw Graphics Suite 9, a very powerful program, and Jasc Paintshop Pro 9 (now owned by Corel, the newest version is Corel Paintshop Pro 10). The interface of PSP and PI are very similar. There are functions in each that I wish the other had. But if that were the case, then I think there would be lawsuits filed for copyright violations..

Ulead does offer TBYB on all of it's programs, that are fully functional. I know that you can't use the MPEG4, HD plug-ins, however you can capture, edit and burn with the TBYB. Have you heard of Vegas' programs. They are great editing apps. However you can do limited functions with their TBYB. They also have numerous problems with their programs. Most of which stem from computer system setups.

Ok I might have strayed abit, but it is troubling when I can run the Ulead programs I have (see sig), on a system that most of the other Pro members here would not attempt to. I have more junk, due to web design and other interests besides video/dvd, that Ulead's apps should never be able to run on my system. However they do. I do have an occasional glitch, but it is mainly due to my system. I fix it and go on. Thanks to the experience and knowledge found here, I'm able to determine that.

So yes while Ulead does not have decent support, this forum put here by Ulead, does. Which is staffed by volunteers that have wealth of knowledge and experience in using Ulead's products, so problems can be overcome.

Ron P.

[keenart]

I have Corel Paint Shop Pro X and it crashes every 10 minutes.

I have Adobe Photoshop CS2 and unless you pay, you will never talk to a human being. It crashes every three days.

Ulead gives me aches and pains also.

Try Xara, Dogwaffle, and a whole host of other lesser-known and stable graphic programs on the Web. They all have DEMO’s and Trial Versions. Try the Windows version of GIMP. It is a big world out there graphically.

All said and done, “Ulead is till the best product for the money, when is works.”

Try uninstalling, defragging your drives several times, turn off your ant-virus and firewall protection and reinstall once again. Do not do this with Smart Download.

If this does not work, then you have encountered the dreaded, “Graphic Card Software Incompatibility Factor Syndrome.” I would like to call it something else, but I am a gentleman.

[2log]

To understand a little bit how technical support works:

http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... 8&start=15

[jolo]

The truth is that if Ulead is so overwhelmed with so many frustrated, disappointed, confused valued customers, Ulead has an issue.

Ulead I would hope would be like any top organization that treats their customers as "valued customers" and is deedicated to customer focus and continuous improvement.

If the thoughts of the organization is that Ulead's customers are ignorant, stupid, overly demanding, dishonest and just a pain in the but*, then they will destroy customer loyalty, long term associations and will create a customer base that will happily "jump ship" when a better product comes along at the same or lower price point. WE all now of the examples of Ashton Tate, Novell , Lotus, etc who lost their way when they had large market shares.

What can be forgetton is the the only reason for developers and support to create Photoshop is to please customers so much that they purchase Photoshop and stay with them for years, spread the word and create more loyal and values customers who keep purchasing unhancements to their product.

The greater the customer satisfaction, the greater the profits, more jobs, etc.
Without Ulead's valued customers, there is no reason for Photoimpact, their developers, their customer support staff, their third party contractors who I believe don't exactly help the cause. All would be out of work.

I hope their are some trained and bright people in the Ulead organization who understand that their customers should feel valued, appreciated.

If there is such an enormous onslaught of customers are investing their time, money and reputations on Ulead Photoimpact that they need to keep needing support for Photoimpact, then Ulead must take a strong look at themselves for making improvment in their software design, support policies, customer support tactics, documentation, etc.

Creating policies that are meant to frustrate their already frustrated customers more and give the impression that customers like myself are ignorant, stupid, inconvenient and dishonest is not really the best long term strategy.

I am sure that all of us except the fact that software without bugs is non-existant, that all software is never "completed" but that it will continuously improve but listening to the voice of its valued customers.

I think that there is nothing more frustrating for any customer to be ignored, not taken seriously, to be given a policy speech, to criticize them for not take more and more hours having to re-post support questions, etc.

Nothing is ever going to be perfect, BUT, there are forums of products where you can see the frustrations and suggestions for improvement have a very different tone and there isn't the need for the destructive "apologists" on the forums. It is the apologists who hurt Ulead the most.

An example of this is a lesser known buy "swiss Army Knife" of a application for audio mostly and multimedia called Media Central from J Rivers.

I am not going to advertise their product, but one just needs to look at the ir forum to see the dialogue and how their customers treat each other as well as the developers who will respond to the forum. All enhancements, deatures and even upgrade pricing comes from forum discussions with their customer base. Their customers base is a very loyal one and there is great confidence that if bugs are found or new features need to be added, that at some time, the customer's voices will be heard and the software will contine to improve.

When a beta version is put out, it is done via the forums where values customers can download and publically comment on what they have found. This sure makes those releases stable and educated the customer base.

This is just an example.

Jon

[Xyzzy2]

jolo, I agree with you!

My wild guess is Ulead (together with InterVideo now) has too little money, so they can't afford real support team and bug fixing (signs of an oncoming flop?).
All efforts go into creating and cashing on "the next version" (easy to note that the Ulead's products seem to go into yearly releases scheme).
I would'n mind a bit paying some USD more for product with real (as opposed to Ulead's "pretended" one) support.

I moved to PI10 from PicturePublisher 8, then upgraded to 11 (along with VideoStudio 8 and upgrade to 9) and I suspect I am nearing the end of my way with Ulead. I never got any reply from Ulead's support (not counting automatic ones)- they don't bother ever to write me to 'reinstall'- maybe because I write I've already done it.
I also advise my colleagues to go for Elements or PSP, because there is no guarantee that PI would work on their machines without taking a leave with no reason some day (if it works from the start at all, anyway).

Corel has now nice discount on PaintShopPro, maybe it's the right time... Pity they don't offer co-developed video product. Or maybe the next release of Elements suite has a bit more features...

X.

[Ron P.]

( Pity they don't offer co-developed video product. Or maybe the next release of Elements suite has a bit more features...

X.

They don't offer a co-developed video product, however they do offer a video product package. They teamed up with a video developer to offer their product along with the video package.

Ron P.

[keenart]

Whiners and complainers, you know little of the industry and even less about programming.

Lotus did not go down because it lost its market share. It lost is business because it refused to make changes that would incorporate its product with Microsoft Office, so HP who was the main user, dumped the contract. IBM bought the software hoping to compete with Microsoft and could not get if off the ground. It then bought HP in hopes of recreating the world and found out it was too late, Microsoft had already claimed HP. My mother has worked for the company for more than 20 years.

Do not try to tell me what you do not know.

I used Photoshop for two years, while crashing on me everyday. 1000’s of hours on the horm with Tech and no one could help. My persistence paid off after a year and a half I found a document on line, a White Paper, someone had copied from Adobe’s servers that described the symptom and the module that could be deactivated to stop the crashes. After contacting Abobe they knew nothing of what I was speaking about and said they would look into it. After a month, the document was on the Photoshop page as a possible solution to a nagging problem that had gone unfixed for years. Even though the document was written by an engineer 6 months after Photoshop 7 came out.

Right now, half the consumers of PSP cannot get the product to work and Corel has snubbed them. Corel cannot afford to put 20 programmers on a dead horse. The NVIDIA Forum is abuss with complainers like you, and none of them are offering solutions or support to others.

This Forum is about helping!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Xyzzy2]

Whiners and complainers, you know little of the industry and even less about programming.

Nice you know us so good and you are so experienced. So maybe tell us all is OK with Ulead and our expectations to get support from support are exaggerated.

Lotus did not go down because it lost its market share. It lost is business

How this babble is related to the subject? You want to tell us a story from industry's life?

I used Photoshop for two years, while crashing on me everyday. 1000’s of hours on the horm with Tech and no one could help. My persistence paid after Photoshop 7 came out.

Have you noticed that they actually spent some significant amount of time trying to help you? Also, when you found the solution, they actually put it on their FAQ page.

Right now, half the consumers of PSP cannot get the product to work and Corel has snubbed them. Corel cannot afford to put 20 programmers on a dead horse. The NVIDIA Forum is abuss with complainers like you, and none of them are offering solutions or support to others.

Fact: there are 3 patches released for PSPX and one for PI11.
Quick quote form Nvidia forums:
"Nvidias new 80.xxdrivers are generally borked with dual CPU/ dual core systems. The problem is not only isolated to PaintShopPro, but also Lightwave 3d, 3DS Max, SketchUp, and many other professional level apps that use OpenGL. Unfortunately, Nvidia doesn't seem too concerned about the issue and refuses to comment on any of the problems."
Doesn't look like PSP problem.

This Forum is about helping!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and I've always thought also for exchanging opinions?

X.

[TootieFruitie]

I have to laugh, now. I wasnt laughing a week ago, though.
See my 'load error' post.

But i got a message that basically put me back in good spirits with pi.
You may want to try it yourself.....
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... 4223#54223

i have no problems with pi, i mean it, none.

TF