Paint Shop vs PhotoImpact

wendas · Post by **wendas** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:15 pm

I know we shouldn't talk about other products, but seeing both are Corel products.. I hope this is alright.

From all I read Corel is not upgrading PhotoImpact and PI 12 is not working in Windows 7, so I have to jump.. I know there is 1 level higher in PI.. But when at the Coral Draw site if you click on ulead Photo impact it launches Paintshop. And you really have to fight to get to the page. (Not promising signs to invest in it.)

So I am comparing the PaintShop with PI. I got the 30 day trial installed. And finding some things very similar and some things very not. I don't know at this time if the features are Not there, or if I just need to learn a different way of doing things.

For x-PI users.. how would you compare the two products?.. Was there a large learning curve?

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Tue Nov 10, 2009 2:07 am

The one thing missing from Paint Shop Pro that stops me from swapping over is the absence of the UFO file format in Paint Shop Pro.
DVD Menu templates can only be created with a UFO file format.

Otherwise - as you have discovered already - both are similar.

wendas · Post by **wendas** » Tue Nov 10, 2009 3:10 pm

Thanks,

Funny the UFO extension is what seems to be the issue with moving to W7 with PhotoImpact. Any file with a .ufo extension ceased to be able to be maintained. In Explorer try moving the file, deleting, coping etc. and a window would pop up "discovering" and if you wanted to you could let it run for infinity.. But it wasn't hung because you could hit the exit button.

In PI itself you could work with .jpg or .bmp.. But try to bring in a .ufo and the program hung.

Now if you just created your own file with an extension of .ufo you could manage it, so it had something to do with more then the extension name. I tried playing with the files in safe mode & with antivirus removed, and got the same issues. But when PI was removed from my system, I could then delete the .ufo extension (an hope that nothing was important.)

Just a warning if you do stay with PI and try to upgrade to W7. Figure out what to do with the .ufo's you don't want to loose.

AlphaDood · Post by **AlphaDood** » Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:21 pm

Strange you are experiencing the symtoms you cite. I am using Windows 7 and have PI x3. I have not seen any problems with compatability. I am able to open move delete create and any other process I want to do with PI. Since you are having problems, I would suggest looking elsewhere other than compatabily between Windows 7 and PI x3. As far as I can see they do play well together.
Dwayne

Post by **LeviFiction** » Tue Nov 10, 2009 8:05 pm

Wendas' compatibility problems are with PIx2 not PIx3.

Wendas expressed concern that since PI is being dropped by Corel as far as production is concerned, that PIx3 is not worth getting just to fix the compatibility issues that are being experienced with Windows 7 and wants to know the big differences between it and Paint Shop Pro for making the big switch.

Having never used PI before (I have the disc just never installed it) I cannot make any real comments. I never installed it because the few reviews that I saw actually mentioned a limitation in the abilities of the layers by comparison to Paint Shop Pro and I use layers extensively. I'm very heavy into photo-manipulation and the tools that Paint Shop Pro offers is great in my opinion. I like it a lot more than most of the other software packages I have tried. Again one of them is not PI so I can't say how good it is by comparison.

Tim Morrison · Post by **Tim Morrison** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:31 am

There is also some doubt that Paint Shop Pro is to continue. There hasn't been a new release for over two years. Not long after the initial release of PSPP X2, all the developers were sacked.
(There may even be some doubt that Corel will survive its current problems).

Post by **LeviFiction** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 2:56 am

A sad day it will be if Paint Shop Pro is discontinued. But it's not like it isn't expected. They've had that "limited time offer" up for a while on it as well. Sure the value amount has fluxuated 10 or 20 dollars over time but it's still miracuously on sale.

Just have to wait and see though.

I'd hate to think that the successor of Paint Shop Pro is Digital Studio 2010's "version" of it.

Tim Morrison · Post by **Tim Morrison** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 3:45 am

I certainly hope that it's not the case. Sometimes a bout of discounting is a sign that a new version is on the way.
If that happens, you can be sure that you'll know about it. Despite having few if any developers, PSP has plenty of marketing people. Important as marketing is, I wonder if product sales and Corel's share price would have declined so much if they'd had a better featured, and more up to date program to sell.
By dumbing things down and concentrating on novice, happy-snap photographers they have alienated their traditional user base of serious photographers and digital painters, and caused a major decline in sales of upgrade versions.
All those people who upgraded to every new version, but have now stopped because their old version does the job as well or better than the old version. PSP 7 has the best vector tools, PSP 9 has the best Curves tool, X has the best crop tool, XI and X2 haven't got a Browser, and have had numeric entry boxes removed from key tools so that results are inaccurate and can't be reproduced.
In other cases users of previous versions have been forced to go elsewhere because newer versions of PSP haven't kept up with current trends and don't provide anything to do the job. The dreadful quality of PSP's digital camera raw support is a good example... or the lack of a panorama tool, patchy 16 bit support, mediocre HDR tool, antiquated text handling... and lots more.