Questions about painting and cloning features

[Stan Seagrave]

Hi folks,

I'm another victim of software obsolescence thanks to Windows upgrades!

For many years, I used the Photo House program on Corel Print House Magic v.4 as my photo editor/image generator of choice. Considering it was a freebie with a printer, I found it to be a remarkably versatile program which really opened up my creativity. I'd tried Adobe Photo Shop, which I didn't find at all user-friendly, plus a few other programs - but I kept coming back to Photo House.

Anyway... it worked fine on every Windows version from 98 onwards. But it won't work on Windows 7. It'll load... but it crashes as soon as I try to do anything. Someone suggested changing the compatability mode - but I'm running Home Premiun, which doesn't have that option. Currently I'm using Gimp, which is okay - kind of Photo Shop Lite - but it still won't do certain things that I used to do all the time on Photo House. So I'm now thinking of going for Paint Shop Pro as v. 4's now come out (I was told to avoid v. 3 because of some glitches).

What I'd like to know is whether the program incorporates those features I used lots on Photo House and haven't found since. They are:

1) The ability to open two photographs side by side and clone an image from one of them directly onto the other one. I used to do things like have a landscape and clone a figure onto it from the other photograph, which gave a much better effect than doing cut and paste. I'm presuming this sort of thing can be done using layers (never used them before) - but doing it the way I used to do it was very easy, and working with layers looks a lot more difficult.

2) The brushes and spray gun on Photo House had a huge choice of heads/shapes to choose from, with variable degrees of opacity. One such head was a star shape, which if used with the spray gun would give a stunning effect of a spray of stars of varying size and colour. I used that a lot in some children's illustrations I do. Gimp doesn't have that feature, and nothing else I've looked at seems to have, either.

I'd be grateful for any advice that anyone can offer me on these questions.

Thanks in advance.

Stan

[LeviFiction]

1) Yes and no....Okay mostly yes. Images open up in a tabbed format so they won't be like side by side. But you can change it from a tabbed view to a windowed view and arrange the windows side by side if you absolutely had to do that.

But the Clone brush does allow you to clone from one image into another. You just grab the clone brush, then Right-click on the image you want to sample from (or Shift + Left Click) then select the image you want to draw on and start cloning away.

Now if you do use layers, and they are easy and powerful once you get a hold of them, you can erase mistakes if you clone too far to one side or another and work with lots of effects. It's very easy and nice.

2) The Gimp and PSP both support different brush heads. They also support what is known as "Brush variance" which will allow you to paint with varying sizes, colors, rotation, and so on. However the initial brush heads that come with PSP are limited. If you wanted to get more you'd have to download and add them yourself. You can also make your own brush heads.

And editing Brush variance is easy enough.

I have a few poorly made tutorials on them if you'd like to see them. But I recommend downloading the trial and seeing if you think you can work with PSPX4. It is handy and it has a lot of features.


I would like to say one thing in defense of the The GIMP. While many of its tools, and methods, seem very low on the power list it has a lot of power, in some ways rivaling PSP and others, by default. Heck its ability to clone using perspective is amazing in and of itself. But its greatest power comes from the huge number of add-ons that you can download for it.

These include stuff for liquid resizing (content-aware resizing) and reparation of areas using a texture tool (not quite content-aware but based on the same principals) so it's still an amazing program and the things you've described I believe the Gimp is more than capable of. And when version 2.8 comes out it'll also look a lot better.

[df]

Windows 7 Home Premium does have compatibility mode. It doesn't have XP mode, which is a virtual PC mode. Basically you load XP inside your Windows 7 Ultimate OS at the same time. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtua ... nload.aspx

To use Compatibility mode you'll need to find the root exe file. If you have a shortcut right click it and click Open File Location (or properties> shortcut tab> open file location button). A folder will open with the exe file highlighted. Unless this is a launching program then this will be the one that you'll right click, click properties> compatibility tab. There you'll find that you can check compatibility mode and even what version of Windows to make it compatible too (Windows 98 would be where I'd start). You may also try running this as admin too from the same location. While you have the properties box open click on the Digital Signatures tab and click Details> View Certificate (if it's available). Look at the valid from and to dates. If the signature is not valid anymore it should give an error, not crash the program, but who knows. I don't know what you'd do about that if it's the problem but you may be able to find a way to get it fixed.

[Stan Seagrave]

Thanks for your replies, folks.

I may well give PSP4 a go. I like Gimp, too, and am getting used to it. I don't think I've fully explored its potential yet.

I've tried changing the compatability mode to XP SP3 - and now the program won't open at all! I'll un/reinstall and try again.

Thanks again.

[df]

If you right click on the installer app and Run as Administrator it may have an affect on the install.

[MistyTara]

I had a game (Zumas Revenge) my husband I both played a lot that stopped running in Win 7. I finally installed it while in safe mode (a hint from another forum) and it worked!

[Stan Seagrave]

Thanks again, folks.

Tried everything, and it still won't work! I've found that as soon as I alter the compatability setting, it refuses to open altogether. I'm not running it as an administrator. Should I do that?

[LeviFiction]

If it needs to, as some of the older programs do, then at least give it a try.

[df]

I'd at least try running the installer as an administrator, and if that doesn't work try running the program as admin.

[Ron P.]

You might also try exempting PSP X4 from D.E.P. (Data Execution Prevention). Sometimes this prevents a program from running. I have 2 video tutorials showing how this is done. I don't have one for Win7, but I think it is done the same as in Vista.
Data Execution Prevention