X4 - would it suit me?

[SteveR]

Hi all, hope everyone is good and enjoying the season.

Although I have been using Photoshop CS4 I will be leaving that particular gravy train due to Adobe's licensing changes recently - but that's another story! Therefore I am very interested in getting back to PSP again (used to be a PSP user back in the Jasc days!).

I was wondering if anybody would mind giving a general view of any things I need to think about before I purchase X4, any gotchas, workflow issues that kind of thing.

Basically, I am a hobbysist who loves photography and 3D space art (not great at either though!!). I use Lightroom for 95% of my photo editing and want to use PSP when I need to make any more specific changes, add text and those sorts of things. I will also need to use PSP to add effects like glows and flares to some of 3d work as well as some composoting of space bacfgrounds etc.

I have downlaoded the demo and am having a play but would be very grateful for any thoughts or comments.

Many thanks
Steve

[teknisyan]

The best thing really is just use the trial and see if it meets your needs.

As for the gotchas (not sure if you are looking for good or bad) but the new workspace (SP1) is something that you might want to checkout.

Workflow, from the looks of things, you will be spending most of your time on the EDIT tab, so I guess there will be no issue there. I think Levi and the other guys will have more to say..

[dheijl]

I find PSP X4 (very )good value for money.

It's faster than previous versions. It has a few improvements over the previous one(s). The ultimate version comes with the excellent Nik Color Filters (V3.0, current = 4.0), very useful.

As far as I know everything is still in there somewhere if you manage to find it, and you can add it to the menus. And it's not expensive.

For raw developing I think Cyberlink Photodirector is an inexpensive, easy to use and overall excellent tool (if somewhat limited), and you can add the finishing touches with PSP afterwards.

Danny

[LeviFiction]

If you have Lightroom then that should suffice for RAW processing. PSP still sucks at meaningful RAW conversion.

If we knew what version you last used we might be able to give a more meaningful overview of the differences but for the most part everything is still there.

If a command does not exist in the new one that you remember once having it might be located in the "unused commands" section of the "Customize" dialog.

And for the things you list, PSP is more than adequate and easy to use.

Some Gotchyas might be the current list of bugs that some have been pointing out. I suggest you look at the bugs topic for a good list. The fact that if you ever use Manage or Adjust modes they actually close the currently open image if you switch between them. With the new UI base some graphical anomalies might popup.

I can't think of anything specific off hand though.