Paintshop Pro - Wishlist for version X7

[awm03]

I would like quicker access to plug ins. I use the Adjust tab 90% of the time, and it would be nice to access my favorite plug ins from there. A Plug Ins palette with quick launch icons for favorite apps, available in both Adjust & Edit, would be great. That way, you don't have to switch to Edit, then menu dive to get to plug ins.

[Alejandro]

I would like to have a clipping warning system (for clipped highlights, shadows and over saturated pixels) as some other programs have (particularly to be used with Levels).

In Levels try holding the CTRL Key down while you slide the Shadow and Highlight sliders. This gives you the clipping in glorious technicolor...

Thank you Tadjio for your input. I tried what you said (on PaintShop x5 which is the one I have). It does not work or it is not working with Levels opened as an adjustment layer which is what I am normally using but it does work if I use Levels from (sorry but I will write it in Spanish as I see it) Ajustar > Brillo y contraste > Niveles (levels) applied directly on an image layer (not on an adjustment layer which would result in a non-destructive and re-editable adjustment). Anyway, I find this to be useful enough so thank you again.

[Tadjio]

I would like to have a clipping warning system (for clipped highlights, shadows and over saturated pixels) as some other programs have (particularly to be used with Levels).

In Levels try holding the CTRL Key down while you slide the Shadow and Highlight sliders. This gives you the clipping in glorious technicolor...

Thank you Tadjio for your input. I tried what you said (on PaintShop x5 which is the one I have). It does not work or it is not working with Levels opened as an adjustment layer which is what I am normally using but it does work if I use Levels from (sorry but I will write it in Spanish as I see it) Ajustar > Brillo y contraste > Niveles (levels) applied directly on an image layer (not on an adjustment layer which would result in a non-destructive and re-editable adjustment). Anyway, I find this to be useful enough so thank you again.

Sorry, yes, I only use 'normal' Levels not Adjustment Layer Levels
But it is very useful for me

[Mist001]

I would really like to see the 'Pen' tool, similar to Photoshop and Gimp where you can precisely and accurately move around an image and cut it. I know PSP has the point to point option, but it's nowhere near as comfortable or accurate as the pen tool in others.

Michael.

[pinobot]

For tools like the straighten tool it would be nice if you see the whole bar when zoomed in on a part of the image.
When i want to use the tool i have to zoom out to get hold of it, place it roughtly where i want it and then zoom in again to do the final adjustment.

[dave0judy]

I have searched X6's help and FAQ's and cannot find this option, so I assume it currently does not exist. I create many Flight Simulation maps where it would be great to be able to draw lines using the magnetic compass headings, as used on most flight mapping projects. Currently when I draw a line, at the bottom it shows the "true" compass heading of the line being drawn. I noted, I have searched and cannot find anywhere in preferences, where I can change this display to "magnetic" compass headings. As magnetic north changes with time and location, this setting would require, first being able to change from "true" to "magnetic", and also to specify the degree change desired. For instance, for the New York area, magnetic north is 14 degrees west of true north. Consequently, I would need to enter both 14 degrees and also whether east or west.

[pinobot]

I would like to see some kind of app centre where you can buy and install plugins and so you don't have to search the internet for working plugins.
Shouldn't be so hard to get around the table with developers to get something like that of the ground.
I think a lot of revenue from plugins is lost because of the fact that people can't find what they are looking for or simply don't know it exists.

[Rick_R]

I largely agree (no pun intended ...) about the size of fonts on the various menus being too small. I have mentioned this in several reviews I have posted on Amazon.

It is important to remember that as folks get older (I'm now 63) it becomes harder to see small things. And hi-contrast helps immensely. In my Amazon review of Photoshop Elements 10 I said that the new interface looks downright ugly and amateurish. But it makes it a lot easier to read the text, and that is a lot more important to me than something that is artistic but hard to read.

Regarding black text on white backgrounds, white does tend to cause eyestrain. But black on light gray is still highly legible and significantly reduces eyestrain. Frankly, I like the option of four color schemes that X5 had. (I completely stopped using X5 and went back to X4 until the service pack with the color schemes came out because I couldn't read the text in the charcoal scheme.)

Another thing to remember is that drop-down menus only display for a few seconds. So the idea that they will cause eyestrain is pretty farfetched.

MY WISH LIST:

I do a lot of genealogy work and a lot of work with scanned yearbooks. If I scan a yearbook I'm pretty careful to have the page lie flat. I also don't scan or photograph 2 pages at once (which comes out to 17"w x 11"h). Unfortunately, a lot of other folks aren't so careful.

Either when photographing two pages of a book or not being careful to have a single page lie flat, something like barrel distortion occurs. However, barrel distortion is fairly linear. "Two-page" distortion is more like looking at a flying bird straight on from the front. Imagine that you draw a circle on two pages in portrait mode and then you move the pages to landscape mode. So you have two half circles touching at one point. The difference with "two-page" distortion is that the peak of the curve won't be exactly half-way in each semicircle, it will be a lot closer to the book seam. The attachment shows the left half of this distortion on one half of a two-page image. In practice it is easier to split the image into separate pages and correct each separately.

For slight two-page distortion, Perspective Correction of the overall image can help quite a bit. If there are multiple images (e.g., student portraits), it might be possible to run Perspective Correction on various sections and then re-paste them. However, for an entire book (most high school yearbooks are 225 pages or more) that's just too much work.

SUGGESTION: I suggest something similar to Perspective Correction but with more points. For example, the four corners and then at least four intermediate points, one for each side. Possibly 8 intermediate points -- 2 for each side. The program would realize that the end result should be a rectangle. Because the distortion occurs throughout the page, the correction would have to be applied to the whole page, not just the area within the polygon.

From a programming perspective, it might be possible to use the Warp Mesh code as a starting point.

SUGGESTION: Yearbooks are mainly black-and-white on good quality but not magazine-quality paper. They tend to be imaged decades later, not just a few years later. The edges of the pages are often discolored -- roughly 1/4". Put an "Page border cleaner" adjustment where the user sets a rectangle and clicks on a color within the rectangle (usually white) and areas outside the rectangle that are similar in shading will be adjusted to the chosen color (with appropriate feathering). It is important to not just do a replacement because often page numbers are in the discolored area.

SUGGESTION: Page Splitter. This would be for splitting dual-page images automatically. It would look for a narrow vertical line of a different shade about halfway horizontally and would position a vertical "separator" line. The user could move the line to the exact spot. Click a check mark and PSP automatically splits the image into two new images. The user could also preset an overlap, i.e., put the line dead center, click the check mark, and the left image will be from left edge to 20 pixels right of the line and the right image will be from 20 pixels left of the line to the right edge.

Two-page centers are not always exactly vertical or just thin lines. Have a checkbox for "widen separator". If clicked, the separator bar would cover the entire center separation (based on fairly abrupt shade/color change) and the left and right sides of the separator could be moved with click-and-drag. When the page split is done, the entire area within the wide separator would be included in both images.

SUGGESTION: Tag Organizer. I've been doing genealogy since around 2005. I started tagging a few weeks ago. I'm up to probably 60-80 tags. One of my Ancestry trees has 374 people and 491 images. I have well over a thousand that I still need to upload. (Another tree, which is really just for yearbooks has 871 images.) A huge list of all tags for any photos is a huge pain. It should be possible to display tags using any of these groupings:

1) Project -- Right now only existing folders can be put into a collection. The database should allow creation of Projects and folders can be added to a specific Project. Also, a Project should be able to have Project sub-folders. So, for instance, one project is "Smith Genealogy". Under that, there are "Johnson Family" and "Robinson Family" Project sub-folders. Under "Johnson Family" there are "Bill Johnson" and "Mary Johnson Adams" Project sub-folders. Under those are the various computer folders containing the images. Project folders would exist only in the database.

2) Numeric -- All tags beginning with a number will be shown (These will usually be years, such as a census year.)
3) Alpha - All tags beginning with a letter will be shown.
4) Alphabetic grouping - The "section" will be A, B, etc. Clicking on the letter will show all tags beginning with that letter.
5) Alphabetic range grouping - The problem with "Alphabetic grouping" is that there are automatically 26 groups. Obviously X, Q and Z will usually have no entries. Folks may find it easier to have a few groups, e.g., A-F, G-L,M-T,U-Z.

[Rick_R]

I would really like to see the 'Pen' tool, similar to Photoshop and Gimp where you can precisely and accurately move around an image and cut it. I know PSP has the point to point option, but it's nowhere near as comfortable or accurate as the pen tool in others.

Michael.

You don't say if you are using a mouse or a tablet.

If you are using a mouse, check this out: http://www.amazon.com/SODIAL-TM-Retract ... =pd_cp_e_2

Note the exact dimensions! This is sold under a variety of brand names (mine says Verbatim) for widely varying prices. There are many "travel mice" that are almost the same dimensions. But because they are a little bit wider or higher they just aren't as ergonomic and they can cause wrist or finger pains with extended use.

The retractor is held together by a single screw. You'll want to remove that. Also, because the cord is only about 3 feet you'll probably want a USB 2.0 Male-A to Female-A extension.

[Rick_R]

For tools like the straighten tool it would be nice if you see the whole bar when zoomed in on a part of the image.
When i want to use the tool i have to zoom out to get hold of it, place it roughtly where i want it and then zoom in again to do the final adjustment.

Agreed. Also, the ability to set the color of the line. I mainly work with black and white images of documents such as Census forms with lots of horizontal lines.

[Rick_R]

change this display to "magnetic" compass headings.

Although I don't work for Corel, I have done programming elsewhere in the past. Keep in mind that all programming is time intensive and that for any change to any mass-market product the manufacturer has to decide "How may people will want this feature?" Chances are there aren't more than 20-30 folks total who would use such a feature. Most likely the only place you'd find such a feature is a custom plugin written by some university researcher to run with an open source Linux photo editing application. If an aviation mapping company needed such a plugin, they would probably have it custom written and consider it a proprietary trade secret not for sale.

[Rick_R]

Regarding "two-page center distortion", note that the correction usually needs to be applied vertically, not horizontally. Spreading or compressing needs to be done vertically to make the lines horizontal. Usually images are not also significantly distorted from left to right.

By the way, for test purposes, pages of high school yearbooks with senior photos are the best test material. They routinely are laid out in a rows-and-columns format, so distortion from a rectangle is particularly noticeable. Reverse-distorting the images to make them rectangular normally doesn't distort the contents of the image so that it looks unnatural. (In other words, if corrective distortion makes someone's nose slightly longer or hairline slightly higher, the end result doesn't look artificial.)

[dave0judy]

Would really like a preference option to have new layers automatically created or not. Getting very tired of merging (flat) multiple layers when I want to edit/delete items on all layers at once.

[dave0judy]

To Rick_R,

First, as a programmer myself, adding this code should involve only 3 additional fields in preferences and several lines of nested If/Else statements.
The 3 fields would be to select if magnetic is desired instead of true, entering the degrees of difference, and selecting whether west or east. The nested if/else would be first to see if the magnetic option is checked, and second if it is, to adjust the number of degrees by that field and either add or subtract based on east or west.

Second, anyone dealing in drawing maps on Paint Shop Pro for either aviation or marine purposes would use magnetic instead of true. If you are involved in either of these fields, you will find a lot more than you quoted that would use this.

Third, I have a number of mapping software that provides this option, including all of Garmin's maps that interact with their GPS's, in addition to a huge flight simulation audience.

One of the reasons people upgrade is to get options that they feel is worth spending money on. I have upgraded to the last 4 versions, looking for worthwhile new options. I can honestly say that I would still be satisfied with X2, and will probably stay with X6, unless there is something really worthwhile for me, namely this and also an option to keep layers from being automatically added. Really frustrating having to merge (flatten) each time I want to edit/delete items on all layers.

[LeviFiction]

What do you mean by keep layers from being created automatically? During what functions? What are you doing that causes new layers? As you know there are a few areas where new layers are automatically created when they didn't use to be, it was a recent change that forced it. If you turn off some of these automatic options changing from "Always" or "Prompt" to "Never" then certain functions don't work anymore. You're talking about not stopping a change just because no new layer is being made. Which I would agree with. But the question still stands, what are you doing that creates new layers?