Introducing Alex Brazeau, Corel Photo Group- Paintshop forum

[Alex Brazeau]

Hi there everyone:

I’d like to just take a quick moment to introduce myself to the forum community. My name is Alex Brazeau and I’m a new member of the photo products team here at Corel—supporting PaintShop Pro & AfterShot Pro. Before joining in the team in the fall, I spent the last 5 years or so managing digital communications strategy and overseeing community engagement with several corporations. But I’m not just a social media or PR guy, though… I’m also an avid photo enthusiast and love taking pictures with my Canon T3i.

Over the last few months, I’ve been working closely with Greg Wood (Photo Group’s Senior Product Manager, whom some of you may know) to bring myself up to speed on all things PSP and ASP. I’ve also been spending a lot of time here in the forum, getting familiar with many of the concerns that have been raised here and through our various other social media channels.

After reading through many threads (some dating back a year or two), it’s clear to me that we’ve got some work to do in terms of communicating what’s going on here at Corel with the family of photo products—and that’s what I’d like to change.

As we move ahead, I will be available to help escalate bugs and address problems or concerns that may arise with our photo products. That’s not to say I will be in here commenting on all of your conversations because I feel it’s important this forum remain a user-to-user community. But, as part of this new direction, I will be checking-in with the forum on a regular basis to see what kind of issues or concerns (and maybe even praises) are being posted.

My goal here is to take a much more active and open approach to engaging and working with you—the members of our amazing online communities. The future of our products depends on open communication with our user base, which, as we move forward, will allow us to inform our approach as we bring exciting new and improved tools and features to both PaintShop Pro and AfterShot.

Thanks for taking a few moments to read this and I look forward to speaking with many of you in the days and weeks ahead.

Cheers,
Alex

[trueblue]

Hi and welcome Alex.

We sincerely hope you will be of help to our community here. It's not just photo enthusiasts, but all forms of graphic / painting artists with PSP. As you can see, many people have major issues with PaintShop ProX7.

[Tadjio]

Pleased to 'meet' you and welcome, Alex.
As a long standing proponent of PSP (back to the early 1990s and user of each Corel version since PSP9) and a champion of ASP since it was first introduced, I am glad to see interest and progress from Corel.

I am sure we are all looking primarily for a stable PSPX7 (SP1) and the forthcoming ASP2 with a viable GUI (SP1).
Then onwards and upwards with ideas for PSPX8 and even ASP3 ???

Good luck in your endeavours

[brucet]

Hi Alex and welcome. I've been a PSP user since jasc's days. (Although I haven't seen the need to upgrade from x6 to x7).

Words of wisdom? Hmm, how long have you got To be honest my main 'gripe' is communications. Sure you don't have to address every issue raised here on this board. Many members can do that for you. Just let us know which direction Corel is going and that they are addressing issues. Remember users, and in particular members of this board, are some of the best PR Corel can get. And it's free! Recommendations from happy users is priceless to Corel.

Corel is the 'obvious' alternative to Adobe. A good solid product is better than one with all the bells and whistles with bugs. Give us a high quality, albeit less fancy, product and the market is open to Corel.

regards

https://www.flickr.com/photos/126753097@N02/

[hartpaul]

For my 2 cents worth. I bought Jasc PSP 8 many years ago on special and it cost me $150. It only had the edit mode then. Edit mode is the workhorse of PSP and what has made it loved by so many. Manage and Adjust modes were latecomers and I suspect introduced their bugs and at the same time widened the requirements of programmers to correct those bugs so that Edit mode lost out.
I would be wiling to pay $300 for a fully corrected Edit mode PSP with all the best features of the other versions and bug free. I don't use Manage mode or Adjust mode. For processing Raw I would use another program so complaints requesting that PSP raw converter be improved are also taking away resources. Bit like demanding that PS do all the things that Lightroom does.

Don't worry about compatibility with PS , if those that like 16 bit multilayerd psd files and want them to be fully compatible with PSP, forget that , let them go back to their beloved PS and stop requesting all the photoshop features for peanuts. PS with all their resources and cost have not and still do not recognise psp files.

BTW have you posted over in the Corel Your Way forum yet, there has been a bit of grumbling over there since Jen left.

[brucet]

I agree with hartpaul on this one. The effort put into raw conversion in PSP would be better untilized in improving ASP. Why two raw converter development programs within Corel? Put all of Corels raw development into ASP and concentrate on PSP as an Editing package. Then simply offer both as a package.
Many, if not most, of us have our favourite raw converter, be it ASP of another product.
Likewise I NEVER use Adjust or Manage.

regards

https://www.flickr.com/photos/126753097@N02/

[Kathy_9]

Welcome Alex. As you and others have said communication is big and I am hopeful because in the past communication from Corel has been sporadic at best. Looking forward to getting to know you.

[Joelle]

BTW have you posted over in the Corel Your Way forum yet, there has been a bit of grumbling over there since Jen left.

Hehe, I am one of the ones grumbling very loudly

Bienvenue à Alex, please stay a long time.

As far as PSP is concerned, I only use the Edit mode and still think that Manage and Adjust should be a separate download, as it used to be many versions ago. For those users who don't use Manage/Adjust, that would make for a much lighter footprint.

Joëlle

[Cassel]

Hi Alex!

I agree 110% that communication is key and can use some improvement. From what i have seen and heard when i met the staff at Corel last summer, it is obvious that many complaints i read on the forum (and elsewhere) stems from misunderstanding or miscommunication. I have to admit that i have complained of some things that now, make a lot more sense, and i have no more reason to complain about them.

You have a great group of helpful users in here. It is a great resource for Corel!

See you around!

[Dave G]

Hi Alex,

I've been a PSP user since about 3.something and really heavily used 4.x versions. I liked the new layout that appeared in PSP 8 (as I recall, or what it earlier?) and 9 was good as well. When PSP X came out I heard bad things and never tried it. This didn't surprise me - transitions of SW to new companies are hard.

When I built a new computer recently I put X6 on it assuming that things must have all been worked out by now. However, I immediately ran into bugs. For example the jpeg subsampling settings are either backwards or in some other way disordered - ie: setting the most subsampling should create the smallest poorest image but it creates the largest best image. 1 bit per pixel Tiff files invert their colors on each load/save cycle. Etc. These were all things that worked fine in 8 and 9

So I loaded 9 onto the machine as well figuring I would use each for what it is best at. It turns out that for my uses that means I only use 9. Someday perhaps I'll want to load some RAWs from a new camera and X6 will be better for that but it hasn't happened yet. I noticed that X6 has Manage and Adjust views but since I just kept clicking on Edit anyway, I eventually set it to open there and was happier with it.

As I googled around later I happened across a report of the jpeg subsampling bug in X4. This amazes me as it SEEMS like little more than a clerical error - as if someone just took a list of IDs from the selection widget and entered them in the wrong order in the code. And yet it's still there two versions later.

I'd like to see Corel put a great effort into a release that cleans up the core of PSP.

[Alex Brazeau]

First off, thanks so much to all of you who have jumped in with a warm welcome and to offer some of your feedback and ideas--it's great to see such an active community! These are exactly the kind of constructive conversations Greg, Joseph and I really value. Allow me to address a few of the things in particular that caught my attention:

trueblue: You're absolutely right! The PaintShop Pro community is more than photographers and photo enthusiasts. If you look at the number of PSP users working in scrapbooking, social media and web graphics—we have a lot to offer and we believe even more we can do to support this PSP user base. We would love to hear from you and other designers/graphic artists who use PSP about what you think we should do to improve our capabilities.

brucet: Your comment about ASP being for RAW processing and PSP for photo editing (& creative design) is a pretty accurate summary of our plans as we move forward. I am also very on board with your sentiments re: communication and advocacy.

hartpaul & Joelle: The Corel Your Way panel is my next stop! See you over there.

Thanks again to everyone.

[awm03]

I use Manage as my primary photo organizer. I have or have tried several other programs, but PSP's manage tab is fast, simple, and capable, so it has become my go to organizer. I use the Adjust tab far more than the Edit tab. This is just to let you know that not everybody wants to ditch Manage & Edit modes.

[Joelle]

I use Manage as my primary photo organizer. I have or have tried several other programs, but PSP's manage tab is fast, simple, and capable, so it has become my go to organizer. I use the Adjust tab far more than the Edit tab. This is just to let you know that not everybody wants to ditch Manage & Edit modes.

There are many ways to organise one's photos.
I use Windows 7 and Explorer in a dedicated Photo folder, with umpteen subfolders. It works extremely well, especially when images are tagged. Everything is easy to find.
I take a lot of photos and do a lot of editing.
PSP is first and foremost for editing images. it always has been.
Many versions ago Photo Album was introduced as a separate download.
Then it was incorporated into PSP, which added to the footprint.
It has now become very bloated because of it.
The user should be given the choice to use, as you do, or not to use, as I do.
At the moment there is no choice.

Joëlle

[Kathy_9]

The user should be given the choice to use, as you do, or not to use, as I do.
At the moment there is no choice.

Joëlle

I agree 100%. I never use Manage or Adjust.

[MarkZ]

I use Manage as my primary photo organizer. I have or have tried several other programs, but PSP's manage tab is fast, simple, and capable, so it has become my go to organizer. I use the Adjust tab far more than the Edit tab. This is just to let you know that not everybody wants to ditch Manage & Edit modes.

Each of us decides what works for him/her.

I use PSP because of Edit but I find Manage very useful for the availability of thumbnail views - Collections is great for narrowing the selection process. I like having the selection and editing in one program. Tabs are good for quick comparison of images from different folders. I organize my photos via folders (directories) but using Explorer to view them does not work at all for me. I ignore many of the other features of Manage such as Places, Faces and Trips other than to test them. Because I shoot Raw ASP is a fundamental tool for me and I find its Catalog feature of primary importance for searching through my files, especially because it allows access for offline storage without the storage connected. Bottom line, Manage is not bloat for me.

I've tried Adjust and find it has such substantial deficiencies in its design that I never touch it.