Where does PSP rank?

[brucet]

I know it's only one opinion but this is 'typical' of what is being said out in the real world.

NPhoto magazine for those who don't know is a high end magazine dedicated to Nikon users. (Printed in the UK).
Issue #42 is currently in the stores. This issue had a 'test/comparison' of 8 editors. All rated between 1 and 5. They give Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 5 stars. Other editors tested were Adobe Elements 13, Lightroom 5, PSPx7, Photodirector 6, DXO pro 10, Nixon NX-D and Phaseone Pro 8.
Sad to say they dumped a 2 star rating on PSPx7. The lowest rated editor. (I have some real issues with how the reports were written and even the editors being compared. That aside PSPx7 a 2???)

Corel are you out there and taking notice? This is the 'image' that is commonly touted about PSP. Corel, if you want to survive, you need to address some issue. If you can't impress the media then how does the message get out?

And why do I care? Because I have years invested into PSP. I like it. But without Corel putting in some hard yards I, like many others, may just have to look for alternatives if Corel can't stay competitive. I have already abandoned Bibble/ASP due to 'poor' results. Nikon's free NX-D does a 'better' job. Will PSP be next?

regards

[MikeFromMesa]

They give Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 5 stars. Other editors tested were Adobe Elements 13, Lightroom 5, PSPx7, Photodirector 6, DXO pro 10, Nixon NX-D and Phaseone Pro 8.
Sad to say they dumped a 2 star rating on PSPx7. The lowest rated editor. (I have some real issues with how the reports were written and even the editors being compared. That aside PSPx7 a 2???)

I am a bit surprised that they tried to compare workflow tools like Lightroom and Dxo Pro with pixel editors like Photoshop, Elements and PSP. I don't know how they could compare the functionality differences since PS, PSE and PSP do things that the workflow tools cannot and vice-versa.

In any case I am interested in what rating they gave the other editors. Could you post those results as well?

Thank you.

[brucet]

My main issue was also how they compared apples with oranges.

Here's the ratings.

Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 5 stars.
Elements 4 stars.
Lightroom 4 stars.
PSPx7 2 stars.
Photodirector 6 4 stars.
DXO Pro 10 Elite 4 stars.
Nikon NX-D 3 stars.
Phaseone Capture One pro 8 4 stars.

FWIW I emailed them a few comments. To their credit they did reply. Of course they defended their test/comparison.

regards

[Alex Brazeau]

Corel are you out there and taking notice?

Hi Bruce, any chance I could ask you to PM me a scan of the article? I'd like to take a look.

Thanks for posting this.

[Greg Wood]

Allow me to say that not only do we care, this has my dander up. We care a lot about our reputation and I'm at a loss until I see the article how a reviewer arrives at such a conclusion. We're digging into this as Alex suggests. Thanks to all who have fed back to the publication, it helps.

[brucet]

Thanks to Alex and Greg. Corel is reading 'our' forum. Good for them. This makes me happy that Corel is interested.

OK I can't scan an 11 page article at the moment. I suggest that anyone interested go to this site and purchased the issue concerned. Issue #42 of NPhoto.

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/photo ... magazines/

Scroll down to see the single issue offer.

Again thank Alex and Greg.

regards

[LeviFiction]

I won't say I disagree with some of their observations. I'm just not sure how they can rate it down to a 2. And it all seems to hinge on the RAW Lab. Which many users have complained about for years.

I'm also not sure what they meant by a before and after option being old hat. I prefer going back and forth between before and after views because I don't have to adjust. I always thought it was a weakness of Photoshop that I couldn't do the same.

My biggest question though is, how did Elements get a 4? They fully acknowledged that Elements gets a weaker RAW option as well, and has fewer of the standard professional tools than PSP. But they still loved it more. So they must prefer something specific.

Maybe they should be challenged to an editing competition with their favorite editor. See just how limited PSP really is compared to their expectations when they go beyond the RAW Lab.

[brucet]

I guess the basic flaw in their 'test/comparison' is not comparing like with like in the first place. Once you establish some benchmark or criteria then ok you can maybe start to fathom the 2 star score. But why would you have Nikon's own NX-D in as an 'editor'? While I do like it as a basic conversion program once converted there is nowhere go with the file. No paint brushes. No layers. No text tools etc etc etc.
It's a bit like comparing a digital camera with other digital cameras without first establishing what sort of digital camera. Do you compare a point and shoot with a DSLR? Do you compare cropped with full frame? No silly comparison. They are all digital cameras just as each of their programs are 'editors'. But that's where the similarities end.

FWIW the author of the article, in replying to my email query, claimed to be a longtime user of PSP yet he 'implied' in the 'test/comparison' that maybe PSP didn't accept plugins. Yet in his email to me he admitted he knew PSP would accept plugins. So maybe there's more to the score than first meets the eye.

regards

[DPainter]

I don't know any of the others and I don't edit photos.
But I use PSP all the time to create and paint textures for gaming components. I have both Photoshop and PSPx6 and x7 installed.
For what I do I'd rate PSP over PSD. Why? many reasons. But for the most part I've been using PSP for over 10 years and are very familiar with it compared to the other. But again, That it one opinion.

As for tools, operation and abilities to do things Photoshop far outweighs PSP but dose so in prize as well. Photoshop 7, "Yes it's very old now" can do things PSP can't do even now.
Point is, How do you compare the two? Not to mention the others in this! There is none.

This rating PSPx7 got comes as no surprise to me. As I've said, I've been using PSP for over 10 years and if I was to rate "just" PSP versions over this time, PSPx7 would be 1! It has 1 great new tool feature and lost so much in other areas. It's glitchy, freezes and stops responding more times then PSPx1 did when I had it installed and that's not supported on Win7 at all. Even running it in compatible mode it's not stable enough.

Personally I've stayed with PSPx6 over x7. Though in saying that I'd use X1 over either for the UI and no bloat ware. Some tool functionality in x1 are far better. If it wasn't for the more powerful tools, new tool options and more so the 64bit capability the latter versions have. And the fact that Coral doesn't support older versions and/or help to make them more updated Windows compatible.
The new versions are "not" getting better!

Maybe Coral needs to do some more of the suggestions written in the Wish list threads. Things that used to work and work well are not now! It's one thing to have a program that your used to having these issue with as a newer user, You don't know the difference so it's just something you put up with. But when you've used something that these features "did' work well and don't anymore, it's hard to see how it can be called a "new version" "a update" eg. eg. Specially better!

[hartpaul]

NPHoto???? have not heard of that magazine. Gave up buying those photo magazines long ago. Waste of money to read the same old pap over and over again. How independent are they? A person that is used to Photoshop will of course plug that same as we who are used to PSP plug it.
Why does PSP have to have a decent Raw Editor when they have a program like Aftershot Pro or even the option to use Lightroom. Did the cost of the programs have any influence at all?

To balance there was also a comparison on this site of "like programs"
http://photo-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

In that comparison they say that X7 has 10 default brushes and ignore the extra ones that come with the separate downloads of Creative Content that takes it to 65 (equal first on their table) and then the Creative Collection takes it to a whopping 179 brushes with the option of also importing and adding ABR brushes. PSP has continued to make itself compatible with many other graphics programs, whereas try and load a pspfile into PS or Elements and no go.

[Radim]

I'm just not sure how they can rate it down to a 2. And it all seems to hinge on the RAW Lab. Which many users have complained about for years.

It *is* indeed all about of one's preferences.

[MikeFromMesa]

My main issue was also how they compared apples with oranges.

Here's the ratings.

Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 5 stars.
Elements 4 stars.
Lightroom 4 stars.
PSPx7 2 stars.
Photodirector 6 4 stars.
DXO Pro 10 Elite 4 stars.
Nikon NX-D 3 stars.
Phaseone Capture One pro 8 4 stars.

Thank you for posting all of the ratings.

I have used most of those "editors" (all except for NX-D and PhotoDirector) and think that the ratings are fair for all of those except PSP although I think they should have broken the comparisons down into two groups - pixel editors and workflow tools - since they serve different functions and, perhaps, different audiences.

Still I would agree the Lightroom, Dxo Pro and CaptureOne are pretty much equivalent as workflow tools and deserve pretty much the same rating although I would have actually ranked them in what I believe to be their (slightly) best to worst order.

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are both excellent tools but are clearly aimed at different audiences. I believe Photoshop to be the best full pixel editor I have ever used, but then again it use to cost about $600 so it should be very good. Elements is a very scaled down brother but, considering its price, is probably worth 4 stars. Since I work on a Mac now I no longer really use PSP although I still have it on my system and run it under Parallels occasionally. My biggest complaint about PSP is its raw editor which is sadly lacking in my view and, were it as good as that in, say, Elements, I would think that PSP deserved at least a 3 if not a 4.

Sadly Corel has not made a real effort to keep up in the photo editing market. AfterShot Pro is a good example of why Corel's software has lost its reputation. I used to use ASP but gave up after Corel seemed to stop supporting it. I found Lightroom to be much better, more complete and offering upgrades more frequently. In addition the LR upgrade fee, although a bit high, was not too bad and, of course, I could always buy LR from a 3rd party vendor at a reduced price.

I think the best thing that Corel could do to bring back users would be to allow the use of a 3rd party raw converter as part of the editing process. Photoshop allows users to specify what raw editor they wish to use - ACR or some 3rd party - and that means that there is no need to update Photoshop itself just because you bought a new camera that is not supported in ACR. You could get a tool like PhotoNinja at a much lower price, use it as a raw converter and your workflow is almost unchanged. If Corel did something like that they would not even need to put the resources into improving their raw converter which, in my opinion, is not very good.

[MikeFromMesa]

Allow me to say that not only do we care, this has my dander up. We care a lot about our reputation and I'm at a loss until I see the article how a reviewer arrives at such a conclusion. We're digging into this as Alex suggests. Thanks to all who have fed back to the publication, it helps.

I have been an on-and-off user of PSP for many years although, since I moved to a Mac, I have been forced to move to Adobe. I am only one user and perhaps my thinking is not representative but I would make the following suggestions about how to improve PSP's reputation. I have always liked PSP so these comments are really offered in a spirit of helpfulness.

1) RAW Lab is really very restricted and was my main complaint about using PSP with raw images. When a user compares the functionality of Corel's raw conversion with that of Adobe the comparison is starting. Even Elements, in the same price range as PSP, offers the following functionality in their version of ACR:

White Balance
Temperature
Tint
Exposure
Contrast
Highlights
Shadows
Whites
Blacks
Clarity
Vibrance
Saturation
Sharpening (Amount, Radius, Detail, Masking)
Noise Reduction (Luminance, Luminance Detail, Lumanance Contrast, Color, Color Detail)
Camera Profile Settings
Camera Process Settings
Zoom
Crop
Leveling
Red-eye Correction

This is almost enough functionality to serve many people as a full editor. Opening up RAW Lab as a raw converter seems almost embarrassing by comparison.

I am not suggesting that RAW Lab needs to be re-written. Photoshop offers the functionality to allow the user to specify a 3rd party raw converter to be used instead of ACR so a user could, for example, select a tool like PhotoNinja and use it instead of ACR as the frontline raw converter and their workflow would be almost unchanged. Thus, for the price of allowing a raw converter plugin, the user now has a choice on who to use for the raw conversion functionality while still keeping the pixel editor of choice in a seamless fashion.

2) With the change of Photoshop from a sold product to a subscription model many Photoshop users have been casting around for a replacement. There are precious few on the Mac side and it seems to me that there is an entirely new part of the market on the Mac that has opened up. Corel could move into that part of the market by either producing a Mac version or by switching to a platform independent version. I know this is a lot of work and I know that the market is relatively small, but it is large enough for companies like PhotoLine to be moving into it with full pixel editors. Corel might think about trying to fill this area. Even the announcement of such an effort could have a salutary effect on current and future users.

3) Corel has some 16 bit issues with compatibility and I filed a bug concerning the inability of PSP to properly open layered psd files from Photoshop if those files were 16 bit files. Since many people only want to work in 16 bit format it might be worth looking into how to improve Corel's 16 bit compatibility by looking into how QA is currently done on this part of the product. This is not meant as a gratuitous comment - before retiring I spent many years designing both QA tools and QA organizations to address this issue and Corel has a poor QA reputation among many users. There are simple ways to address this problem and it might be worth Corel looking into improving its QA process.

As I said, all of these comments are meant to help and I am not "venting". Indeed, I have always quite liked PSP and would be greatly pleased if some way were found to address these issues.

[MikeFromMesa]

My biggest question though is, how did Elements get a 4? They fully acknowledged that Elements gets a weaker RAW option as well, and has fewer of the standard professional tools than PSP. But they still loved it more. So they must prefer something specific.

Maybe they should be challenged to an editing competition with their favorite editor. See just how limited PSP really is compared to their expectations when they go beyond the RAW Lab.

Elements may have a restricted set of ACR functionality but it is still relatively complete and much more functional than that available in RAW Lab. You can see the functionality list in my previous post.

Getting "beyond the RAW Lab" is the main problem for many users since many, like myself, work almost exclusively in raw. If we cannot get a good raw conversion we cannot expect to get good final images and that is the key to why, in my opinion, many users do not use PSP. And it may be the reason that PSP got such a low rating. Undeserved in my opinion, but perhaps that is why.

[brucet]

There is a simple way to fix the Raw issues in PSP. Simply develop ASP to the point of being a competent converter. Then package both PSP and ASP together. Package price! Then make it clear in ASP that, as you can already do, you can open PSP as the editor of choice. Is this any different than what much of the competition does already? Why not drop the very 'average' Raw in PSP and make the effort to improve ASP? After all most users who are using Raw are looking for more than just basic Raw conversion.
I understand ASP and PSP are different programs, different platforms, but they can easily be made to work together seamlessly. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm Photoshop and ACR. Maybe someone is already doing it successfully.

Corel, test the waters. Do a onetime promotion of a package deal and gauge the reaction. ASP Pro and PSPx7 for $xx. Simply highlight the feature in ASP that will 'push' the file to PSP. It will cost you half of nothing and may just squash the notion the PSP is a basket case when is come to Raw conversion.

regards