Totally lost in PSP 2018

[janeiowa]

I've used previous versions of PSP...4,5, 7 and 9. When I had to upgrade to Win10 I had to buy 2018. For me, it's a complete muddle.

I've started through their "Getting Started" and I'm flummoxed on the first lines.

"In the Navigation palette, click the Collections tab, and click Browse More Folders."

I'd love to find the Navigation palette. I have no idea how to find it or get to it.

When my PSP2018 opens, my choice is NEW or Open. Neither provides me with any sort of the palettes and choices I had in PSP9. Have they again made it impossible to really use the program without somehow finding where all of these things are located? I wanted to paste in from a screenshot and the "blank canvas" refused to accept it. I had to go to Paint3D and do my cropping there.

Are there better tutorials out there than the one that comes with 2018? I hope!!

I'm a VERY frustrated PSP buyer

jane

[LeviFiction]

That is the "Home" screen. The Navigation Palette is found in the Manage mode. You can also just head over to the Edit mode (what you would be use to in PSP9) and open the Organizer palette. In PSP9 the Organizer was called browse or browser. I forget which. And you don't need to use any of these. From the home screen you can in fact just hit "Open" or "New" and start there.

Just curious though, I have PSP9 installed on my Windows 10 machine (admittedly only for testing purposes I don't actively use it). Why did you need to buy 2018?

Oh, when you get into Edit mode I recommend going to File -> Workspaces -> Complete so that you're working with all of the tools and customization options.

Also if you're in the help files I recommend starting with the Workspace Tour before getting into the Getting Started. It's a pretty good document to get you through everything. You can also get an active guided tour of each workspace tab (Home, Manage, Edit) by going to help -> getting started -> guided tour. It'll pop open a dialog and highlight the relevant areas of the UI.

Discovery Center - Before I forget Corel has created a Discovery Center with tutorials and helpful videos. Here is the Getting Started video - https://learn.corel.com/tutorials/getti ... tent=learn

EDIT:
Oh, I should mention a few things. In an attempt to give users what they asked for Corel has made a few changes that have not gone over well.

The crop tool is one that people complain about a lot. Most of it seems to revolve around how it functions, zooming back out when a crop rectangle has been added and adding extra viewing space to allow you to rotate the image for the crop. Though that mostly affects users who hate using tabs.

The eraser tool can now only unerase pixels that you have erased during the current use of the eraser. This has the benefit of not ruining current transparency levels if you get a little too aggressive with the unerase but has the unintended consequence of being unable to fix a bad erase if you want to come back to it. Making the eraser truly destructive.

If you don't like the new color picker dialog that comes with the materials palette, there is an option in the General Preferences to get back the one you're most familiar with.

When adding text, the text is now added directly to the canvas and is edited on the canvas. If you prefer to use the dialog box for adding and editing text you need to hold the SHIFT key while adding text or while clicking to edit text.

[janeiowa]

Just curious though, I have PSP9 installed on my Windows 10 machine (admittedly only for testing purposes I don't actively use it). Why did you need to buy 2018?

I was told and read several places that PSP9 would not work on Win10. If I had known it would, I would never have spent the $$ on 2018.

Thank you for your detailed information above. I'll print it out and work on it this rainy week.

jane

[Ken Berry]

Well, if you manage to reinstall PSP 9 and want to continue with that, then you have 30 days from date of purchase to ask for a refund for PSP 2018... Hopefully that timeframe still works for you. Quite a few people report successful installation of PSP 9 on Win 10. Equally, quite a few people report no problems when seeking a refund for a later version as long as it happens during the time limit.

[ehume]

Well, if you manage to reinstall PSP 9 and want to continue with that, then you have 30 days from date of purchase to ask for a refund for PSP 2018... Hopefully that timeframe still works for you. Quite a few people report successful installation of PSP 9 on Win 10. Equally, quite a few people report no problems when seeking a refund for a later version as long as it happens during the time limit.

I still have copies of PSP7 and PSP9. They are very different from the x-series. I happen to love PSP 2018, but then I have kept up through the x-series. I recommend you take Ken's advice: see if PSP9 will install and run on Win10. If it does, get your money back.

[hartpaul]

Or why not keep both as a backup as you never know when a change from Microsoft will make the earlier versions inoperable. Meanwhile you could in your spare time try the same image in both versions (you can run them both at the same time) and that way compare and perhaps make changes to the 2019 to make it more familiar to you. That way it will not be such a steep learning curve when you finally have to switch. As well by having one of the recent versions you will be eligible for a cheaper upgrade price further along.
That's how I did it when I was familiar with Jasc PSP 8 and thenpurchased PSP X2, switching from one program to the other. PSP X2 I think introduced the skin smoothing feature which I found helped a bit over using a soften brush.

[Loopy]

Just a note here - If you are using the old Animation Shop you still have to have PSP 9 installed. You don't need to use it but to use AS effectively you need it installed.

[janeiowa]

I've had PSP 2018 for a year...just can't seem to get it to work. It's on a Lenovo Yoga laptop that's a year old...bought both at the same time. and it's, for me, impossible.

There is no Manage when it opens...only the ever present ad to upgrade...{It'll be a very cold day in h*ll when that happens} and only EDIT at the top. When I click on EDIT, the whole thing freezes. I had to do the screenshot in Paint 3D. How sad is that! Have to use another program to get an image that PSP may then import.



I may take that suggestion to also load PSP9 on here and see if that'll work.

[ehume]

Weird. I use PSP 2018 and I get Startup, Manage, Adjust and Edit. It's true that I choose Edit Complete in Startup, but that should not affect Manage and Adjust showing up.

[LeviFiction]

Manage and adjust can be turned on or off in the General Preferences.

File -> Preferences -> General Program Preferences

In the dialog you'll see 'tabs" where you can choose where it starts, (Home, Manage, Edit, Adjust, or last used) and what tabs are shown.

If PSP is crashing just by going into Edit mode you should be talking to Corel's support. Because that's very specific to your machine. I mean we can do some basic things like Resetting your workspace to factory defaults to see if it improves but you'll need tech support who should ask you to put PSP into debug mode and then send them the crash dump for them to analyze.

[janeiowa]

Thanks, Levi!

[Loopy]

I also have PSP9 on my computer which is Windows 10. I don't use it either but I need it on my system for some reason to be able to use the old Jasc Animation Shop(which I still use daily) with my newer versions of PSP.

[ehume]

I also have PSP9 on my computer which is Windows 10. I don't use it either but I need it on my system for some reason to be able to use the old Jasc Animation Shop(which I still use daily) with my newer versions of PSP.

Oh? You can use AS with newer PSP? What do you do? PSP7 came with AS3. I have both installed.

[Loopy]

I also have PSP9 on my computer which is Windows 10. I don't use it either but I need it on my system for some reason to be able to use the old Jasc Animation Shop(which I still use daily) with my newer versions of PSP.

Oh? You can use AS with newer PSP? What do you do? PSP7 came with AS3. I have both installed.

I make animated stationery for a program called Incredimail. I've had all the PSP's also since 7 and I finally just now got the Ultimate version. I can still use AS as long as I install PSP9. It might also work if you have PSP7 installed. I don't know.