PaintShopPro 2020 ~ Why not to Upgrade

[Kira Resari]

Hello everyone,

my name is Kira Resari, and I am an old-school PSP user. I started using PSP back when it was still used by Jasc (around PSP6 or 7 I think), and am still using it today. I am currently still using PSPX5, since none of the newer versions have improved the functionality or usability in my eyes. I have just tested PSP2020, and after checking the functionalities most essential to me, decided that I will not be upgrading to this version either.

This post is intended as an open letter to the developers of PSP, as well as an outreach to the community to see if anyone else shares my views, and faces the same troubles that I do.

For the sake of clarity, I am going to divide this into three sections: Show Stoppers, Requirements and Wishes.

Show Stoppers

---

Show Stoppers are my reasons for not upgrading. Even if several of my requirements are met, I will not upgrade as long as one of these Show Stoppers remains, since those are the things that either make the program unsuitable for my needs, or severely impede on my productivity.

1. The crop tool has to function properly.
   • In PSP2019 (this is supposed to be two thousand and nine, but for some reason, the nine is displayed as 9), this was not the case at all, and the Crop Tool re-centered the entire document when re-adjusting the size or moving the crop selection, thus making it impossible to accurately crop, say, a 600x600 selection out of a huge 10000x10000 map.
   • This has mostly been fixed in PSP2020. However, when manually entering values in the tool options bar at the top, the window still re-centers (which, while still annoying, is admittedly no longer a show stopper).
2. The option for a color selector with numeric input
   • To properly work, I need a color selector in which I can input the values of the colors as RGB and HSL values. This does not have to be the only way, but it should at the very least be supported.

Requirements

---

Requirements would be my reasons for upgrading. Those are things that I've been hoping would get included in future versions of PSP for years now, and each of those that gets included would be a good reason for me to finally upgrade.

1. Support Extended Multilingual Plane Unicode Characters
   • This includes special characters such as (the special characters are not supported by this board either, but would be U+1F98A Fox Face, U+1F4E7 E-Mail and U+1F553 Clock Face Four Oclock) which by now every web browser can display and render as vector graphics, and which even Notepad can display
   • However, in PSP2020, these are still displayed as ▯▯, which I consider very poor form
2. A proper file selector for saving
   • That is, one like in any other current program, where you can copy the path of the folder you want to save something in into the address bar at the top, instead of having to awkwardly navigate to it
   • Interestingly, the file selector for loading already has this functionality in PSP2020, so why not the file selector for saving?

Wishes

---

These are the sort of things that I would like to see in future upgrades, and have been waiting for since PSPX5. They might also be reasons for me to upgrade, but are not things about the absence of which I get permanently annoyed, such as the Requirements above.

1. Be able to move groups with arrow keys and Ctrl (like vector and raster layers)
   • One thing I frequently use is that I move entire layers with the arrow keys in order to position them accurately
   • So far this only works with vector and raster layers, but it would be great if it would also work with entire layer groups
   • Currently, you can already move entire layer groups by mouse, but for pixel perfect positioning, it would be even better if you could move them with the arrow keys as well
2. Zooming Out to Full Page View when undoing (e.g. Vector pasting)
   • Currently, when pasting a vector object and then undoing it, the image for some reason zooms out all the way so that the entire document is displayed. This is particularly bothersome whenever I work with huge maps.
3. Remove Specks and Holes: Support Square Areas bigger than 100 x n pixels
   • Currently, the maximum area supported in the "Remove Specks and Holes" tool is 100 by 1000000 pixels.
   • This is annoying when I have specks and holes that are, say, 123 by 241 pixels big or something
   • The upper limit in the right field is excessive, but acceptable. I just don't understand why the upper limit in the left field has to be as low as 100, especially in this day and age of hi-res pictures
   • Also, when testing this in PSP2020 just now, the tool crashed with an error "an invalid parameter has been passed to a function"
4. More/custom Bevel Shape Options
   • I use the Inner/Outer bevel tools regularly for quick and easy 3D effects, but even today, there is only the same old limited 12 bevel shape options
   • What I would love to have here would be the possibility to design custom bevel shapes, or at the very least have more options to choose from
5. Pick Tool: Option to only select objects on the current layers
   • When using the pick tool, one of the biggest annoyances I usually face is that I first have to hide all other layers, or I'll inadvertently end up selecting something from a background layer instead of what I really want to select
   • It would be really great if there was an option "select only objects on active layer" in the tool options to remedy this
6. Outline Layer Effect
   • This is one of the few good memories I had of photoshop: It had an outline effect where you could add an X pixel big clear outline around a layer. I still have to use workarounds when I want to do that in PSP
   • Basically, this works like the Glow effect, only that instead of fading out, the outline stays the same opacity for the desired amount of pixels and then has a hard border
7. "Close All" option
   • Sometimes, I end up with really many open documents (such as 50+ small icons or temporary clips). For such cases it would be great if there was a "Close all open documents" in the "File" menu.
   • As an extension of this, it would be great if there was also a "close all without saving" option in this case, such as the one that appears when you shut down the entire program

To the PSP Developers: Please get back to me once the Show Stoppers and Requirements have been adequately dealt with, and I'll finally upgrade to the latest version. Alternatively, I'll check back in when PSP2021 has been released.

To the community: What are your thoughts about this? Do others have similar sentiments as me? Or am I just ranting here? Also, feel free to add your own Show Stoppers, Requirements and Wishes here. I would love to read what other people are missing in this program.

As a side note, one of the main reasons I'm writing this here of all the places is a lack of a proper feedback channel to the developers, such as I'm used to from other softwares. One would think they would be interested in what people think about their products, and welcome constructive feedback. If you know of one such channel, please let me know and I'll send this to them directly. So far, however, I have only made very disheartening and unhelpful contact with the technical support of Corel.

Cheers,
Kira
=^,^=

[hartpaul]

Thank you for putting your problems and wishes in a general post to test out instead of directly in the Wishlist for 2021 as so many others did in the Wishlist for 2020 which went to 9 pages.

Kira Resari said "The option for a color selector with numeric input

To properly work, I need a color selector in which I can input the values of the colors as RGB and HSL values. This does not have to be the only way, but it should at the very least be supported.

I don't have pSP 2020 and doubt I will purchase it til it comes down to about A$30 as I cannot see any real improvements and like you and many others the Crop tool is a disaster both in the rotation of the image and the extra space it leaves around the image to allow for its rotation.

I am using PSP 2019 and hope that the feature is still present there in PSP 2020.
You can type your color info for RGB and HSL in as you did in PSP X5 but the location is not normally visible at the start.

Double click the Foreground and Stroke Properties or Background and Fill properties boxes (1 in the posted image) the same as you would do in X5 and that gives you the Material Properties dialog. Click the Slider button between the Wheel and Swatches buttons. That will give you this:

Now as well as RGB and HSL you have a number of other choices (2) and at position (3) you can type in the value and see the changes at (4) . It is however missing the ability to change the value by rolling the mouse wheel if you use that much.

But you can also choose to use the same Classic Materials Properties dialog just as in X5. I hope thisis still possible in pSP 2020. I think Others aere wishing for a similar fix for the Crop tool - to have a checkbox to use the Classic Crop tool.
To get the Classic Material Properties dialog as in X5 you need to go to File > Preferences > General Program Preferences and choose Palettes and tick the box indicated:

Hope that helps with that.

[hartpaul]

In your Wishes number 3

Remove Specks and Holes: Support Square Areas bigger than 100 x n pixels

Currently, the maximum area supported in the "Remove Specks and Holes" tool is 100 by 1000000 pixels.
This is annoying when I have specks and holes that are, say, 123 by 241 pixels big or something
The upper limit in the right field is excessive, but acceptable. I just don't understand why the upper limit in the left field has to be as low as 100, especially in this day and age of hi-res pictures
Also, when testing this in PSP2020 just now, the tool crashed with an error "an invalid parameter has been passed to a function"

The second figure is a multiplyer to the first , ie to include your 123 x 241 hole set the first to 100 and the second to 10 and that will take care of holes that are 1000 x 1000 pixels square or less.
If you wanted to be more precise then you might set the first to 25 and the second to 10 and that would take care of holes that are 250 x 250 square or less which includes your suggested hole size.

[ehume]

What is the "Remove Specks and Holes" tool or effect? I conclude you are not talking about the Makeover tool.

Edit: NVM; found it by searching in Help by retyping those exact words in the Search bar. It's not a tool; it's a way to modify one's selection. Cute. Some past dev was clearly eating his/her own dogfood.

[Kira Resari]

Selections > Modify > Remove Specks and Holes

From what I gather, this one is supposed to remove specks and holes in your selection, and msot of the time it does. However, sometimes it stubbornly refuses to remove specks and holes in selections even at the maximum settings. Until now I thought that was because I could not increase the first value over 100, but maybe it's a bug in the tool per se.#

I managed to reproduce this easily by taking this geographic map of the world, and trying to select the Sahara with the Magic Wand tool, then using Remove Specks and Holes. Most specks and holes were removed, but a few very stubbornly refused to disappear.
https://www.map-sales.com/media/catalog ... ld-map.jpg

[ehume]

Selections > Modify > Remove Specks and Holes

From what I gather, this one is supposed to remove specks and holes in your selection, and msot of the time it does. However, sometimes it stubbornly refuses to remove specks and holes in selections even at the maximum settings. Until now I thought that was because I could not increase the first value over 100, but maybe it's a bug in the tool per se.#

I managed to reproduce this easily by taking this geographic map of the world, and trying to select the Sahara with the Magic Wand tool, then using Remove Specks and Holes. Most specks and holes were removed, but a few very stubbornly refused to disappear.
https://www.map-sales.com/media/catalog ... ld-map.jpg

Lovely map. Gives short shrift to Kiwi-Land, however. The Land of the Moa-eaters never looked so skinny.

Edit: You can even see Zealandia, the eighth continent, stretching from NZ to New Caledonia.

[Radim]

Hello everyone,

my name is Kira Resari, and I am an old-school PSP user. I started using PSP back when it was still used by Jasc (around PSP6 or 7 I think), and am still using it today. I am currently still using PSPX5, since none of the newer versions have improved the functionality or usability in my eyes. I have just tested PSP2020, and after checking the functionalities most essential to me, decided that I will not be upgrading to this version either.

This post is intended as an open letter to the developers of PSP, as well as an outreach to the community to see if anyone else shares my views, and faces the same troubles that I do.

For the sake of clarity, I am going to divide this into three sections: Show Stoppers, Requirements and Wishes.

Show Stoppers

---

Show Stoppers are my reasons for not upgrading. Even if several of my requirements are met, I will not upgrade as long as one of these Show Stoppers remains, since those are the things that either make the program unsuitable for my needs, or severely impede on my productivity.

1. The crop tool has to function properly.
   • In PSP2019 (this is supposed to be two thousand and nine, but for some reason, the nine is displayed as 9), this was not the case at all, and the Crop Tool re-centered the entire document when re-adjusting the size or moving the crop selection, thus making it impossible to accurately crop, say, a 600x600 selection out of a huge 10000x10000 map.
   • This has mostly been fixed in PSP2020. However, when manually entering values in the tool options bar at the top, the window still re-centers (which, while still annoying, is admittedly no longer a show stopper).
2. The option for a color selector with numeric input
   • To properly work, I need a color selector in which I can input the values of the colors as RGB and HSL values. This does not have to be the only way, but it should at the very least be supported.

Requirements

---

Requirements would be my reasons for upgrading. Those are things that I've been hoping would get included in future versions of PSP for years now, and each of those that gets included would be a good reason for me to finally upgrade.

1. Support Extended Multilingual Plane Unicode Characters
   • This includes special characters such as (the special characters are not supported by this board either, but would be U+1F98A Fox Face, U+1F4E7 E-Mail and U+1F553 Clock Face Four Oclock) which by now every web browser can display and render as vector graphics, and which even Notepad can display
   • However, in PSP2020, these are still displayed as ▯▯, which I consider very poor form
2. A proper file selector for saving
   • That is, one like in any other current program, where you can copy the path of the folder you want to save something in into the address bar at the top, instead of having to awkwardly navigate to it
   • Interestingly, the file selector for loading already has this functionality in PSP2020, so why not the file selector for saving?

Wishes

---

These are the sort of things that I would like to see in future upgrades, and have been waiting for since PSPX5. They might also be reasons for me to upgrade, but are not things about the absence of which I get permanently annoyed, such as the Requirements above.

1. Be able to move groups with arrow keys and Ctrl (like vector and raster layers)
   • One thing I frequently use is that I move entire layers with the arrow keys in order to position them accurately
   • So far this only works with vector and raster layers, but it would be great if it would also work with entire layer groups
   • Currently, you can already move entire layer groups by mouse, but for pixel perfect positioning, it would be even better if you could move them with the arrow keys as well
2. Zooming Out to Full Page View when undoing (e.g. Vector pasting)
   • Currently, when pasting a vector object and then undoing it, the image for some reason zooms out all the way so that the entire document is displayed. This is particularly bothersome whenever I work with huge maps.
3. Remove Specks and Holes: Support Square Areas bigger than 100 x n pixels
   • Currently, the maximum area supported in the "Remove Specks and Holes" tool is 100 by 1000000 pixels.
   • This is annoying when I have specks and holes that are, say, 123 by 241 pixels big or something
   • The upper limit in the right field is excessive, but acceptable. I just don't understand why the upper limit in the left field has to be as low as 100, especially in this day and age of hi-res pictures
   • Also, when testing this in PSP2020 just now, the tool crashed with an error "an invalid parameter has been passed to a function"
4. More/custom Bevel Shape Options
   • I use the Inner/Outer bevel tools regularly for quick and easy 3D effects, but even today, there is only the same old limited 12 bevel shape options
   • What I would love to have here would be the possibility to design custom bevel shapes, or at the very least have more options to choose from
5. Pick Tool: Option to only select objects on the current layers
   • When using the pick tool, one of the biggest annoyances I usually face is that I first have to hide all other layers, or I'll inadvertently end up selecting something from a background layer instead of what I really want to select
   • It would be really great if there was an option "select only objects on active layer" in the tool options to remedy this
6. Outline Layer Effect
   • This is one of the few good memories I had of photoshop: It had an outline effect where you could add an X pixel big clear outline around a layer. I still have to use workarounds when I want to do that in PSP
   • Basically, this works like the Glow effect, only that instead of fading out, the outline stays the same opacity for the desired amount of pixels and then has a hard border
7. "Close All" option
   • Sometimes, I end up with really many open documents (such as 50+ small icons or temporary clips). For such cases it would be great if there was a "Close all open documents" in the "File" menu.
   • As an extension of this, it would be great if there was also a "close all without saving" option in this case, such as the one that appears when you shut down the entire program

To the PSP Developers: Please get back to me once the Show Stoppers and Requirements have been adequately dealt with, and I'll finally upgrade to the latest version. Alternatively, I'll check back in when PSP2021 has been released.

To the community: What are your thoughts about this? Do others have similar sentiments as me? Or am I just ranting here? Also, feel free to add your own Show Stoppers, Requirements and Wishes here. I would love to read what other people are missing in this program.

As a side note, one of the main reasons I'm writing this here of all the places is a lack of a proper feedback channel to the developers, such as I'm used to from other softwares. One would think they would be interested in what people think about their products, and welcome constructive feedback. If you know of one such channel, please let me know and I'll send this to them directly. So far, however, I have only made very disheartening and unhelpful contact with the technical support of Corel.

Cheers,
Kira
=^,^=

Thanks, very good points. Please add to "request section" for PSP2021.

[Nrde]

My pet peeve annoyance is pick tools mode to be "perspective" by default instead of "scale". I don't think I have ever used perspective with my pick tool. If it would remember the previous choice it would be a lot better than forcing a default mode that the user is never going to use anyway.

[Pepi]

Requirements

---

Requirements would be my reasons for upgrading. Those are things that I've been hoping would get included in future versions of PSP for years now, and each of those that gets included would be a good reason for me to finally upgrade.

[*]A proper file selector for saving

• That is, one like in any other current program, where you can copy the path of the folder you want to save something in into the address bar at the top, instead of having to awkwardly navigate to it
• Interestingly, the file selector for loading already has this functionality in PSP2020, so why not the file selector for saving?

Not sure if this helps, but let me try. On newer Windows there are new "OpenFile" dialogs which developers need to take in use, but newer windows support also the older dialogs. Reasons why they have not done so, could be e.g. support for different versions of Windows.

But the solution for you is, copy the folder path on clipboard and paste that on the file name (only the location where you would like to save the file). Then press enter/open and the dialog box opens that location. Then you can type the file name. That is general solution cross Windows.

[Ravelli]

Hello Kira,

you totally speak out of my heart with your initial post.

The Close All option I suggested to Corel in 2015, because I have it in most software I use. Corel's reply was, that I'm wrong, and that "User behavior changes and people like short ways and not the detour via file menu." They have this feature via right-click on the tab of an opened file. I still want it in the main menu.

Custom Bevel Shapes would really be great to have, and also the support of bigger file size/higher resolution in such tools relative to their parameters.

Friendly greetings,
Ravelli

[hartpaul]

Window > Close All works quite well for me.

For me the Pick tool always defaults to Scale when selected. That can be changed if you have Shift or Control or Shift + Control when you select and click on an image.

[Nrde]

My pet peeve annoyance is pick tools mode to be "perspective" by default instead of "scale". I don't think I have ever used perspective with my pick tool. If it would remember the previous choice it would be a lot better than forcing a default mode that the user is never going to use anyway.

I now know why it behaves like it does:

Usually I select an object/selection, then copy it with ctrl-c, paste with ctrl-v.

When pressing ctrl in above commands, the pick tools mode changes to perspective. Unfortunately there's no modifier key to select scale and I have to use mouse to change it back to it. Really annpying, PSP should ignore ctrl (and alt) if it's part of other shortcut key.

[Linda Lou]

Window > Close All works quite well for me.

For me the Pick tool always defaults to Scale when selected. That can be changed if you have Shift or Control or Shift + Control when you select and click on an image.

Is this only in 2020? I had been trying for a while to get perspective in 2018, but couldn't find a way to do it.

[hartpaul]

Just checked with PSP 2018.
I set up thre documents A, B and C all 500 pixels wide.
A was the document I was copying and pasting to
B was an image where the orange car had been selected with the magic wand
C was an image with 3 picture tubes on separate transparent layers.

With A image active I chose different tools and then went back each time to the Pick tool and each time Scale was the default.
Choosing the Pick tool and pressing down Control key switched to Perspective and when Control was released it went back to Scale
Similar with Shift key and switching to Shear and back to Scale when released.
This I gather is normal behaviour.

Making B active I did Control C to copy the selection and then made A active and used Control V to paset as new layer - so long as I kept the Control key pressed it remained in Perspective - releasing the Control key defaulted to Scale.
Same behaviour when I chose one of the eggs in image C.
So I do not get any other modes remaining as the default.

If I deliberately choose the mode Perspective on the Pick tool options bar then as soon as I use the control key the Mode flashes and once again releasing the key gives me Scale.

If I avoid the shortcut keys then Perspective remains chosen mode.
To do this I only have to right click the Layer with the selection and choose Promote Selection to layer. Then for all copy / paste procedures I drag that layer over onto Image A and it appears as a new layer with the chosen Pick tool mode .

I actually hate using keyboard shortcuts as I have to look at the keyboard each time and that involves taking my eyes off the screen so it reduces my productivity..

[Nrde]

I can't reproduce the error with a new image at the moment. It happened with some old image every single time. But since that I had to reset my workspace as PSP kept crashing as soon as I opened it. Maybe there was some weird error in the tool settings or something. I'll report back in case I still see it.