Instability

[jacobscgc]

Hi,

I am trying to invest my time to get familiar with PaintShop pro because I really really dislike the monthly fee for Lightroom.
Anyway, I am having some issues with PaintShop which make it very hard to use PaintShop rather then Lightroom. I am using PaintShop Pro 2023 Ultimate on a Windows 10 device.

1) It seems that PaintShop is rather unstable. It hangs relatively often, where I need to restart the program to get it running again.

2) Also, for some reason I am unable to use it to actually manage my files.
When I try to delete a file, it gives me a notification: "The action can't be completed because the file is open in Corel Paintshop Pro 2023 (64-bit)". Well, yes, I am viewing the image and decided it needs to be deleted..

3) Minor inconvenience but each time I open the 'Manage' pane, it automatically opens the 'Preview' popup. Why? It is a bit annoying because I need to close it each time.
(I think I managed to fix this by going to preferences -> Tabs -> Keep Last View)

4) When I try to add lens corrections in 'Corel Aftershot Lab', I always get 'Uncalibrated Lens' warnings, even though it has the lens in the database and it is not an unknown lens or anything (AF-S DX Nikkor 16-80mm f/2.8 for example).

5) I see some AI methods, but some of the nicest things about using Lightroom is the ability to select the sky or subject using AI. Looks like nothing of this sort is implemented in PaintShop is it? It just makes selecting so much easier.

Anyway, just a few points of which the inability to delete images is currently a major blocker.

Thanks for any hints / tips.

Chris

[Radim]

You are right.

Corel pays less and less attention to such "details". In each new release we have bugs here and there. Then we wait for Service Pack 1, then SP2, etc...

[LeviFiction]

No software is released without bugs. They are on a time limit with limited resources, only so many are going to get caught and fixed. And in complex software fixing some bugs has an increased change of introducing new ones and someone has to catch them. Which isn't always possible. It's why I recommend people join the beta team so that they have more eyes on the problems testing things they wouldn't think to test.

1) Instability - try turning off Saving history. Not guaranteed to help, but it might. You do this by going File -> Preferences -> General Program Preferences.
Choose the "Miscellaneous" category. There is a checkbox for "Save edit history" turn that off. Save. Restart PSP.

2) Is this after an edit? Or, how are you attempting to manage your files that this happens? I'm sorry but I can't duplicate the issue. I can delete files without issue in Manage Mode. I open PSP, go to manage mode, select the image I want to manage, right-click and choose "Delete". And it's gone. I even tried double clicking to open it in preview mode first then deleting it and it still disappeared from the list. I then opened the image in edit mode, closed it, went back to manage mode and was able to delete.

I will say if for some reason PSP is refusing to let it go, like taking forever to make a thumbnail, or writing data to the metadata after an edit, that might explain it. But in general use, I don't see this.

3) Couldn't tell you, I don't experience this either.

4) I see this a lot with my camera as well. If I remember correctly, and I may not be, Lenses are calibrated to the camera body. So they have the lens in their database but aren't sure how to correct it for your camera specifically. Or they have the lens and none of the calibration data attached to it. But you're free to create a calibration profile for it, only need to do it once.

5) Indeed Lightroom's selection AI does look like it makes things easier, and who knows what Corel may bring eventually. But right now, no. Corel gave the following reason for their lack of better AI options. "Corel is smaller than Adobe and has a limited budget, resources, and people to make impressive AI." Instead it looks like they are partnering with another company to handle that part of things.

I would like to add that technically PSP is an alternative to Photoshop, AffinityPhoto, and GIMP. Not Lightroom. AfterShot Pro (not the standard version that comes with PSP 2023) is the lightroom alternative that Corel provides. It has zero AI features and often seems like Corel has stopped developing on it. I personally use the free alternative RawTherapee. Also no AI features, but I like the results more.

[jacobscgc]

Thanks for the response. I tried the save edit history checkbox option, but that did not help.
I checked a bit further and it seems I can delete JPG files just fine, but when I try to delete raw files (NEF) it doesn't work.
Any idea maybe what that could be about?

Thanks,
Chris

[CloudyBright]

I use Lightroom 6 on my computer. It's a great database management tool.
I don't like "subscription" models either and will keep LR as my basic tool.

I never expected PSP to be a database management tool - although it apparently attempts to be so.
But then, is there any "be all, end all" single image management and manipulation tool?

[jacobscgc]

Alright, an update here in case someone experiences the same. I've contacted the support desk and they provided some suggestions, those did not work.
I then removed the application completely, including user data and reinstalled. That solved my issue and I was again able to delete NEF files.
Next, it asked me to update the application, which I did. Then the problem re-appeared.

Anyway, for now, it seems that the update is causing this issue. I've shared the information with the support desk and waiting for a reply.