Paint Shop Pro vs Photoshop

[Swampy]

>> I am in the market for a new computer and I was not considering the Mac since I would have to buy Photoshop for Macs...

If you buy a new Mac you can buy the PC version of Photoshop and run it on the new Intel Mac under Bootcamp or Parallels. That's the beauty of the Macintosh, you can run all your old PC software or you can run Apple software. Both run natively at tremendous speeds. Apple just lowered the price on their entry level 20" iMac to $1199.

[albatrosss]

Margaret,

I stand corrected. Will give it a look.

Thanks

[kjmdigital]

I too am a photoshopper, and when I look at the things as a whole, I feel its a better way for me to go, because of the many other applications it integrates so well with. I dont know if id have the same flexibility with Paint Shop Pro pro.
I employ PSCS with other apps such as After Effects, Illustrator, Encore DVD, Indesign, and Premier Pro. It just good to know that you can import without any problems.

Besides, had it not been for photoshop, Id not have known about this awesome site !........lol

long live longisland !

kjmdigital

[albatrosss]

Swampy,

Thanks for the info. I guess that I am making decisions based upon lack of information.

[Steve Conway]

Wow, a lot of both sides of the street here!

Well, let me just add to the mix, or confusion, as the case may be.

I primarily use Paint Shop Pro because I started out with it, I think it was on discount. It was version 5. I am now using 9, although I have both 10 and 11 but there is little change in either from 9 that I care about. Maybe one day when I have nothing better to do I will load 11 and check it out.

Anyway I have added multiple plugins etc to 9 and have been very happy with it for the most part. However, something no one has mentioned is the amount of tutorial books etc that flood the shelves in book stores for Photoshop while maybe one or two show up for PSP. Also PS actions, known as scripts in PSP, will not run in PSP, or vice-versa for that matter.

There are actions all over the internet and they will do some very good photo art work. So I started to think how I could afford PS to run actions. Answer? I bought an old version of PS, version 6. Got it dirt cheap. Then I found out that there are some filters and other stuff in later versions of PS that I really wanted. So here is how I solved that problem. I waited until they were about to come out with PS Elements 5 and I bought 4. Got it for less than half price on a clearance sale.

So now I have PSP, PS 6 for running actions, and PSE 4 for the PS tutorials that seem to be everywhere also. Not many people post PSP tutorials to these forums, except the one that is for PSP.

I still use PSP the most, but I will swap back and forth when there is something from PS that I want or need for a project.

I know that not all the newer PS stuff will work in the versions I have, but so far I can do most of the PS things that I want to do.

And some of the PS books on photo art are really incredible.

Steve C.

[albatrosss]

Steve,

Thank you very much for your insights. Now I am really curious. I am getting PSP for Dummies from the library today. Just want to see what PSP does in comparison to what I know about Photoshop. Last night I went to a site with PSP tutorials and I saw quite a bit of Photoshop in PSP. When I asked the question I never thought that I would get so much information from so many people.

Thanks to everyone for the input.

[Kraellin]

Kraellin,

You deserve some flattery for your contributions to this forum.

thank you always nice to have a little validation

and i hope you find what you're looking for.

and steve, you're just weird but, it's a good kind of weird

[chillin]

I like Paint Shop Pro, but the 11th is a memory hungry beast, slows down a lot. Photoshop manages the RAM much better. The best version of Paint Shop Pro was 9 the worst 10, the 11 is OK I use it for certain things that the Photoshop can't do

[albatrosss]

Surprised to hear that PSP can do something that Photoshop can't. Would it be too much of a problem to briefly indicate what it is that a $600.00 program cannot do that an $80.00 one can? Quite possible that is a very naive question but my curiousity is getting the best of me.

[chillin]

jpeg artifacts removal

[hkhailey]

I use PSP 9 and am quite happy with it. But here's an option.
Go to www.corel.com and download the trial version of PSP Photo XI.

I tried it and liked it but there weren't enough differences to make it really worth upgrading right now. It is pretty memory intensive and I have an older system that is limited to 1 gig of Ram.

As far as tutorials on the web, there are tons of them, you just have to sort through all the cutesy stuff to get to the meat.

The newsgroups on the Corel site are frequented by numerous experts that are more than glad to help or point people to where they can find help. There is a pretty active community there, especially in the Photography and PSP X & XI groups.

But if Price is a consideration, there is always "The Gimp", which is Open Source. I've played around with it some out of curiosity and it seems to be fairly comprehensive. Free is Good :>

Take care, Keith Hailey

[Steve Conway]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

thank you
and steve, you're just weird but, it's a good kind of weird

Everyone tells me that.

Steve C.

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by chillin

jpeg artifacts removal

Actually photoshop does have that feature although I'd say the PSP version is a little bit better.

Bart

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by winwintoo

I use masks all the time in Elements.

Margaret

Elements 3 (which is what my wife has) can't do masks on a raster layer. It does, however, do masks on adjustment layers.

For another $30, however, you can buy a book called "hidden power of photoshop elements" which includes a disk that lets you get access to masks by running an action.

Bart

[chillin]

Yes indeed... you’re right Bart. I like to use “Topaz DeJPEG” when I’m in Photoshop.