Paint Shop Pro 9 Reviewed [Archive] - Thoughts Media Forums

Tim Adams

03-04-2005, 06:00 PM

<img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_box.jpg" /> Product Category: Digital Imaging Manufacturer: <a href="http://www.jasc.com/">Jasc Software</a> Where to Buy: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=jasonsego&amp;path=tg/detail/-/B0002W2UMW/qid=1109110496/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/?v=glance&amp;s=software&amp;n=507846">Amazon.com</a> [Affiliate] Price: $109.99 USD System Requirements: 300 MHz processor or faster, Microsoft® Windows® 98SE, 2000 (SP4), ME, XP, 256 MB of RAM, 500 MB of free hard drive space, 16-bit color display adapter at 800x600 resolution, and Microsoft® Internet Explorer 6.0 or later Pros:<li>Price; <li>Myriad of tools; <li>Scripting capabilities.Cons:<li>Slow; <li>Myriad of tools = less available screen space.Summary: I've been a Paint Shop Pro since its early days as a shareware .bmp editor. Fast and functional, it did exactly what you expected it could do (and new features came quickly). There have been numerous upgrades and changes since then - but as you and I well know, with features come the dreaded bloat. Is Paint Shop Pro 9, with all its functionality still fast and useful? In this Photoshop age, can it compete with the higher priced packages on the market? Read on for the full review!<!> <PAGEBREAK> Features, Features, And More Features All I can say is, wow. Even coming from version 7, version 9 is quite a different beast (in both good and not so good ways). Features abound in every nook and cranny. And because there are so many new features in this newest version of Paint Shop Pro, this is the slowest running version that I've used. But more on that later. First, let's go over some of the major changes in this latest release (taken from Jasc's site): Photo<li>Digital Camera Noise Removal Filter scans photos and removes image noise while intelligently preserving image textures; <li>Chromatic Aberration Removal Filter eliminates the purple fringe that often appears in digital photographs; <li>Fill Flash Filter corrects the underexposure of shadows. The Backlighting Filter compensates for overexposed areas; <li>Raw camera images. Paint Shop Pro 9 includes integrated support for Raw camera images (digital negatives) from several popular camera models; <li>Set custom white balance, exposure and sharpening levels when converting Raw camera images for use in Paint Shop Pro. Art<li>Art Media tools include Oil Brush, Acrylic Brush, Chalk, Pastel, Crayon, Colored Pencil and Marker; <li>Palette Knife and Smear Tool realistically mix paints on the canvas. The Art Eraser provides an easy way to remove paint from the canvas; <li>A new Mixer Palette provides an off-canvas area to experiment and mix custom colors together; <li>Art Media Layers allow users to adjust the canvas texture, lighting and paint wetness properties of their artwork; <li>Use Image Tracing options as an easy way to paint a photograph or other image using realistic brush strokes. Graphics<li>Rectangle and Ellipse Tools simplify buttons, banners and other custom graphics. The Rectangle tool gives full control over rounded corners for custom buttons; <li>Symmetric Shape Tool allows users to create polygons and stars then edit them into custom artistic shapes. Users can edit shape properties at any time, not just at creation; <li>The Text Tool features vertical text layout options and new anti-alias rendering choices that render cleaner text at smaller font sizes; <li>A simplified Pen Tool makes it easier than ever to add lines and curves to graphics; <li>The new Displacement Map Filter creates custom two- or three-dimensional surface effects for graphics based on an underlying image; <li>Users can add spin, twist and zoom blur effects to images with the Radial Blur Filter. Productivity<li>New History Palette tracks each command applied to an image, making it easy to manage complex editing projects; <li>Powerful Selective Undo functionality allows users to easily undo any individual editing step in a document’s history. Save selected history steps to the clipboard or as scripts for use with another image; <li>Resource Categorization: Users can now organize their Paint Shop Pro resource files by projects or subjects in flexible resource categories; <li>New Text Options in print layout make it easier than ever to add custom captions and titles to photo layouts; <li>A new Information Window in the browser allows users to view image details, creator information, and EXIF data for any selected image. Sort images in the Browser using EXIF data to find specific photos. And that's just the "New Features" for version 9! While I doubted that Jasc intended to imply this, but with the current splash screen (Figure 1), it screams of slowdowns galore if you intend to run this application with anything else (reminiscent of another widely used digital imaging <a href="http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/main.html">package</a>). <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_splash.jpg" /> Figure 1: The introductory splash screen for Paint Shop Pro 9. Thankfully, subsequent loads started much faster than the initial startup. I did experience some overall slowness while using version 9 with other applicatoins that I never experienced with version 7. But, as a wise (ha!) Microsoft rep. once told me, people want functionality, and functionality increases bloat. Don't follow this line of thinking Jasc! We want fast, non-bloated, AND functional. <PAGEBREAK> A Tool For Every Job Not surprisingly, with all those built-in capabilities, one would need a massive set of tools (Figure 2). Anything from selection, to text, to painting, to objects and history - it almost necessitates a second monitor just to be efficient. Thankfully, these tools can be moved around, pinned/unpinned, and even hidden depending on your current needs (Figure 3). <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_tools.jpg" /> Figure 2: The tools of Paint Shop Pro 9 (these can be individually docked and pinned as needed). <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_layout.jpg" /> Figure 3: My normal tool configuration when using a single monitor. Some tools give you multiple functions (such as History (Figure 4), Scripts, and Layers). For example, once you've found a set of tools/configurations that you would like to use on multiple images, you can use the History toolbar to save those steps as a Quickscript which then can be easily accessed later. <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_history.jpg" /> Figure 4: An example History (from the photo restore shown later in the review). What really excites me the most about Paint Shop Pro 9 is the Scripting capabilities. There's nothing worse than preparing 100+ images for a website and having to adjust each one individually (even though the settings are the same). With the Scripting tool (Figure 5), this frustration disappears with what really amounts to a single mouse click. And if you don't care for a step that is included in the defaults, then you can edit it, step through it (skipping if you want), or even create your own. They even had the foresight (because the scripts are written in Python), to have Trusted and Restricted scripts - avoiding possible malicious scripts from doing naughty things to your computer while you aren't around. <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_script.jpg" /> Figure 5: The script tool with a smattering of the scripts included. Seem a tad overwhelming? Well have no fear. Jasc has a great <a href="http://www.jasc.com/community/?">community</a> section on their website (free downloads, forums, and newsletters) that complements the 502 page User Guide. <PAGEBREAK> Creativity Without Limits When Jasc says that Paint Shop Pro 9 gives you "Creativity Without Limits", they really aren't kidding. Armed with a bit of knowledge and the right tools, you can accomplish quite a bit with this application. And I'm finding new things every day. Here are some examples: First, a tool that I've been using almost non-stop, the One Step Photo Fix. It allows you to take any image (although it's designed for photos), and make it new and shiny in one single click (Figures 6 and 7). <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_onestep1.jpg" /> Figure 6: Mr. Swimmy (the original image). <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_onestep2.jpg" /> Figure 7: Mr. Swimmy after the One Step Photo Fix. Note the clarity of the water. Taking the One Step Photo one step further, we use can use the Sloppy Edges script to create borders (Figures 8 and 9). <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_border1.jpg" /> Figure 8: The original shot (Crater Lake).. <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_border2.jpg" /> Figure 9: The Crater Lake shot, One Step Photo Fix, and Sloppy Edges border. Of course, you can do more than just One Step Photo Fix and borders. You can even give your images an artistic feel by using one of the Artistic scripts or tools (Figures 10 and 11). <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_watercolor1.jpg" /> Figure 10: The original Grand Canyon image. <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_watercolor2.jpg" /> Figure 11: Grand Canyon image with Watercolor then One Step Photo Fix. With a little elbow grease, you can even fix photos that have been damaged using the Scratch Removal and Clone tools (Figures 12 and 13). <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_restore1.jpg" /> Figure 12: The original damaged slide that I scanned. <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/762/ta_psp_restore2.jpg" /> Figure 13: After 30 minutes of work, Paint Shop Pro has helped me clean up the damaged photo ten-fold. Conclusions Overall, I found that I could deal with the slowness on most levels. It was still frustrating, but for the price, one can't complain too much. Jasc has released a great product with version 9 (especially with the inclusion of scripting), and hopefully there will be a patch in the future to really speed things up. Now I just need to find another monitor for all these tools...