PhotoShop vs Paint Shop Pro

I am aware that PhotoShop is the "industry standard" but having used it and PSP (at a basic level) I am suprised that Paint shop Pro is not used by more photographers, particularly Pentax users.

One of the reasons I use Pentax equipment is because it offers very good value for money - Canikon users may spend a lot more on their equivalent equipment and it may also seen by many as the "industry standard". I see these two software packages in a similar light, so why is it that more Pentax users aren't using Paint Shop Pro?

I bought PSP X2 Ultimate a year or so ago, and have just purchased X3 Ultimate (see "leads to deals") for far less that the upgrade price and both purchases came to less than 10% of the price of PhotoShop. Maybe I am not at a deep enough level yet, but PSP seems a very good package with all the features I need (so far!).

Am I alone in my choice :

Many prefer PSE !! Photoshop Elements

it's a fraction of the price of PS but similar in the way it works, which means you can easily move up if required

Most of us don't need any more than Photoshop Elements. The trouble is, for some of the stuff I do, there are just a couple of critical things missing.

However, I'm happily using CS2 for everything and don't find any need to upgrade to a later version.

I used to use PSP X2 until it stopped working on my computer, and was happy enough with it. However, whatever I tried I couldn't get it to work again. I gather that these kind of technical problems aren't uncommon with PSP.

After this I installed a copy of PSE I'd got free with my Wacom tablet and I haven't looked back - particularly with the added functionality added by Grants tools. I do find PSE generally more user friendly.

I used PSP X2 and it worked fine with my K10d. I then bought a GX20 and was horrified that all my shots were massively overexposed, which I put down to being my fault.

Some months later I took some moon shots and couldn't understand why they were coming out grey.

I decided to download the trial version of PS4 and all the shots which looke terrible on PSP looked exactly as they should!

Fundementally PSP was 'autocorrecting' many of my shots - it simply couldn't interpret the data correctly - and I had written off lots of great holiday shots.

I now only use PS and have never looked back!

PSP didn't used to handle AdobeRGB..... I've a feeling that
it still doesn't.

The Serif editor? came out with top readers votes in one of the
monthly mags recently.

We have both PSP 11 and PSE 9 and have to say we think it's 'horses for courses'

We find PSP easier to use and more iniuitive but it does crash on occasion. It also seems better if you want to do 'graphics' enhancements e.g. drawing a proposed conservatory onto a pic of the back our house for a Planning application.

We only got PSE9 when it was v cheap on Amazon, otherwise would have stayed with just PSP.

Some of the tools are great but find it difficult to get into it's 'mindset' and can't find things easily. Find the split & interactions between Organiser parts and Edit parts annoying. But, there is almost unlimited help available online to get us there and once we have used it more got used to it I'm sure it will be great.

It's just if you want to do something you tend to reach for the tool that you know you can do it with in 5 min. rather than the one where you will need to spend 30 mins finding out what to do before you do it

I used to use PSP 7 years ago, so eventually bought PSP X3. BUT nothing but trouble trying to install it so have given up on it for the time being
Andy

I use Corel Photopaint. I've used it for over 10 years and works fine for my use.

99.99999% of stuff I do in Lightroom now

We have Photoshop CS3 extended and I have never ever used it.

Everything I do gets done in Aperture 3.

I use Lightroom for most of my work.

I used Photoshop Elements 2 up until a week ago for anything more complicated. Hugin for panoramas and a few other bits here and there.

I now use Photoshop Elements 9 as it is the first one to really bring significant changes. I use it more now as I can bump files back and forth between Lightroom, Photoshop and Première.

I don't really see how CS products really bring 10x (as it costs 10x as much) the number of features. Elements is powerful enough to do practically everything.

I've only ever used Photoshop so stuck with it. Some of the functions in cs5 are just outstanding, like drawing an outline around a random person you dont want in a shot and it will remove them and fill in the background from the rest of the image. Also being able to bend or straighten things like limbs or flowers and such like is just amazing.

Elements 9 has content aware fill as well but I never find it is anywhere near as good as spending time doing it by hand.

Puppet wrap does look interesting but again at the moment I draw the changed as it allows me to correct for light/shadows.