Photosop cs3 vs Paintshop Pro X2

I have both cs3 and x2 installed on my pc and laptop , just wondered what you guys thought was the best for features and ease of use ive tried getting into photoshop with magazines and books but im not liking the feel of it , obviously paintshop pro x2 is alot cheaper and a new user magazine has just been released this month so getting into it is going to be alot easier but long term am i going to regret not going down the photoshop route - do people just choose this program because everyone says its the best and without really knowing much about it?

Last I used was CS3 and PaintShop Pro X.
But at the time, the color management of PSPX was atrocious.
Other than that, PSp has many wonderful, user friendly features.

One of the best ones is image straightening. Have an image tht is keystoned or othrwise skewed... just draw a box indicating what should be square/rectangular and in three seconds, WALLA!! You have a straight image.
The same functionality in CS3 would require pulling points of the four corners of the full image to make it look right. Even the lens correction in PhotoShop takes waaayy too long to make a skewed image look right.

PhotoShop in general has the advantage of having an abundance of tutorials. Most would work on PSP but you have to convert words, and sometimes create your own steps to make up for differences.

PSP also has some really nifty paint-like effects. If I ever get into painting from scratch, PSP would be high on the list. There are no comparable capabilities in PhotoShop.


The major benefit of CS3 over PSPX was speed. PSP has always been written in what seemed to be an interpreted language by Macromedia and has been very slow. Even after Corel bought it out and supposedly re-wrote much from scratch, the tool was very slow.
Maybe just not enough time spent on optimizing actions for viewable image v.s. full image??? Either way, two seconds to draw a line in PSP v.s. 1/2 second in PhotoShop was a big deal to me.

On that note, drawing with a pad... Paintshop Pro did not seem to handle pressure changes as well as PhotoShop. Although I thought the drawing style applied was sometimes more natural than Photoshop.


The drawing speed and the color management outweighed the other benefits of PSP.

Overall and more generalized, I think you're right. People may go out to buy it because it is simply said to be the best. I don't know if that is true. It is certainly the most popular and that makes it easy to get answers on what can often be a very difficult area to learn.

If you have the creative ability to learn on your own, and as more tutorials are mde for PSP, I'd pobably look at that over PhotoShop.
Personally I think Adobe is going down hill on adding useful features and quality in PhotoShop. They are gearing more towards ripping out features so they can make more separate products and bring in more money.

I have tried quite a few lately to try and find one I can get on with and find Lightroom simply the best so far.
It seems to be missing a few of the clever processing tricks but for actual quality it seems to beat the others hands down for me.

Photoshop is the professional image program, so I really think that if you are being serious then it is the only way to go. It is complicated in that it covers everything that professionals need, but it doesn't all need to be used and it doesn't take too long to learn the basics.

There are plenty of other programs though that will do much of what PS does and at a far lower cost.

Thanks for all the advice - i have now chosen the paintshop route as i like being individual! also the release of a new user magazine that is starting with the basics of x2 is also a great help (photohop book and mags expect you to know the basics before you start - i mean what is the magic wand!!!) personally i just like the feel of x2.
I dont think there is a right and wrong choice on this topic as its all down to personal circumstance...............

So right... but if you plan to do this professionally and work with or for someone else, then you may not have a choice but to choose a right or wrong product.

If you have the freedom to start fresh I would have to agree that PSP will have more user friendly features that can allow you to get some tasks done quicker than with PS. Again, Adobe has just not been adding user friendly features... probably due to the fear that it wont be a "professional" product if it is too easy to use. Like the old mouthwash commercial; "...it tastes like medicine to let you know its working..."

Anyway... I think there are a lot more tutorials for PSP now than there were even a few years ago, plus one would hope that its features have kept getting better so many more of the PS tutorials will likely work pretty well with minimal translation.


Good luck and have fun!

PSP X2 is very good, no question. In some ways better than PS CS3, and other ways not. As for professionalism, don't get caught up in the Adobe snobbery, it's plain ridiculous. If you know what you're doing, with regard to image editing, then X2 will allow you to produce equally "professional" results as PS, no question.

I've been a professional in the web design/graphics industry for over ten years and I've steadfastly refused to shell out huge bucks for PhotoShop and Illustrator. I do, however, use Dreamweaver and (perhaps more relevantly, Fireworks) as there's sadly no real competition. And when clients have sent me PS and Illustrator files then I've either opened them in Fireworks (which is a fantastic program, and MUCH better than PS for image manipulation and creation) or in Xara (which embarrasses Illustrator for 99% of all tasks). I've been involved in projects for the likes of Motorola, GE, Vodafone, American Express and many more big names, and have produced first class photo/artwork without needing PS.

Simply use what you need, rather than what everyone else tells you to use, and the only way to find out, is to download a trial of the relevant software and see how it works for you.

Surely we all do that already, otherwise this would be a Canon forum.

Dan

ROFL

I had used PSP back in the old days, now on CS3 which I find meets all my needs, its just finding out about all the other stuff it does.

Has a vertical learning curve, but it does get easier, plenty tutorials all over the web.

Also I love Bridge software that comes bundled with CS3.

[quote="amoringello"]There is a Corel PSP Magazine coming out. At six quid a copy it is not cheap, but I have popped for a six months subscription, which is slightly less painful.

Will be interesting to see where they target it, I have been with PSP since the shareware days, have missed a few of the upgrades, but currently on X2, it does everything I need as a DSLR photographer. Hopefully, it will not be pitched at too basic a level.

http://www.imagineshop.co.uk/mag_home.php?magID=51

For those on a limited budget it's really worth taking a look at Photoshop Elements.

It has most of the functions available in CS3 including a cut-down version of Adobe Camera Raw. It also has an excellent cataloguing function including the ability to tag media by geographical location, having a mapping function built in.

Another very useful gizmo, which IMO is better than the CS3 one, is the 'Magic Extractor' function which can separate the subject from the background with a few easy clicks.

[quote="timper"]Im with you there brother! i too have subcribed to the same mag and it works out approx half price and it lands on my door mat each month, im getting on well with psp and am finding it easier and more intuitive than cs3 ..............

I have CS3 extended and I dont even know what the extended bit means and I dont think I want to know.
CS3 is too much for my needs and I dont have the time or inclination to do too much with it.
I was spending too much time at the computer instead of hunting out good locations for shooting photos.
I have photoshop 4 which is good and cost nothing and keeps everything in order.
I would try the Corel to see how it feels but the cost would be important as I have too many other things to buy.

[quote=
One of the best ones is image straightening. Have an image tht is keystoned or othrwise skewed... just draw a box indicating what should be square/rectangular and in three seconds, WALLA!! You have a straight image.
The same functionality in CS3 would require pulling points of the four corners of the full image to make it look right. Even the lens correction in PhotoShop takes waaayy too long to make a skewed image look right.

[/quote]Photoshop has a very quick tool for straitening an image, the Ruler Tool, OK its buried under the Eye Dropper Tool, but it is there. To use, Select the Ruler Tool drag a line on to anything you want to be horizontal (or vertical), then go to Image>Rotate>Arbitrary and the required angle will already be entered, just click OK and the image will rotate to make the selected line horizontal (or vertical). Time taken about 5 seconds.

Chris