Which to purchase

[NanaC95565]

Hello there, Which paint shop program is the best one to purchase. I want to be able to take pics and edit them to make embellishments. And also to create my own. Anyone have a suggestion as to which one would be better and easier to work with.
NanaC

[Lee]

As I learned in grad school...

there's no such thing as "best". You can only optimize for your situation, needs and interest. (I love academic doublespeak! )

For most consumers (you want what you want and you want it now!) I recommend DCE AutoEnhance to automatically fix and enhance digital photos. This program allows you to quickly lighten, darken, sharpen, denoise and resize photos. The reason I recommend DCE is because if you ask it to do something dumb, it protects your photos and refuses.

If you want more power (selections, layers, clone, levels, brushes, etc), you need a full featured photo editor. My recommendation in this category is Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE). There are many others including some free programs but you will have the most support with PSE. If you run into a problem with some of these 2nd and 3rd tier programs, you may find yourself "up the creek" (that's a technical term!).

You also have available the tools in SBM. Have you tried those?

Hope that helps.

[NanaC95565]

Thank you Lee. No I didnt realize that I could use sbm for some things like that. What tools do they have and where do I find them. Still kinda new to sbm. Still learning.
NanaC

[NanaC95565]

I foound the tools . Thanks again Lee

[Gizmo]

You may want to check this one out...

NaNa,

Another really GREAT program you may want to check out

PaintShop Pro X by Corel

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel3/Products/Display&pfid=1047024307383&pid=1047025487586

[OnieRN]

I have a question

I had the trial version of Paint Shop Pro on my computer, when I purchased it 3 yrs ago. Is that different from the Corel version PSP? I wasn't impressed with the trial version that I had so I never subscriped to the full version. The trial version always required me to go through a start menu in order to use it. I was never able to just use it the program. You know how SBM gives us 30 days of uninterupted use of the trial version?!?!? The Paint Shop Pro did not. Everytime I clicked on something, that stupid start menu would pop up again. Now tell me.......... Is that the case with the full version of PAINT SHOP PRO by Corel?

nie

[Lee]

PSP was bought by Corel

PaintShop Pro was developed by JASC corporation. About 3 years ago, JASC was bought by Corel and the product suffered. Also, their customer service has been less than stellar. When you buy a complex piece of SW like an image editor, you should be more concerned about support and assistance than the actual program. That's why I always recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements.

[Bee]

At the moment there is an offer in uk for corel painshop pro x, you can purchase the full version for the price of the upgrade version. That makes it £41 instead of about £85 does anyone think that that would be a better buy than photoshop elements In American dollars that would be about $77 instead of about $160 I think. That is for the both the boxed version or the download version. It finishes the 31st of August though.

Thanx.

[Bee]

Posted that last post before noticing your post Lee. Think I left it on this page for a while while I was searching the net then didn't refresh it.

[Lee]

The key to ANY purchase is...

VALUE. If you can get GB£41 worth of value from it, than it's worth it but, if you can't figure out how to use it, then it's worthless at GB£1. In my (not so) humble opinion, there are much better classes and assistance available for PSE than PSP. Ask yourself, "If PSP is such a popular program, why do they feel compelled to cut the price by more than 50%?" Check your spelling, is "pain shop" a Freudian slip?

BTW, I have no relationship, financial or otherwise, with Adobe. In fact, my personal feelings toward Adobe run toward "love-hate" depending on what I'm trying to do at the moment.

[OnieRN]

I apprediate that Lee

SUPPORT, Lee you hit a sore spot with me! Support is always the big key. I have to say, I have 3 DELL computers and will never buy another one because they offer poor support. I kept hearing how great they are and always seeing the commercial on TV. The commercial that really ticks me off is the guy in bed who calls DELL support and gets someone right away and who speaks clearly. My experience with DELL is terrible support. You have to call and sit on hold for hours, then you have to figure out specifically which menu to select for support. God help you if you select one then need to go to another connection because it's another long wait. Then most of the time, their English is so poor. I would rather just take my computer in to someplace like CompUSA, Circuit City or Best Buy and have them fix it. I would rather come back later and pick it up. My time is valueable and sitting on hold with DELL then getting transferred all over the place is not fun. I asked them IF I could take the computor in and have it fixed by someone who supports their warrenty and was told NO, you have to go through their telephonic tech support then be triaged!

Don't get me wrong, the Dell Product is good but the support is terrible. For that reason, I will take your suggestion Lee and look at Adobe!


nie

[srussell]

That's the price we ALL pay for companies like Dell outsourcing to other countries. It costs about 1/4 the amount in a country like India than the US for programmers, phone support...

Sore subject...

[Granny]

I agree with Lee. Ever since Corel bought PSP, the support is worthless. Plus, we used to get monthly downloads with all kinds of wonderful embies, but no more. And I "hate" PSP X". I'm sticking to version 8.

As far as computers are concerned, if you use one a lot, specially for graphics, you are better off having one built for you. Any time you go to a store and buy one off the shell, it's going to have propriatory systems, which put a lot of extra garbage in there you don't need, and makes it a nightmare to get them fixed.

Just a thought.

Granny