Corel PaintShop Pro X9

[budwzr]

Any feedback on this software? Is it pen enabled? Is it worth the moolah? I'm looking for unique collage and photo effects.

[usually_quiet]

Any feedback on this software? Is it pen enabled? Is it worth the moolah? I'm looking for unique collage and photo effects.

In the event that you don't get the feedback that you want, there is a free trial: http://www.paintshoppro.com/en/free-trials/

[leghorn]

Or maybe this could be helpful...
- http://www.paintshoppro.com/en/products/paintshop-pro/ultimate/#compare
- http://www.paintshoppro.com/static/psp/docs/products/paintshop-pro/x9/pspx9-version-co...-matrix-en.pdf

[lomitus]

Any feedback on this software? Is it pen enabled? Is it worth the moolah? I'm looking for unique collage and photo effects.

This is JUST my own personal opinion, but which image editing software you use, tends to depend on WHAT you are doing ("the right tool for the right job" and such). Coral is a good program...I've used it many times, but personally I find it a bit more appropriate for a production environment (like laser etching and such). It should do what you want as far as image editing, but personally I would lean towards Adobe Photoshop myself. Photoshop is, arguably, the "industry standard" for image editing and personally I find it easier to use than Coral (but then I grew up with Photoshop...didn't get into Coral until much later when I went back to college again). Likewise, while I don't know for sure about Coral, if you're looking for "photo effects", there are TONS of various filters and plugins available for Photoshop...some pretty wild stuff out there really. Both programs ARE worth the money and I believe both offer demos (or "light" versions) so you can compare. At the end of the day, the difference between PS and Coral is much like the difference between a PC and a mac...both essentially do the same thing, but some folks prefer one, some get conned into using the other (LOL).

As far as "pen enabled", I assume you're talking about a graphics tablet (like a Wacom)? If I'm not too terribly mistaken (and someone please correct me if I am), those tend to work with just about any graphics program because essentially it replaces your mouse...more or less does the same thing as a mouse, just does it in a different way. In fact I've known 1 or 2 artists that just ditched their mouses and use their tablets for everything from browsing the internet to playing solitaire. Personally I find the tablets rather annoying myself...about the ONLY thing I really use them for is doing "hair" in a vector program like Adobe Illustrator...but again I grew up doing graphics with a mouse, so that's what's comfortable for me.

Now with all that said, if one of your concerns is "Is it worth it?", have you tried Gimp yet? If not and your just doing image editing, you may wish to check it out...it's FREE and it's actually a pretty decent program. If nothing else, for the money it's well worth poking around at a bit.

Alrighty, hope that helps!

[SameSelf]

What is Coral? Never heard of that program before.

[budwzr]

OK, appreciate the feedback.

[lomitus]

What is Coral? Never heard of that program before.

Coral "Paint Shop Pro"...for all intensive purposes, it does much the same thing as Photoshop does. In many ways, it's like Photoshop and Illustrator rolled into one program. I have often used it at the Fab Lab at the college I went to...I've done a fair bit of laser etching and stuff like that using Coral and it does a pretty good job. For myself, it's just a bit frustrating to use because it's like the "anti-Adobe"...everything seems to work backwards from how it works in Photoshop, LOL!!! As I said earlier, it's a lot like the difference between macs and PC's...if you grew up using a mac, you tend to prefer macs, if you grew up on a PC, then Windows is probably much easier for you to use (I've worked on macs rather extensively in college and they STILL annoy the living hell outta me). Another analogy might be the difference between "Lotus" and MS Office...again, they do very similar things, but different programs, different ways of doing it (I guess that Lotus reference tips my age a bit, LOL).

That said, I have to say I'm a bit surprised you haven't heard of Coral...it's been around a LONG time. If I remember correctly, Paint Shop Pro came out from Jasc software around 2004 (Coral bought Jasc) and I think the original "Paint Shop" came out sometime in the early 90's...I remember it being around in '94 when I moved from Aldus Photo Styler (another tip of my age) to Photoshop 4.0 (pre-"CS").

That said, if you're already a Photoshop user, I wouldn't sweat it....pretty much the difference between a Chevy and a Ford - both will get you where you need to go, one just rusts out faster! LOL!

[racer-x]

Paint.NET is free and has a huge amount of free plugins made for it. I don't even bother with photoshop anymore. Lot's of very good free image editors in Linux too...

[Bert09]

You might want to try Krita

[usually_quiet]

What is Coral? Never heard of that program before.

Coral "Paint Shop Pro"...for all intensive purposes, it does much the same thing as Photoshop does. In many ways, it's like Photoshop and Illustrator rolled into one program. I have often used it at the Fab Lab at the college I went to...I've done a fair bit of laser etching and stuff like that using Coral and it does a pretty good job. For myself, it's just a bit frustrating to use because it's like the "anti-Adobe"...everything seems to work backwards from how it works in Photoshop, LOL!!! As I said earlier, it's a lot like the difference between macs and PC's...if you grew up using a mac, you tend to prefer macs, if you grew up on a PC, then Windows is probably much easier for you to use (I've worked on macs rather extensively in college and they STILL annoy the living hell outta me). Another analogy might be the difference between "Lotus" and MS Office...again, they do very similar things, but different programs, different ways of doing it (I guess that Lotus reference tips my age a bit, LOL).

That said, I have to say I'm a bit surprised you haven't heard of Coral...it's been around a LONG time. If I remember correctly, Paint Shop Pro came out from Jasc software around 2004 (Coral bought Jasc) and I think the original "Paint Shop" came out sometime in the early 90's...I remember it being around in '94 when I moved from Aldus Photo Styler (another tip of my age) to Photoshop 4.0 (pre-"CS").

That said, if you're already a Photoshop user, I wouldn't sweat it....pretty much the difference between a Chevy and a Ford - both will get you where you need to go, one just rusts out faster! LOL!

Selfie over-indulges in snark. He's criticizing your misspelling of "Corel" the company which now owns Paint Shop Pro.

I'm still using a very old version, Paint Shop Pro 8, from 2003, when it was a Jasc Software product.

[budwzr]

Paint.NET is free and has a huge amount of free plugins made for it. I don't even bother with photoshop anymore. Lot's of very good free image editors in Linux too...

When i enter 'paint.net' into the browser, i go to 'warren paint.com.

[TreeTops]

The URL is:
https://www.getpaint.net/index.html

[budwzr]

The URL is:
https://www.getpaint.net/index.html

Yah, that looks promising.

UPDATE: Yeah, Paint.net is awesome.

[Budman1]

Fwiw... i have psp x8 and like,its functionality but the registration not only pops up over and over but fails to complete. Its a known bug so i updated and it loses the colors and words in the menus. I wont go to psp 9.