Opinions, please, on PSP Photo X2

[prof_yrgacheffe]

Newbie here. I just spent almost 3 hours reading various threads while waiting for my account to be activated. I've got to say, as one member mentioned in a post, that this is the nicest and most informative bunch of group members I've encountered on the net.

I am a newbie, not only to this board, but to ProShow. I haven't done anything with it yet but diddle around checking out the transitions and getting a basic feel for the program. I'm interested in using PSP as a forum for my original photography. Currently I am using Paint Shop Pro 5, so I am a little behind the curve in the state of the art. I'd like to know others' experiences in using PSP Photo X2 with ProShow and with Digital Juice products. Are there any serious limitations in using this $90 program versus the 800-pound gorilla?

Thanks in advance.

Ted

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Ted,
Welcome to this very very nice forum!!

I'm not sure that I'm the best person around to advise on Photoshop vs. PaintShop Pro, because I'm not familiar with Photoshop.
But, I've been using PaintShop Pro for quite a while now, starting with Jasc's free version 4 (I think) and up to today's XII. A lot of years!
Also, I am not a professional anything - not in graphics and not in photography. I have been using Proshow for quite some time now, as a hobby.

For my needs, I've always found PaintShop Pro quite satisfactory. I know that many users claim that Corel has destroyed the original Jasc's product.
Personally, I do not agree with this. It is just that now it is more photography oriented and less graphical. For me, this is a plus.
So far I did not find anything that I wanted to make and the application could not get me to it.
PSP is now a very friendly application, with an excellent help file, that will guide you in some of the most complex graphic tasks.
PSP can open PSD files (that's the format of Adobe Photoshop), and only very rarely it will prompt you with some limitations of linked layers.
(I guess this will answer your question about Digital Juice' Juice Drops).
The new version XII has a Vista look (black background), which I like very much. If you don't like black, you can always switch to the previous white
look.
The only frustrating thing is, of course, the multitude of tutorials and tips and tricks that Photoshop has on the internet, and the plugins. {There are not as many tutorials about PaintShop Pro and not as many free things available. Most of the commercial plugins work in PaintShop Pro exactly as in Photoshop.

And, after having praised PSP so much, now, I'd like to mention to you a 3rd program: Photoshop Elements, which is basically a lite version of Photoshop.
I have some experience with ver. 4 and don't know how the new ver. 6 is.
I found it quite satisfactory as a program, and many on this forum will be able to tell you more about it. Personally, I always came back to PaintShop Pro.

I think that the bottom line of all is that one needs to settle on one specific program and learn it well. When you are very familiar with something, you don't see the limitations anymore.

Hope this helped.

Happy New Year to you and happy shopping.

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Are there any serious limitations in using this $90 program versus the 800-pound gorilla?

I use Photoshop CS3 because I've been using Photoshop since version 5 whenever that was, but I've watched people here doing things with the kid brother, Elements, that I would have thought impossible in anything but my 800-pound gorilla. They've simply done what Cherub said a person should do: learn it well.

My advice is to learn only one program at a time. You know Paintshop Pro, so stick with it at least until you've tamed ProShow. Only then should you look for new mountains to climb.

Barbara

[nannybear Profile Private messageWebsite]

I had Corel Draw 7, Adobe Photoshop 7 and Ulead Photoimpact. None of which I used "masterfully" and then I found this forum. Brian and Paul got me going in Photoshop and I don't use anything else now ( now have PS CS3). There are so many tuts, plugins etc that it helps the learning curve immensely. At least it did for me. Now Barbara, does have a good point. Only try to master one program at a time that has a huge curve or you will drink too much wine or become bald from pulling your hair out! LOL Cheers Jan

[pwholmes Profile Private message]

I've been doing tutorials from Lynda.com and other places on Photoshop Elements 5 and it's amazing what I can do that I never would have discovered on my own. I can't afford the "800lb gorilla" yet, but I'm seeing that if I learn Elements well, when I do get the gorilla, I will already have the knowledge to know how to use it out of the box. Of course there will be a lot of new things to learn and appreciate in the gorilla, like LAB color and actions, etc. (Dang, it would be nice to have actions!), but in the mean time the learning curve and practice I do in Elements will serve me well in Photoshop CS3.

I've also used Ulead and Jasc v8 and actually liked Ulead better, maybe because I got used to it. It kind of allowed you to plaster your layers one on top of the other and then move them around and had lots of good graphics. However, I've now convinced myself that learning Elements is the best thing to do because Photoshop is the de facto standard for good graphics and has the most support.

Paul Holmes

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Paul, when the day comes that you jump up from Elements to CS, your only real roadblock will come with the realization that it pulls no punches, that it names things for what they technically are, and you'll have to translate the friendlier atmosphere of Elements to Photoshop's assumption that you know all the underlying terms.

I thought there was a way to use actions in Elements. No?

Barbara

[pwholmes Profile Private message]

Actually, Barbara, I'm also taking tutorials on Photoshop, itself, on Lynda.com, so that I can slowly familiarize myself with it. This way, when I do get there I'll know where Elements used a work-around to do something and Photoshop has a direct route.

As far as actions go I see there are actions written for Elements but I don't believe you can create them through Elements. So really the actions you can buy or download are more like programmatic add-ins that extend the capability of Elements.

I see actions as desirable for something like taking a group of photos and applying a similar look to them in one fell swoop -- or perhaps you came up with a nice and unique border that you want to apply to the group. I'm sure this only scratches the surface of what actions can do for you, but I can already see a little bit of what I'm missing.

Paul Holmes

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Paul, if I lost the ability to create actions, it would be akin to losing a portion of my memory along with time. For instance, I have one that locates the exact center of the canvas, which is great when creating masks. There's another that resizes a gang of photos for my album software. I've a huge collection that create all kinds of frames, and then there's one that changes the bit size, color space, and dimensions, and then saves as PNG. I've an enormous number of actions that aren't coming to mind at the moment, but each serves to keep me from having to figure things out all over again. Occasionally, I'll create an action on the fly for something I want to do to just a specific group of photos and then never again. Once I'm done, I delete the action.

If for no other reason, actions are a good reason to go over to Photoshop when you can, but there are a whole lot of other reasons too. After all the years of using the program, I'm still learning new things and methods in it.

Barbara

[pwholmes Profile Private message]

Yep. I think it is actions more than anything else at the moment that draws me to the professional version. As I understand better how to use layers, text, shapes, color correction, etc. I find myself realizing that there are many things I would love to duplicate that I did in one picture but of course, in Elements, I have to start from scratch again.

Lightroom, which I do have, has a lot of capability, in that you can group a bunch of similar photos, edit one, apply the edits to all, then maybe tweak each individually. But you can't add frames or text -- you just bring out the best in the photo -- kind of like a pre-edit before the layers stage, if you're going there.

Well, the Christmas season is over, not a good time of year for cab-drivers, and maybe now I'll be able to see the Photoshop fund build up.

Paul Holmes

[prof_yrgacheffe]

A lot of good input. Thanks a lot. Much appreciated.

Ted