PaintShop Pro X5 Ultimate [Old Version]

For the money X5 is hard to beat, but it might be best to go with X6 since it recently came out and claims to be fully 64-bit. This has most of the functionality of Photoshop CS, but at a fraction of the price. My biggest complaint is that it is kind of slow at some of the processing. Some brush on effects can be painfully slow. On the flip side, it comes with the excellent Nik Color Efex which are worth the whole cost of X5 and work just as well on it as they do on Photoshop. If all you work on are 8-bit files (all jpg files are 8-bit per color channel) then it is more than what most people need. If you want to work with 16-bit per channel files then you need a very fast PC or this thing will be much too slow to be practical. My 4-core 3 GHz Athlon with 12 GB ram cringes trying to run this thing editing 16-bit files. So in my view it is a mixed bag. While Elements might be a good alternative, it might not be as good in terms of features. I suggest trying both and then make a choice.

I am pretty impressed with Paintshop after trying its demo, vs Elements and Lightroom.It is very cost effective and has plenty of functionality and is relatively easy to learn. Many external filters work with Paintshop as well.The problem with Adobe is that they have 3 solutions that dont work all that well:1) Photoshop - cost a fortune, very hard to use. Overkill for most.2) Lightroom - more of a WORKFLOW tool than an actual editor. Lacks a lot of functionality.3) Elements - photoshop lite. Lacks a decent amount of functionality that PSP has.The good thing about elements is that you can eventually upgrade to photoshop which is teh gold standard. However, I felt that I would never want to do that and PSP does everything I can imagine. I just liked it a lot more than Elements and felt it was more powerful with more features.I really like being able to download Filters and Plugins. Havent found a lot of free ones that were useful simply because PSP does so much by default! But I did find several that were worthwhile with very specialized effects (like adding a twinkle/star effect at bright points in a picture).-----Lets discuss the addons.* Having "royalty-free" images is worthless for 99% of people. This is a non feature.* The Facial software seemed promising and its theory is sound. But it just doesn't work well at all...only usable for very limited adjustments. Amazingly enough out of all its presets...it doesnt have one for SMILING! Like, WTF else are you going to do with a photo of someone?!? Theres like 20 ways to make them frown and look pissed off and stupid looking, but Confident is the only preset for actual smiling. Doing it manually doesn't work very well either.* The Nik Color Efex 3 is very nice though. It is a Filter program. A filter is similar to the Instant Effects in PSP, except that you have MUCH more control over it. So lets say you want a glamor glow effect. With Efex3 you can dial in exactly how much you want, how much fuzz, how much warmth, etc.They also serve as a reminder of the various creative effects you have at your disposal. Just seeing Graduated Neutral Density available for example reminds me that it might be really handy for this outdoor picture I took where the sky is really bright. Or Bleach Bypass might make a cool effect for this portrait.Note that this version of Efex 3 is SPECIFICALLY MADE FOR PSP! You CAN NOT use Efex 4 upgrade or their HDR or other software as it is not standalone and not PSP compatible.* Finally, I recommend registering by going to Help, Corel Guide, and giving em an email address. Click DO MORE STUFF tab and there are a bunch of freebies you can download and install, including another (really odd) filter assortment, more brush styles, all kinds of stuff.Considering that the Nik Software cannot be used without the Ultimate version, and other filters are usually pretty expensive I would call the Ultimate edition's extras well worth the extra 10 or 20 bucks.. I think you will find Efex3 worth it.

I'm a man of simple needs when it comes to image editing, I need only a few key features and I'm happy using whatever app is available. Knowing this, I decided that I don't really need the full power of photoshop as the pricing of that App is overkill for what I use it for (I've owned photoshop back in the 7, CS, CS2 days) and then I set off in search of an App that will meet my needs...As I said, my needs are simple and there are only Six features that matter to me.1. Pricing2. RAW Conversion, the app has to support RAW file formats for my camera!3. Deconvolution Filter or Smart Sharpening4. Color Management5. Calculations / Arithmetic Tool6. Decent Plug-In SupportThe contenders for my search were GIMP, Photoshop Elements 11, Paint Shop Pro X5 Ultimate, and Photoshop.PRICINGSo, to start my budget is upto $100 and that right there means that the full version of Photoshop is automatically eliminated. I don't do this professionally and in this economy, I cannot afford to spend $30 (Subscription pricing, the crook that keeps on robbing) a month or $600 for just one application.GIMP is free so, that's a fairly good feature to have!Photoshop Elements 11 is anywhere from $70 to $100 so that's safe.Paint Shop Pro X5 Ultimate ranges from $55 to $70 so that's safe as well.The advantage here goes to GIMP with Photoshop CS 6 being completely eliminated.GIMP = 5PSP = 4PSE = 3CS6 = 1RAW CONVERSIONGIMP has no built in functions for RAW Conversion but, there are plug-ins available for it so, by default you cannot just load up a RAW file but, I won't eliminate it because it does have the support.Photoshop would obviously be king of this area but, pricing has eliminated it.Photoshop Elements has the second most feature rich RAW Image Editor with only a few tools removed from the CS6 Plug-in.Paint Shop Pro X5 has a basic plug-in that will convert the images but, don't expect shadow / highlight, curves, lens correction, or any majorly advanced settings in this app because they don't exist.I'll be honest, this is on my list but, given the fact that RAW Therapee is free and my Olympus MFT has a decent RAW Image Editor, it is probably the only area where I would be willing to sacrifice if I had to.With all that said, Photoshop is king and its little sibling clearly beats out the others with PSP X5 Ultimate coming in last.CS6 = 5PSE = 5PSP = 3GIMP = 3DECONVOLUTION FILTER / SMART SHARPENINGHonestly, this is a big tool to be missing! This tool allows you to remove lens blur and sharpen the image in such a way that will not create the Halo effect of a tool like USM. Straight off the bat, GIMP and PSP X5 Ultimate get whacked for not featuring this.Photoshop is again king here, the tools is straight forwardPhotoshop Elements has the same tool so, this is equally as impressive.GIMP has a bastardized version of smart sharpening available via plug-in but, nothing builtin to the app.PSP 11 Ultimate, no such option built into the app but, it does support the leading Smart Sharpening Plug-in in Focalblade. However, this will cost you $60 so, now we've pushed the cost to $115 just to get this feature.CS6 = 5PSE = 5PSP = 3GIMP = 1COLOR MANAGEMENTEach of these apps supports color management to some degree. The more color space options you have the better but, not everyone is going to have to work in LAB or even CMYK (I like to work in CMYK sometimes and having LAB minimizes color clipping when going from space to space) so, this might not be huge for some.Photoshop simply has the best support across the board.GIMP has decent support and works very similar to PSP X5 Ultimate.PSP works a lot like GIMP and supports CMYK, HSL, and RGB.Photoshop Elements is the worst of the bunch with support for only RGB and HSV.CS6 = 5PSP = 4GIMP = 4PSE = 2CALCULATIONS / ARITHMETIC TOOLThis is one of the biggest tools I use because you cannot do professional quality Black and White Conversions without this tool! I would actually consider this a game changer as you cannot get this option via plug-in but, you can manually emulate it with the Channels tool.Photoshop has the Calculations tool and it is hands down the most simple to use with great results.PSP X5 Ultimate features the Arithmetic Tool and it is more flexible than the Calculations tool in CS6 but, you have to do the blending mode changes manually after the conversion has been completed. Still, this is a great tool and it works really well!GIMP has no such tool but, you can use the Channels for the same function if you know what you're doing. This is not the easiest approach and honestly, it takes quite a bit of skill to pull off with the same quality as CS6 and PSP.PS Elements has no such tool and no access to the Channels tool directly! To say that B&W Conversion is severely crippled in this app would be an understatement.CS6 = 5PSP = 5GIMP = 3PSE = 0DECENT PLUGIN SUPPORTThis area is a bit of an anomaly because you have access to many of the same commercial plugins across 3 of the competitors and the fourth has a whole set of free plugins that you just don't have access to in the other 3.CS6, PSE, and PSP all use the Adobe Plugin Engine and as long as care is taken for the development of the plugin, it will literally work across all 3 devices! This means, there's no real advantage to paying $600 for many plugins and that honestly hurts CS6 as far as value goes in my personal opinion.GIMP cannot run any plugins from the group above but, there are a ton of free plugins available with varying degrees of quality, at the GIMP registry.The one item that tips the scale here for me, is the fact that PSP X5 Ultimate comes bundled with FACEFILTER Studio 2 and NIK Color EFEX Pro 3 which would cost you close to $200 to include with PSE and CS6 (seriously, the NIK tools are professional grade all the way and some of the best in the business).PSP = 5CS6 = 4PSE = 4GIMP = 4CONCLUSIONFor me and the criteria I have, I found that PSP X5 Ultimate was a good cost / feature compromise and unfortunately, I will need to spend $60 to get the Deconvolution Filter but, I get about $200 worth of plugins to offset that and Corel has done a good Job with this app as I've really enjoyed using the trial version (I'll be making my purchase before my trial runs out).And no, I'm not sayin this is as good as Photoshop at all! My score for CS 6 was clearly weighed down by the cost of the app and if you make money doing digital imaging then you will absolutely not find a better product than Photoshop period and it is not as close as these numbers indicate, they are weighted by my needs.CS6 = 25PSP = 24PSE = 19GIMP = 20