RSSCorel Updates Paint Shop Pro, Photo Album
By Ed Oswald | Published September 6, 2005, 6:41 PM
Corel on Tuesday announced new versions of both Paint Shop Pro and Photo Album, the first updates to either product since the company acquired the titles in October 2004 through the purchase of Jasc Software.
Corel says the focus behind Paint Shop Pro X is ease of use. This is evidenced by the addition of the "Integrated Learning Center." The tools included in this area will help to create professional-looking results regardless of experience level.
However, Corel also is aiming the product at professionals as well. Advanced photo editing controls will allow users with more experience to fine-tune their modifications to digital images.
Other new features in Paint Shop Pro X include Smart Photo Fix that analyzes photos and suggests settings to enhance picture quality, Makeover Tools to fix skin blemishes, whiten teeth and darken skin tone, and the Object Remover that can remove unwanted objects from images and replace them with the background surrounding it.
Photo Album 6, meanwhile, now allows for direct downloading of images from a digital camera into the application and automatically rotates and places images to a location specified by the user.
The new Photo Finder will automatically search a user's hard drive for images and at them to their library, and Photo Trays can be used to sort images to e-mail, print or share photos.
Users will also be able to find recently downloaded images through a list that shows the last ten groups of photos downloaded.
The new releases are available immediately through Corel's Web site and will be sold through retail in the coming weeks. Paint Shop Pro X comes with a standard version of Photo Album 6 and will retail for $129 USD. A Deluxe Edition of Photo Album 6 is also available for $49 USD, and includes three bonus software titles.
A 30-day trial of Paint Shop Pro X is available for download via FileForum.
I've had every version since I think version 3.
This will be the last one I ever buy.
I do not like the idea that they dumped Animation Bundle.
I can't believe they are charging the same price for just the upgrade.
As Jasc did for PSP9 with animation included.
I have many PSP friends who won't be doing business with Corel again like me,.
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|I still use Paint Shop Pro 7 at home. Works fine for what I need it for
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|How come I have to give Corel my personal details before I can download the trial version? Corel does not even say WHY I need to set up a user account? Looks like we are building their PS marketing database for free.
And the Yahoo Toolbar???? Poor Corel, having to stoop to bundling crap. Maybe we should hold a collection for them. I got a s*** button they can have.
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|I just finished downloading it and here's what I think about it. I'll compare it to my copy of Photoshop Elements. First of all, Corel forces you to create and activate an account before you can even install it. That's total bs; points taken away there. Maybe that is just for the trial version though. After that annoyance was out of the way it installed with no problems. At the end of the install it had an option to install the Yahoo Toolbar; is Corel so strapped for cash that they have to include third party junk in their installers? It was not checked by default however so I can overlook it. It doesn't seem to launch much faster than Photoshop, but it was better. Once loaded up it is much more responsive though, I like that. The workspace is more cramped by default, but it's simple to turn off the "learning center" and preview area. Of course it doesn't have as many features as PS; I miss the healing brush in particular but there may be an equivalent to it that I haven't found yet. The tools it does have are much more intuitive than PS, especially things like the layers menu. It has a feature called Digital Camera Noise Removal that works quite well. I've only used it a few minutes of course but I can see this as a very nice Photoshop replacement.
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|Just an advice, Banquo. If you miss the healing brush much (and you do not like makeover - blemish fixer tools in PSP X , available on the left of the screen) you should take a look here: http://www.stepok.com/eng/index.htm In the past the author of Turbo Photo offered Stepok's Digital Beauty (discontinued), which was a set of different healing brushes. Turbo Photo is more complex and universal. TP is shareware, so you will have to dig a bit in your pocket, however, PSCX + TP < PS CS2 so it is not so bad. The author of the program is not a native speaker and it shows :-/ It does not annoy me much, but it surely disqualifies the product if you are a purist ;-)
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|I liked Jasc owning this software and when it was at version 7...
The rest are slow and slightly buggy.
Ill take it over the overpriced/hyped photoshop though.
No reason in the world PS needs to cost that much.
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|Photoshop is not a consumer application. If you want to compare the price to PSP then look to Photoshop Elements.
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|If PS CS2 is not a consumer application why, the hell, Adobe sells it to the public?
Moreover, the policy of Adobe is insane. PS CS2 costs around a cool thousand greenbacks in Europe http://forums.dpreview.c...04&message=13108927 What is more, Adobe is one of few American companies that does not sell their products abroad directly and "regulate" their prices as described above.
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|They sell it to anyone who wants it; who are they to say the person at home buying it is not a graphics professional? They certainly aren't going to stop anyone from buying it, but it's not really aimed at home users and the price reflects that. As for the price being too high the professionals and companies that do buy it make a LOT of money in their work and the cost of Photoshop is no big deal; it's worth it to them. If no one was buying it Adobe wouldn't be coming out with new versions ever year or so. I certainly can't afford it though, that's why I use Elements. :)
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|Time to lay these apps to rest, kinda like Netmeeting, Netscape, and FireFlop.
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|Time to lay PSP to rest? I guess Corel forgot to call and ask you. As long as people are buying these programs there is obviously a reason to continue making them. The fact that you don't use them doesn't mean a whole lot. Oh, and using names like M$ and Fireflop is childish.
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|Before spending a lot of money, try the following FREE programs:
*Picasa from Google http://picasa.google.com/index.html
*Paint.net
http://www.download.com/...00-2192_4-10338147.html
(download.com has version 2.0 Go to the home page of paint.net to get the most recent version.)
*Gimp http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html
(On the same page, you can download the GTK+ 2 for Windows version 2.6.9 (if you don't already have it), which is neccessary to run Gimp.
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|Picasa is nice and it's all many people really need. I haven't tried Paint.net but I'll check it out. :)
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|Gone is Animation Shop-why don't Corel intergrate or update it?
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|O great. That incredible bastion of incompetence in quality control and quintessential master of buggy programming has taken the last great small and swift graphics program and "updated" it.
I wonder how many centuries quality control on this sonce-sterling package has just devolved in one fell swoop?
The horror, THE HORROR!
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