re: post #2
I''ve been using Adobe''s Photoshop since Version 3 was new on the market, and subsequently upgraded to each version as it was released, even beta testing a few. I tried JASC''s PaintShop Pro when version 4 came out and laughed, then gave it to my nephews. That was pretty much the end of it for me until recently. A good friend demonstrated PSP8 for me, and I have to say, I have rarely been as surprised and impressed as I am with how much the product has grown.
For all of the items DC listed, extremely large sizes, high resolutions, multiple layers, multiple coloring engines, and pixel-level editing - yep, PSP8 supports those too. PSP8 also has complete support for all Adobe PS compatible plugins and filters, as well as a very impressive built-in filter library and an engine that allows you to create, save, and even export user-defined filters. PSP8 also now has its own scripting engine, similar to Adobe''s Actions, that I like even better than Actions. Batch processing, the ability to customize and save palettes, not only color palettes, but materials pallettes and even individual material swatches, and a very intuitive gradient editor, improved support for bezier curves and vector objects, and more that I''m probably overlooking at the moment all of these things add up to a program that I truly believe is every bit as capable as Photoshop CS. By the way, PSP8(and 7) come bundled with JASC''s Animation Shop 3, which is a very good and easy to use tool for creating .avi files for WB animatioons.
PSP8''s interface is more like Photoshop now, though it still takes some getting used to it. And yes, there are definite differences in the way things are done between the two programs. Things like the way in which Gaussian blurs or gradients are applied for example, I like PS better for the first and PSP better for the second. Working with channels is generally more intuitive to me in PS, but using histograms is much easier and more flexible in PSP. There are plenty of other differences between the two apps, but in the end, I have yet to find anything significant that I could do in one but not the other.
The biggest difference to me is the price. There is just no comparison with PSP8 being about $70 USD retail compared to Photoshop CS at about $550 USD (retail prices, not including upgrade or other discounts). As others have mentioned above, I still think it''s the artist more than the tools that makes the ultimate difference. But in PSP8, you have a very sophisticated set of tools. Take the time to learn them properly and you''ll be amazed at what you can do. If you need assistance, Richard, I''ll be happy to point you to some great learning tools, or you can always email me (just click on my name). I also use yahoo messenger, ICQ, and aol/AIM if you''d like.
P.S. By the way, for those of you like me that have huge files of wallpaper stored as bitmaps, PSP8''s lossless JPEG conversion algorithm is truly amazing in my opinion at preserving image quality while still cutting file sizes to less than half or better. And with the batch conversion utility it just takes a few clicks.
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