Product Description

Corel Paint Shop Pro X delivers a complete set of photo editing tools to help you create professional-looking photos fast! With Paint Shop Pro X you can fix brightness, color and photo imperfections; compose photos full of depth and imagination; give photos a unique and exciting look, plus, organize and share all your photos with Corel Photo Album 6 - Standard Edition, included. By combining automatic photo fixes, precision editing controls in a revolutionary Learning Center with organizing features, Paint Shop Pro is a first of its kind -- an easy-to-use photo editor for anyone who wants to create stunning photos right out of the box.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2673 in Software
• Brand: Corel
• Model: PSPXENGPC
• Released on: 2005-09-23
• Platforms: Windows XP, Windows 2000
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 2.00 pounds

Features

• Offers a complete set of photo editing tools
• Combines automatic photo fixes and precision editing controls
• Create professional looking photos quickly and easily

Amazon.com Product Description
Corel Paint Shop Pro is the all-in-one solution for photo editing, organizing, sharing, and creativity. You will get tools for making your photos look just the way you want, organizing them so they are always at your fingertips, and making photo postcards, calendars, and more--advanced enough for a pro and easiest enough for a beginner. Version X is the best Paint Shop yet, with run times 50% faster than previous versions, more teaching resources (more than two hours of tutorials) for you to easily get the most out of the program, and 500 special effects.

See the Corel Paint Shop Pro X product tour

Fix brightness, color, and photo flaws

Make it better, fast.

Now you can have sharp photos filled with brilliant colors. You don't have to be a photo-editing whiz to get fabulous photos. Paint Shop Pro is filled with easy one-step fixes and advanced ultra-precise controls so no matter what, everyone can have the photos they always dreamed of.

Cover All the Basics
Everything you need to complete the most common photo tasks. Quickly rotate, resize, and crop photos to get the exact composition and size you need.

Fix Any Photo
Smart Photo Fix is the best way to correct color, exposure, and lighting problems. With a single click, Paint Shop Pro analyzes your photo and makes suggested corrections. With this powerful, flexible tool, you can change the corrections to suit your tastes.

Improve Photos in One Step
Most digital cameras produce some sort of noise and, in photos of high-contrast, a purple fringe can appear. We know these are common problems that plague everyone, no matter how great a photographer they are. With the One Step Noise Removal and One Step Purple Fringe Removal, Paint Shop Pro quickly gets rid of these pesky problems.

Instant Makeover

One-click makeovers

Looking great has never been so easy. None of us are perfect, but with Paint Shop Pro X's Makeover Tools everyone can look like they are. With this handy set of tools you can remove blemishes, whiten teeth, brush on a suntan, and remove wrinkles. It's so fun and easy that you'll just have to try it for yourself.

Get the Red Out
Red eye is probably the most common problem facing photos. With Paint Shop Pro X you get a One-click Red-Eye Remover that even works on pets, or you can use Advanced Red-Eye Removal for the most accurate corrections.

Remove Distractions
With the Clone Tool and the Object Remover you can get rid of distractions in your photos by just clicking and dragging.

Adjust in an Instant
When the photo you have doesn't look like the photo you thought you took, you can easily Adjust Perspective and Straighten crooked photos to get the look you were after.

Restore Old Photos

What's old is new again.

Tears, holes, and fading are no match for Paint Shop Pro's photo restoration tools. With Scratch Remover, Fade Correction, Hand-tinting brushes, and High-pass Sharpen you can repair and restore any old or damaged photo.

Add a Creative Touch
Paint Shop Pro X includes all new Picture Frames and photo Edges for when you want to give your photos a little something extra. Plus, there are NEW Picture Tubes, this popular feature is the easiest way for you to add ready-made art elements to your photo and graphics projects.

Photo albums and more
Once you've used Paint Shop Pro to make your photos look their best, you can jump to Corel Photo Album 6 - Standard Edition included FREE, to create fun Greeting Cards and E-Cards. With the drag & drop simplicity of Photo Album you can create and send cards for every occasion.

Turn photos into elegant projects

Easily make collages, calendars, postcards and more.

Once you have fabulous photos, don't let them sit there on your hard drive doing nothing. With Paint Shop Pro you have all the tools you need to create everything from fun greeting cards to breath-taking collages.

Turn Ordinary Photos into Something Special
Creating beautiful Scrapbook Album Pages and sophisticated multi-picture Collages is a cinch. Now you can just drag your photos into professionally designed templates and have stunning photo keepsakes in moments.

Fun Projects You Can Complete in Minutes
Enjoy your photos all year long by using them to create your own Calendars. Or show the people in your life how much they mean to you by featuring them on Magazine Covers or Award Certificates. Plus you can print multiple images on a single sheet of paper using Print Layouts and create your own CD Labels.

Remove Backgrounds
You can cut people out of photos and drop them onto new backgrounds easily with the Background Eraser. This handy tool makes combining multiple photos a breeze.

The Selection is Yours
With so many selections to choose from you're sure to find just the tool you need in Paint Shop Pro X. Use Freehand/Smart Edge Selection to find your edge or select it yourself, the Shape Selection to square, rectangle, circle, or elliptical shaped selections, or the Magic Wand Selection to make selections based on color, hue, or more.

See What You're Working On

Take command of the layers in your image.

Layers are the building blocks of any collage and now you can see exactly what you're using in your collage. With just a glance at the All-New Layer Palette you can see all the layers in your image and what each layer contains.

You Get to Pick
Move and resize elements of your image on the fly. The Pick Tool is the easiest way to make adjustments to layers without having to re-select them.

Give photos a unique, exciting look
Your photos can be so much more than just ordinary pictures. Using Paint Shop Pro's graphics and effects tools you can transform photos into paintings, add words, create crazy caricatures, and so much more. With so many effects to use, you can have hours of fun just experimenting.

Say What You Mean

Colorful text makes your images come alive.

Add Vertical or horizontal text to photos or even have text follow a path. With the Text Tool, you can choose how you want your message to appear.

Turn Your Photos into Paintings
With real-life Art Media Tools you can turn your ordinary photos into masterpieces. With an easy Trace option you can trace your photos using Oil, Chalk, Pastel, and more. Plus, you can choose from different brushes and canvas types.

Draw with Precision
Adding arrows, talk bubbles, stars, and other interesting shapes to your photos couldn't be easier. With the Symmetric Shape Tool, Pen Tool, and Preset Shapes you can add all kinds of fun to your photos without any work at all.

Create a Classic in an Instant
No darkroom is required to transform your digital photos into black and white masterpieces. With the B&W Infrared Filter and B&W Conversion Filter you get more options than ever before.

Transform Photos in a Few Clicks
Add special lighting effects, color pencil, or emboss your photos. With over 500 Special Effects Filters there is no end to the fun you can have with your photos.

Warp & Twist Photos

They won't believe how wild your photos will look!

Give the people and pets in your photos big bulging eyes and huge goofy smiles with the Warp Brush. Just click and drag your mouse around your photo to create these fun and easy caricatures.

It's All a Blur
Add professional-looking blur effects to your photos. You can choose between Gaussian, Motion, Radial Blur, and more.

Find photos fast & share memories
Paint Shop Pro X now includes Corel Photo Album 6 - Standard Edition. With this smart and simple software you can organize and share your photos easier than ever before. And with two applications at your disposal you'll be more productive than ever.

Your Photos Were Meant to be Shared

Move them out into the world-- they were meant to be seen!

Show off your photos using over 40 Print templates, create Slide Shows you can e-mail, send photos automatically resized for E-mail and Cell Phones, or Burn a CD of your best shots in just two clicks. No additional burning software required.

Photo Album Does the Work for You
As soon as you plug in your camera, Photo Album's Photo Downloader gets to work downloading and rotating your photos, then asking you what you'd like to do next. If you like, you can jump right to Paint Shop Pro with a couple of keystrokes. The Photo Finder automatically finds and organizes your photo collection by the date you took the picture, and Photo Trays are a virtual photo to-do list - helping you remember to e-mail or print photos.

Find What You Need
You can organize your photos by Collection, Folder, Favorite Photo, and Keyword to ensure that you can always find your photos fast. Plus, when you use Keywords, you can Search your entire using those keywords.

What's in the box:
Photo software on CD-ROM, instruction booklet.

Customer Reviews

Good photo editing software
I have used Paint Shop Pro in each incarnation from 7.04 Anniversary Edition onwards as well as Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0.

I must say that while the latest version is very user friendly especially to a new user, if you've got Version 8 or 9 on your computer I don't think the upgrade is worth the money. The new browser is particularly horrible if you're used to the older versions of Paint Shop Pro. You have to resort to manual tinkering to get it to look like the earlier versions if you want to which is a fairly involved procedure. Even then it doesn't behave like the earlier version but acts like a permanently docked window. In the default it displays Windows folders as little pictures of folders in a row and I find it quite difficult to use as a navigation mechanism.

The Learning Center is a useful addition especially to begin with when you're figuring out where everything is because even if you've had PSP8 and/or 9 on your computer Corel have changed round the positions of some of the tools in the toolbar and there are quite a few tweaks in the menus and photo tools. I do like the noise removal tool which functions better than it did in PSP9 and I also like the Smart Photo Fix. Overall however I felt that the new edition wasn't really worth shelling out over £40 for when I already had older versions on my computer.

In addition, the Paint Shop Photo Album (which is included for free) has refused to function correctly on my computer and I am still waiting for Corel's programmers to come back to me after working with a technician for over three weeks and not resolving the issue. A free Album Creator program is included which is for ordering photo albums online; I found that this gave me error messages until I went online and then launched it. I don't have a RAW image function on my digital camera so have not used that software which is also included on the disk.

You will need a large amount of RAM - at least 1 GB and preferably more, as well as a big hard drive and a fast computer to run this software. I would also recommend a large monitor because of the over-crowded interface - when you have the browser up and running it refuses to allow the image to overlap it as the older versions did, and behaves like the edge of the workspace.

Corel have essentially concentrated on photo editing in this version of Paint Shop Pro although the graphics tools are still there. If you have PSP 8 or 9 and do graphics rather than photo work I would stay with that software for now but if you're a new user I think you'll find this version of Paint Shop Pro is well worth the money.

Great Software from a Lousy Company
Wow. Where to begin? I've been a PSP user since version 3. That's a long time. I have looked forward to every upgrade with great anticipation. And while there is much to like in this newest release, the fact that Corel now owns PSP may well be its demise.

Let me explain.

Having recently made the jump to Photoshop (the full blown version, not Elements), I'm qualified to speak to both. And I can tell you that 98% of what you can do it Photoshop can be done in PSP. It's an incredible package at a super price.

The problem is that you'll be on your own. Corel support is just plain awful. Average response time for technical issues is EIGHT DAYS (I submitted 20 requests for assistance or advice, this is actual experiental data)!! And often when they do respond, it is with that awful Cut & Paste canned responses that do NOT apply to your question. And while I was told it would get better, it hasn't. I spent nearly a year in the hopes it would improve and I believe now it won't. Suffice to say, Corel is where good software goes to die. Outside of Painter, they haven't hit a home run in 15-20 years. Having spoken with customer service by phone, I'm convinced they've conned themselves into believing they can never be better than Adobe, or Microsoft, or any of half a dozen software companies out there.

Back to the product. What really makes Photoshop so much better than PSP (I never thought I'd write these words) is not what is in the product, but rather what surrounds it. Photoshop has the most incredible support community surrounding it of any software that has ever existed. It is so ridiculously easy to get help, to get advice, to find out new techniques. Compare the number of Photoshop books available on Amazon compared with the paltry number devoted to Paint Shop Pro. The end result of this is that I've learned more about image editing in the last four months with Photoshop than I learned in 10+ years as a PaintShop Pro devotee.

So, while I always wanted PSP to succeed, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to you. It will take you too long to learn and do the things you want to do. You are far better off with something Adobe.

Bottom line, go with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements if you're looking to save money and don't need as much (Elements is robust, don't let the name fool you). You'll be happier, more productive and part of a great community of enthusiasts devoted to the passion of digital imaging. Outside of Painter, you don't need anything from Corel. Remember these words, they will serve you well. COREL... WHERE GOOD SOFTWARE GOES TO DIE

Not A Cheap PhotoShop Alternative - Better!!
It's a shame Paint Shop Pro (PSP) is so often described as simply an alternative to PhotoShop. In reality, Paint Shop Pro is better. While both are fairly evenly matched when it comes to image editing, PSP also has a full set of graphics editing tools that PhotoShop mostly lacks. These tools allow one to draw and paint in vector, raster, and art media layers for the creation and editing of clip art, business logos, web graphics, and similar artwork. Reviewers (magazine or other) rarely mention this when comparing the two products, instead pointing to a few additional esoteric image editing tools while claiming PhotoShop is the superior product.

Some of the reviewers here need to lighten up. This is not the first time PSP has seen change, nor the first time older users have complained about those changes. When Jasc re-vamped PSP to include more extensive photo editing tools, one got the impression from prior users that Jasc had stabbed them in the back and spat on their mother's grave at the same time. However, the later proliferation of digital imaging proved those additions were worthwhile. As far as I'm concerned, if Jasc has lost interest in PSP enough to sell it, I'm glad Corel has stepped forward to keep this product going.

Of course, this is not to say I'm thrilled with Corel. One thing I dislike about the company is the decision not to support our military personnel overseas - to not ship products to APO/FPO addresses (the military postal system delivering mail to overseas locations). Since I have four more years to go on a five year tour overseas as a civilian employee with the military, this policy will eventually force me to consider alternatives or do without.

Paint Shop Pro continues to improve with each new release. This is the cleanest installation I've seen in a long time, with no errors found afterwards. The software has performed flawlessly, both during and after installation. The installation appears smaller than recent previous versions. With PSP installed alone, this version tops out at about 178mb, while the previous version 8 topped out at 278mb. Since nothing seems to be missing, only the removal of archaic programming code could account for this difference. Of course, installing the additional software will eat up more disk space.

In many ways, Paint Shop Pro has not changed at all. The previous tools are still there, just moved around and/or slightly changed somewhat. Similar tools have been grouped together under a single menu instead of across several as in previous versions. Some of the dialog boxes/windows have changed to support additional features. The image browser has changed. And the tool icons now have a somewhat more polished look. Otherwise, Paint Shop Pro looks and feels similar to previous versions.

A few have complained about the busy default toolbar layout leaving little room to edit documents. All toolbars can be reduced or closed to provide as much screen space as desired, with the program opening in the same condition as it was closed. The option to define and save custom workspace layouts also remains. In other words, it only takes a few moments to lay out everything just as one wants.

I'm not a big fan of one-step automated fixes, available in hordes in this version. The "One-step Photo Fix" and "Smart Photo Fix" both either override effects created in the camera or add distortion to the image. This hard-to-describe distortion (areas of small, almost square-shaped, globs of color) is enough to make an image unusable. I haven't been able to recreate this distortion using the manual adjustment tools, so use those instead.

However, some of the automated fixes are useful. Since my camera is prone to the chromatic aberration leading to purple fringe in high contrast situations, the "One-step Purple Fringe Fix" is handy. The "One-step Digital Noise Fix" also works well. The "Red-eye Removal" tool works fine in some images and not in others, but does at least reduce some of the manual editing in every case.

With a faster computer, I haven't noticed any significant increase in performance. Perhaps those with slower computers will see a more obvious speed improvement.

All in all, this is a competent upgrade. The installation was painless. The software is stable. The program itself retains everything which has made it so popular for so many years. The user interface is slightly more polished. Most of the new features are worthwhile additions. There are minor flaws, but there really is very little not to like about this version.

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FOOTNOTE: I would have preferred to review version XI, but that is simply not to be. I ordered PSP directly from Corel. Just twelve days after receiving version X, the company released version XI. In other words, Corel shipped a product they knew would be out-of-date in a matter of days. To add insult to injury, the company now expects me to pay the full upgrade price for the latest version - which the company won't even ship to me because of the APO/FPO policy mentioned above.