Product Description

Paint Shop Pro Studio has raised having fun to an art form. From family photo restoration and photo editing to scrapbooking and photo organization, Studio allows consumers to create the digital images their camera can’t. Designed to maximize creative play, Paint Shop Pro Studio includes powerful tools that inspire and delight, and takes care of time-consuming tasks with a single click. Best of all, Studio includes Paint Shop Photo Album.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4462 in Software
• Brand: Corel
• Model: K-PSS-USRTL
• Released on: 2004-08-24
• Platforms: Windows XP, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English

Features

• Edit, enhance, and repair with fun tools.
• Restore faded, scratched, and aged photos.
• Turn your current photos into masterpieces.
• Make scrapbooks, photo, collages, even experiment with home remodeling projects.
• Paint Shop Pro Studio includes Paint Shop Photo Album – Standard Edition

Customer Reviews

Great for free - but quickly outgrown...
Amazon and other e-tailers are offering it for free after rebate, which is how I picked up my copy.

After purchasing my first DSLR recently (Canon Rebel XT - LOVE IT!), I started really getting into photography. The camera included a basic editor and organizer (Arcsoft and Zoombrowser) which are good programs, but I wanted something more powerfull for editing, organizing, and creating things like slideshows and albums. Of course, I want Photoshop CS2, but I can not justify the outrageous cost. So for the cost of shipping, I thought I'd try this out...

At the time, I did not realize Studio was not a full version of Paint Shop Pro version 9 or 10 - I have not used either of the full versions, but I understand there are many filters and advanced features missing from Studio that may have been useful to me.

Nevertheless, PSP Studio is still very usable and it offers a complete, though somewhat basic, set of features for the beginner. I was up and running quickly, creating much better pictures instantly without spending a bunch of time in help. I was even able to figure out how to select people out of a pic and merge with others, using layers and adding effects. The results were good and I was pleased.

In addition to the photo editing features, there are some good graphics creation and editing capabilities that look like they could be fun and useful.

I ended up liking Album a lot, though there were some annoyances, like less than optimal, somewhat clumsy navigation. The slideshow feature is nice but feature poor. I really liked the create features. My 3 year old daughter loved the quick-and-dirty photo albums I created after an outing. I liked it so much, I bit on the upgrade offer and ordered version 6 because it included some XTra theme packs that I was considering buying for Album 5.

Album 6 is better than 5, especially with the theme packs, and worth the 30 or so dollars if you are looking for a good, but not great, organizer.

Both the Paint Shop Pro Studio editor and Album programs perform very very well. Load time is a bit slow (not bad) but once you are up and running, its very snappy and efficient.

But less than 2 months into using Studio, I found that I had outgrown it. The photo editing is not as powerfull or full featured as its competitors. Though the basic filters are included (unsharp, add/remove noise, etc) they are quite limited compared to others. One option I was looking for was a levels tool, but apparently it does not exist in Studio.

Finally, there is no RAW support in Studio, and neither Album 5 or 6 allow you to view RAW files at all (though 6 includes a basic RAW editor, I prefer Digital Photo Professional that came with my camera).

One other thing to consider..there is MUCH more free content available online for users of Adobe products than there are for Panit Shop Pro. When looking for info like tutorials and how-to guides, even when targeting Paint Shop Pro, you find countless Photoshop resources, but limited PSP sites - PSP content is there, but much harder to find, especially for this trimmed down Studio version. Even though much of the Adobe content is for the full CS2 version, much of the feature set overlaps with Elements, so it is often usable (at least for the basic features) and there are still more Elements specific resources than PSP.

I downloaded a copy of PhotoShop Elements 4 2 nights ago, and was very impressed. Much better organizer with RAW support, and the editing features and slide show features are much, much better than any of the products I have mentioned, alone and combined. The program is a bit sluggish, but not horribly so, and the interface is nice and intuitive. I'm willing to pay for these new features so I ordered a copy of Elements 4.0/Premier 2.0 bundle.

I would give Studio a 3 if it was over the $30 price point, but for free it deserves a 4.

If you are just looking for something basic for a casual, family photographer that might even get a little ambitious, or you think you will just be doing basic to moderate editing and organizing, this a really great solution for free. But if you expect to develop your skills as a photographer or want to create more fancy slideshows and such, consider Photoshop Elements 4.

Doesn't support my Nikon raw format and the tech support sucks
purchased psp studio recently and it wasn't able to open my nikon raw files (though the package says it does). I tried calling the tech support and was on hold for more than 30 mins listening to how upgrading to their premium support would be of great value and finally gave up and hung up the phone.
And one more thing, the tech support is not a toll free number and i was on hold for more than 30 mins on a long distance call.

Good but could be better
I chose to by PSP Studio after downloading and trying JASC PaintShop Photo Album 5, PSP Studio, Adobe PhotoShop Album 2.0, and Adobe PhotoShop Elements 3. I found that the "Album" software just didn't offer enough photo editing capability. And I found that PhotoShop Elements 3 was too complicated for me. I do have a few complaints. Studio doesn't support the image auto-renaming convention (yyyy_mmdd_hhmmss) that I am accustomed to using in the software that came with my digital camera. Moreover, its support for auto-renaming images after they have been moved to your PC is very weak. Fortunately my digital camera software works here too. A bigger problem has to do with printing images. Images printed in "print layout" have fine, regularly spaced lines that ruin the image. It only happens in "print layout" not in "print" and not when I print the same image from other applications. JASC support has not yet been able to resolve the issue.