Corel PaintShop Pro X4

Corel PaintShop Pro, our TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award winning software provides the average photo editor with a much more user-friendly alternative to Adobe Photoshop.  It's high functioning photo editing software that's both easy to use and full of features.  Usually, a program with a lot of features is far from easy to use, but that's not the case here.  Corel decided to dedicate itself to bringing the most user-friendly products possible for the same price their competitors charge.
New to this version is improved photo organization and performance and support for additional RAW formats, selective focus, photo blend, better clarity tools and much more. The newest edition also supports dual monitors to help you get your project done twice as fast.

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Ease of Use    

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You would think a photo editing program with this large of a feature set would be difficult to use; however, that's not the case with Corel PaintShop Pro. It has a feature set as large, if not larger, than most of its more prestigious competitors, but its presentation has a way of making everything make sense. We had no problems navigating this program's menus or figuring out any of its features. We were pleased with how simple it was to complete even the most complex of projects.

Importing    

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Corel PaintShop Pro can import screen captures, custom brushes and images from your scanner or camera.

Editing    

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Editing photos can be easy with Corel PaintShop Pro Ultimate Express Lab. With one click, this program will make automatic adjustments to color, brightness, contrast, and sharpness. In many cases, this was enough to bring out that extra amount of detail or vivid color, but sometimes it just doesn’t do the job. This is where Smart Photo Fix comes in. Manually adjust brightness, saturation, focus, and black and white levels until you get the results you want. Smart Photo Fix shows you the before and after in real time so you always know what the end result will be. Additionally, One Step Noise Removal will automatically get rid of unwanted pixels or groups of pixels that show up as a result of image compression. The Color Balance editor makes it easy to make a picture appear “cooler” or “warmer” by changing the color temperature and tint in both white balance and color balance.

Similar to the Photoshop’s Dodge and Burn tools, Corel PaintShop Pro's Clarify tool analyzes the image and adjusts the brightness in each region to intelligently compress contrast into a range that can be shown on screen or on a print. In English, the Clarify tool will sharpen your image, you just choose the strength of the effect and this program does the rest. It’s a great way to bring out fine detail in an image. It’s rare that one remembers to take a tripod to the game or on a hike, and often it’s just too heavy and cumbersome an accessory to lug around. As a result some pictures are more blurred than we would like. Enter High Pass Sharpen, the last in the Enhance Photo tool set. By increasing the contrast of certain pixels, the High Pass Sharpen tool will make the blur crisp again. Specifying the radius around the soft edges will tell this program how far to go, and the resulting image will be much clearer. It’s something one must play with and adjust manually, but it’s an essential tool in the photo editor’s array.

Bonus Features

Where to start? Corel PaintShop Pro has a built-in photo organizer, and a vast library of effects that turn your photos into digital works of art. The photo organizer is always present at the bottom of the window, so you don’t have to switch to a separate application or keep Windows Explorer open at all times. Images and video can be automatically categorized by naming convention, size, date taken, rating, tags, and so on. The “canned” effects and filters, while not unique to Paint Shop Pro, are numerous, diverse, and just plain fun to test. Anything from making photos look 100 years old to psychedelic renderings are possible, and your inner Andy Warhol can shine through.

• Makeover Tools: thinify, whiten eyes and teeth, smooth wrinkles, add a tan, and remove blemishes
• Change the color of a single object
• Erase backgrounds but maintain overlapping fine details like a strand of hair
• Go Retro: Use the Time Machine to make photos look like they were taken from the 1800’s through the 1960’s. You’ll get an informative description of photographic processes at each point on the time line.
• Picture Tubes: Add graphic elements to your photos. The image library is a mixed bag, try the photo images. Click away—objects in the tube vary with each click. Makeup: lipstick, mascara, blush … what’s next? Easily change position and size.
• Smart Carver: Save important parts of your photo while cutting out parts you don't want.
• Vibrancy: Boost color in less saturated parts of an image without significantly altering skin tones.
• Object Extractor: Isolate objects to be copied to a new background or to have a new background pasted behind it.
• On-Image Text Editing: Add text direct in the image window and adjust its font, color, placement, position, size and wrapping of the text in the context of the image.

Sharing    

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Print contact sheets and many combinations of photo sizes on one sheet with Corel PaintShop Pro's templates. Emailing photos has never been easier: one click and the email form opens with your selected photo in it. Uploading photos to an online photo sharing site is as fast as your broadband connection can go. All of these methods are well designed and easy to do.

Share photos and videos where and how you want, using email, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube.  Print at home or in-store, send photos to your mobile device or quickly burn a DVD.

Output Capabilities    

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Corel PaintShop Pro has professional output features, including image slicing for html. This is handy when you have an image that must be divided into sections to fit in html tables. It also has a JPG, GIF, and PNG optimizer for web graphics. You can also save your files in 74 different formats.

Organizing    

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The organizing function of Corel PaintShop Pro is efficient and useful. Drag and drop keyword assignments and click to use the 5-star ranking system. Do the work now and your future searches will be much more efficient. The organizer tool can help you customize your digital workflow with its advanced photo management capabilities.

  

Help & Support    

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Corel PaintShop Pro Ultimate context-sensitive Learning Center helps you out as you edit. Context-sensitive means the Learning Center knows which tool you are using, and displays relevant information as you work on photos and projects.  This makes learning Corel PaintShop Pro seamless. Conversational language makes task selection easy and speeds program mastery. Corel also offers online help with a knowledge base, forums, complimentary email for customer support and technical support by phone for a fee.

Summary

Corel PaintShop Pro has editing features found in Adobe Photoshop which combine editing and graphics in photo editing software designed for the creative amateur. The new features are appealing and engaging and, if you want to take your photos into the graphics world, this is the most cost effective way to do it.

At last, a program that's fun to use. Yes, you’ll need more time for mastery, but the results are worth it.