Corel PaintShop Pro X4
4 stars
$99.99 including VAT
www..co.uk
We’re sympathetic towards Corel, which
basically makes the most creative software but seems that they are always under
the shadow of Adobe. Could this version of PaintShop Pro put an end to the
domination of Photoshop Element?
There was a significant rethinking
about the layout of the software. 3 working zones of it (Organizer, Express Lab
and Full Editor before) are shown in 3 tabs: Manage, Adjust and Edit, Project
Editor, which had handled tasks such as photo books, calendars, back up and
uploading to Flickr and Facebook, vanished. Most of its functions also
disappeared, but the upload is integrated into the Organizer tab now. The
attached copy of Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 which we loved in X3 was
another victim.
Nevertheless, upgraders don’t need to
uninstall those additional applications, and the integrated layout of PaintShop
Pro is a huge improvement. Corel said the performance was faster though we
couldn’t compare directly. Because Manage mode doesn’t save thumbnails till we
ask to see them; browsing the gallery is quite slow at first. Manage mode also
has less options to sort and filter the gallery.
New
things
Many new features help users to get
more from their photos. HDR images composed of merging images taken in
different exposure settings into a single image. It has been available since
the X2 version, but currently it can control more with the ability to identify
which bits in photos it should give priority, as well as adjust the brightness
and contrast of highlight, midtone and shadow after merging. It is able to
create anything from restoring hightlight and shadow to images edited clearly
and dramatically. Nonetheless, there are awkward areas in images in our tests.
Photo Blend makes us exhausted to try
to merge the best bits of a portrait group into an image. We have to make more
rules we expected to avoid the shadow but it works quickly and efficiently.
Selective Focus is similar to Depth of
Field introduced in Photoshop Elements 10. The focus zone is defined by a
rectangular ring, so it’s suitable for the effect minimizing images in which
buildings are the same as model villages. PainShop Pro changes subtly the
sharpness to the blur instead of changing clear and blurred layers only; it
seems more convincing but effects couldn’t be altered after applying.
Adjustment layers means you can edit
images without ruin them; apply a lot of filters for images but save the
settings instead of the outcome of their application. It means that you can
easily change settings later yet you don’t need to reprocess again and again,
and it will be easier to use more color blending in succession.
PaintShop Pro has provided development
tools for Raw images since the X3 version, but unfortunately, they are not
better than the imperfect efforts before. Tools display preview areas larger
and include highlight restoring, but there are fewer processing options and the
quality of the result is not enough.
Sending Raw files to Adjust instead of
Edit mode has brought a different raw processing tool, which is slightly better
in controlling the outcome quality. However, they are still worse than the
excellent Raw processing of Photoshop Elements, especially with the noise
reduction. Strangely, it seems that two modes processing Raw of PaintShop Pro
don’t recognize each other. After using controls of Adjust tab and click edit,
we were invited to Save As then process Raw from the start by using other worse
controls.
Besides Raw processing, PaintShop Pro
of Corel doesn’t lose Photoshop Elements about features and product quality,
but those little things can make a big distinction. PaintShop Pro often tell us
to wait while it updates the preview, that means setting effects requires
efforts and low display after our actions through few quick strokes. It can say
that the color editing based on curves is an advantage over Photoshop Elements,
but now when both of them support layer masks, PaintShop Pro is not obviously
better for advanced users. It is also not as strong as Photoshop Elements 10,
but it’s not much worse.
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Summary
Evaluation. It can’t beat Photoshop
Elements, but with the powerful editing, this cheaper software has some pros.
Editing image software. Windows XP (SP2)/Vista/7,
1.5GHz processor, 1GB of RAM (2GHz, 2GB recommended), 1GB of disk space.
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