Paintshop versus Photoshop Elements

[Buddha]

I'm not sure if this retraces old ground, so stop me if you've heard it before.
I've read the PSP versus PS posts already. I'm a long time Paintshop user and have been happy with it, for the most part. In the spirit of being open minded, I have Lightroom 3 downloaded on a trial basis. After several days, I already don't like it and know that I won't stay with it.
The full version of PS is out of the question for me. I need editing capability, not graphics capability, and the cost is way beyond all reason for my needs.
I've done some research on PSE 9 and it looks like a good possibility to move to. Does anyone have any experience with PSE that they can pass on, especially if they have made the same move already?

[kenw]

I have the same issues, anything I can move to is a huge downgrade and has less actual features. Or the price is that of a decent lens. A site that compares them in detail feature-feature would be nice.

[lucian]

I use PhotoShop CS, PSE 1 and PSE 5. The only thing I really miss, in PSE, is curves.

I've used PSE 3 and just never got the hang of it. I have PSE 7 but never used it.

I have PSP 7, 8, and X13 (I think) but never got the hang of them. My biggest hangup with PSP was not able to crop in inches as I do in PS. Someday I'll get the umph to play with it again.

One thing for sure is I do NOT plan to upgrade again. It's just getting too expensive to upgrade these softwares every year or two.

[Buddha]

PSP X3 crashes when it runs out of memory. Its a known bug, and it drives me crazy.
I started using X4 today on a trial basis, and after half a day of editing, I have found that it won't open TIF files every time even if it just saved the file. X3 will. Other than that, I haven't found a difference between the two so far that matters.
I tried Lightroom and think that it is very similar to X3, just so very different in how it gets there that I deleted it.
I planned to be trying PSE by now, but X4 got in the way. I'm still trying to find out which is the best editing tool without paying anymore than I have to for graphics and video tools that I won't use.

[kenw]

Originally Posted by lucian

. My biggest hangup with PSP was not able to crop in inches as I do in PS. .

I do it all the time in PSPx2, it crops in inches, pixels or centimeters.

[Buddha]

Lucian,
You can pull down on View, then click on Rulers. That will put a ruler reading horizontally and vertically in inches on your display.
You can also go to Image and Resize what you need.
Does that help?

[scottbuckel]

I have played around a bit with Elements 9, but I am a long time user of PS. Works much like Photoshop and has curves and masking just like its big brother. The only thing that I really miss with PSE9 is no pen tool, other than that I think PSE9 is great. There are a couple plug ins fro PSE9 that really help out as well.

All of that said, if PSP is working for you, why would you want to convert? Converting is always a pain even if it is a major step forward in capabilities.

Scott

[Buddha]

Scott,
At this point, I am interested in adding to my own capabilities, even if that means they come from software.
I periodically go back over images that I couldn't edit well at points in the past, and find that I can now edit many of them, but not others. That has motivated me to do better even if it means changing software.
I also make Powerpoint slideshows of edited images, then set them to loop continuously. When you sit back about 10' and watch from there, the change in what you see from being up close to the monitor can be significant, and sometimes very motivating. That is another thing that is driving me to look for improvement.

[Ricco]

I used to play quite a bit with PS and I miss it a great deal. Currently I'm playing with GIMP, but I can't seem to get used to the flow of it.

Since I'm pondering other editing software, I'm going to look at this thread with a great deal of interest.

[Buddha]

After editing for several hours with PSP X4, it froze on me. In the meantime, the Highlight Recovery feature seems to be a little better than just turning down the light on highlights. The RAW editor is on a bigger page, so you see a 4x6 view rather than a thumbnail. Vibrancy is a good adjustment tool when the image seems overexposed. I'm getting over the differences in X4 that I was comfortable with in X3. FWIW, X3 and X4 can be open at the same time. For the price, I expect there is good chance that I will buy this application because I've saved a few images with it.
I still want to try PSE 9, just on principle, if nothing else.

[Buddha]

After several more days, X4 hasn't frozen again so I am willing to blow off that one time. I like the RAW Editor because the image I have to work with is so much larger than the TGP in X3. I'm not through, but given the blown out images I had to work with, I'm not sure that X4 has enabled me to to a better job of editing them. I'm a better editor now just from the active practice, but the two applications are very close. Vibrancy is a good tool. but I may find later that I can come close to duplicating it in X3, but I probably won't. I will go back to X4 later, but I think I would buy it if I were going to buy today. The extra NIK software is worth it and I can see from webinars that I could make good use of it and maybe Viveza and Silver Effects because of their capability to single out small spots or areas and act on those spots as opposed to effecting the entire image.
I've just downloaded a trial of PSE 9. The download was a zipped file 1.75 Gb in size. It took over all of my bandwidth for over an hour and a half to download. Then I had to extract it. Then it had to be installed, and it wasn't all that clear as I was doing it. After that I had to join Adobe.
On the good side, I just opened PSE 9 and it looks as if there is a Getting Started tutorial that I can start with.
I made a good choice of files to re-edit. They are of a pretty girl. The usual trees and rocks can be improved and still be inaccurate and ugly, but who knows? OTOH, if you get a pretty girl wrong, it shows and forces your standards to be high, not indeterminate as rocks allow.

[Buddha]

I'm done and I've made a choice after hours of editing. I've compared PSP X4 images to PSE 9 images from the same image file, side by side and have to look hard to see any differences.
It's just easier to edit in PSP, and I think that after hours of this, that I'm familiar enough with each application for a lack of familiarity to not be a factor.
I can buy either application for the same price right now.
I didn't use the Organizer. I've been doing my own for years and will continue to do so rather than make a change to accomodate Adobe or anyone else, so this is about the Editor only.
PSE 9 is huge as stated in an earlier post, but the tutorials are something that made it much easier to use. Corel should replicate them ASAP. They were a big help.
For whatever reason PSE 9 wouldn't open TIF's for me earlier. That's over and done with. It does that now.
OTOH, I like to save edited RAW files as TIF's first, then immediately as JPEG's. You can't do that in PSE 9. You have to reduce the image to 8 bits, down from the 16 bits I edit in, and that is not a simple 'Save As' thing. It took some research to discover that tidbit. Once discovered, it is not a one button operation. That's a major irritant to me. This is found on a pulldown menu in either software, but PSP has Save and Save As buttons which I use every time I save a file. Having to do additional keystrokes is not a plus in my life.
I did not convert a file, but from research, see that conversion from color to BW is another operation like saving JPEG's. You have to want to do it. Extra keystrokes............
In PSP, its a one button operation with the easily seen capability to enter your own values to simulate a particular film. This same menu gives you access to simulate other film effects. I did not see this in PSE 9.
I zoom in and out regularly. With my eyes, being able to zoom in to enlarge part of an image you are trying to edit is a real eyesaver. 'Zoom' is on a pulldown menu in PSE 9, not a button as in PSP. More keystrokes.............
If there is a Skin Smoothing button in PSE, I missed it. Too bad cuz I like it and use it. It's a one button capability in PSP versus creating a working with a new layer in PSE 9. Easily adjustable if you need to.
This is a personal thing, but I am not crazy about sliders. The numbers showing where you are are too small for me to see easily. I'm not infinitely capable of the fine motor adjustments needed to make them work exactly. When I think I want one to stop in 41 and 38 is as close I can get the slider to go, I feel like I have lowered my standards. I have to take my eye off of the image to operate the slider. I prefer to do a stationary push on an Up or Down arrow while I look at the effect on the image in front of me. There is plenty of room to make the numbers bigger in their dialogue box so they are easier to read.
Finally, I have to ask, why is PSE so large? For all of it's size, why isn't it more capable than PSP? I just looked at my PSP X3 CD. It's total size is 1.44Gb which includes two painting applications in addition to PSP.
If I order PSP X4, I think I can still get some free software from NIK, and I have found that I can make use of that software.