Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #637 in Software
• Brand: Corel
• Released on: 2006-09-29
• Platforms: Windows 2000, Windows XP
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .55 pounds

Computeractive
Probably the best image-editing program at this price

Manufacturer's Description
Paint Shop Pro Photo XI is the only software that puts the power of advanced photo editing into everyone's hands by combining advanced tools with an easy-to-use Learning Center, allowing anyone to create professional-results as soon as they open the box! This alone makes Paint Shop Pro Photo XI stand apart from the crowd, and when you combine that with one-of-kind photo tools it's easy to see why Paint Shop Pro is such great value-for-money.

Paint Shop Pro Photo XI has the most options for anyone interested in improving their photos. Advanced, manual correction tools OR automatic one-step fixes (Smart Photo Fix even combines these 2 methods of photo fixing for maximum efficiency), Paint Shop Pro XI has them. Tools include Background Eraser, Colour Changer, Noise Removal Filter, Perspective Correction Tool, Makeover Tools, Purple Fringe Remover, and Straighten.

In the advanced editing category, Paint Shop Pro XI has excellent Learning Tools. The Learning Center can help users 100% of the time, or it can be turned off, it can even be used just to select tools. It is the ideal way to operate within an editing program. Each section is labelled by task, not tool. Users are not expected to know what tool does what - they can simply click the task they want to accomplish and they are off and running.

Paint Shop Pro Photo XI has an outstanding array of tools for a product in its price category.

• Photo Tools - Essentials, advanced, one-step, automatic, or manual - the choice is yours
• Vector Tools - Draw, add shapes, or lines to any photo or diagram
• Text Tool - Add words to get your point across
• Special Effects - Hundreds of options for adding exciting new elements to your photos
• Graphics - Use tools designed specifically for Web designers

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Wait for the bug fix!
The main differences between PSP X and PSP XI are a few extra 'makeover' tools, and the transformation of the Browser into the Organiser. Herein lies the problem. Firstly the Organiser will try to create a database of all files within a chosen folder (or My Pictures), including any subfolders. More critically, it may run your processor at about 50% even when the program is not doing anything. There have been reports of computers - especially laptops - overheating because of this. Corel acknowledges the problem and has posted a temporary fix which involves deleting several database files, moving everything out of the My Pictures folder and not using the Organiser. That's not very satisfactory, and I'm sure they will fix the problem in a future maintenance release. So my advice is to wait until then, and meanwhile use PSP X which is very good and does not hog the CPU.

Great results with little effort at a reasonable price
I have used both Paintshop Pro XI and Adobe Photoshop Pro. Yet I always come back to using Paintshop Pro.

WHY?

I don't have to be a graphic designer to get the best pictures out of the application. Right from starting up the software you can get stuck into using it rather than wading through a hefty manual, unlike photoshop.

The secret of this applications success, is that on the front end it looks relatively simple with plenty of wizards to walk you through what you are doing, yet a few clicks behind these menus and you can be achieving anything as technical as you can in Photoshop.

This version XI seems to have been optimized to use system resources more efficiently as the image effects are rendered on screen a lot quicker than in previous versions. I have stuck with my P4 2.8Ghz 1GbDDR ram PC I have had for the last 3 years and it runs well on this.

Conclusion - If you want to edit images with all the flair of Photoshop but without the steep learning curve, you should buy this application. At only £69 on Amazon you would be daft to spend your hard earned cash on Photoshop that costs about 5 times as much!!!


P.S. I don't want to be seen to be knocking Photoshop, but in comparison to this application it is expensive and over-complicated, but can deliver stunning results. Only buy Photoshop if you have the patience to stick with it and have a high end PC.

Photo editor good, organizer bad
This product is not the best organizer, but the photo editor is brilliant and much better than Photoshop elements 5. If you are looking for a photo organizer I recommend Google Picasa (www.google.co.uk/picasa).
Overall I find that Paint shop pro is the best picture editing software available and outshines Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Before you buy remember to go to the Corel website (www.corel.co.uk) and try the free 30 day trial.