PaintShop Pro X4 Ultimate Edition - Windows

I have been using Paint Shop Pro since the late 90's as well, moving up about every other version or so, most recently using X and X2. I use it primarily for photography processing (the individual image work, batch processing is dome with another app ca;led ACDSee#. Also use PSP for graphics work for creating ads, brochures, business cards, web graphics, etc. My initial reaction upon installing X4 was "UGH! Where's the color!?" The entire workspace was very dark #black# and it had black-n-white buttons and grey text on black menus. DO THIS FIRST - go to Corel's website and download Service Pack 1 - this gives you a little control over the overall look of the app #, dark grey, med grey, light grey, flat blue# and puts COLORED buttons on the button bars, and gives you size control over them. I was scratching my head as to why they would put such a dark and hard to see workspace in a PAINT program... SP1 alleviates a lot of that. The tools are very powerful, have been for a long time. Seems I'm always uncovering a new tool or filter or something to help me expand my photography work. The work with color and persepctive are great for getting exaclty the look I want almost regarless of what the initial picture is. It's pretty fast, though some of the filters like "Digital Camera Noise Removal" and "Edge Preserving Smooth" take about 10+/- seconds to apply to a 10mp photo #note that X4 is faster than X2 was - similar images would take 20+/- seconds to apply in X2#. This is on a Pentium i7-920 processor with 6gb ram on Win7-64-Ult. Debating whether more memory might speed it up, still trying to determine that... Don't really have much negative about it #since colors fixed# other than a few workflow nuances that changed from previous versions and are still taking getting used to #had X4 about 2 months now#. When you zoom with the mouse scroll wheel, it doesn't follow your pointer location in the window as well as X2 - in X2 you could put the mouse toward the top of the image and it would zoom in on the top of the image - centering on the mouse. This means it would scroll to the top and you would still have the absolute top edge of the image along the top edge of the window. Now I ALWAYS have to follow a scroll-zoom with a move the mouse over to drag the scroll bars of the image window up to see the top edge. Adds processing time. Also, they have changed the image scroll bars from the windows standard bar to custom ones that are smaller and grey on grey so not as easy to see and grab. And the zoom redraw rate is not as fast/smooth as it was in X2. Another workflow nuance - the "confirm crop" checkmark is no longer up on the crop toolbar #where it is always in the same place on the screen# but now dynamically follows the bottom of the crop selection box, which means it's always somewhere else, and sometimes off the bottom of the window so you ahve to tweak the image position to see it. It all amounts to added steps and lost time when processing through hundreds of images.... One other nuance about it in Windows7, I pinned the icon on the start bar - well the application doesn't launch tied to that icon like other apps, it creates a separate tab for the active X4 session. Clicking the icon launches it again. I have not had the chance to try the HDR merge and see if it's results are improved, though they are supposed to be. I don't use it for basic image management like batch renaming or batch global edits like resizes or watermarking - have ACDsee I've been using for years alongside PSP that does those more routine tasks much better and faster - though X4 now has a "manage" and "adjust" tab along the top title bar so these other basic catalog management tasks may be included in X4... Overall I'm happy with it, and have moved from X2 to X4 as my main program. Still adjusting the workflow tweaks, and maybe Corel will read this and consider.... Who knows, but for PSP users, these are some things to be aware of. For new users, I highly recommend it as a very powerful graphics and photography editor with as many capabilties of the other editor that costs hundreds more, and the above things I mention are of no concern as they are not different from before :-) Paint Shop Pro X4 is well worth the $$ for virtually all of your image processing needs. NOTE: Attached image shows workspace with image up, zoomed in, with crop window, workspace set on "Light Gray". Tried to highlight some of what I discussed with confirm crop check, scroll bars, etc.

I have many software programs for editing Photography including adobe CS5 and this one rates right up there....for the price it is the best for people on a budget..

I'm no stranger to Paint Shop Pro I started using it back in the Jasc days and have purchased every upgrade since Corel bought out Jasc. I've been playing with X4 trial for 4 weeks (it expired today) and I'm very impressed with it's stability and the improvements they've made. I purchased X4 ultimate today @ Best Buy in Watertown, NY. I ordered it on line and picked it up at the store. Paint Shop Pro X4 is without a doubt the most stable release from Corel. The improvements made to the program are numerous, better memory usage, scratch disk added, faster starting, processes tools faster, much better RAW processor, tabbed components (Manage, Edit, and Adjust), and it handles multi-core processors much better.. There are many new features and improvements to old features and they're not just gimmicks, they're actually useful. I own ADOBE Photoshop Elements 9, bought it 2 days after it was released. It's a fine program but it had it's problems when initially released. I expect at some point I'll run into a problem with X4 but so far that hasn't happened. PSP X4 is far superior in stability at this point in it's release than PSE 9 was. About Best Buy in Watertown, NY: I wish I had gotten the names of the 2 BB employees that assisted me with this purchase and the wireless printer I also purchased. They were extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and pleasant. Best Buy in Watertown, NY is very lucky to have these two individuals. As long as I receive that kind of service I will remain a Best Buy customer. They definitely represented the best of Best Buy.

I've been using Paint Shop Pro for 12 years, since Jasc owned it. As a photographer I also have photoshop but much prefer the ease of use and price of PaintShop Pro! This latest version is a wonderful update. Corel has outdone themselves. The tools for fixing blemishes,etc are great time savers. It did take a little work to get it loaded since I had the trial installed and once I bought the boxed version had to uninstall & reinstall. I thought you could just put in the code. ... You can't. Other than that it's a lifesaver. The ease of use isn't as good as the previous version I had... The font feature where you have to click the check mark now, and then at times it disappears and I can't get back to the main screen. I'm sure it's operator error, but I will have to work with the program for a bit to work with it smoothly as before. Even with that said, the ease of use is hands down better than Photoshop in my opinion. All in all it's a winner!!! Keep up the good work Corel!

I gave X4 2 stars because it suffers from several problems. So far I have encountered problems with zooming and DPI settings being saved improperly. If you have X3 I would hold off on this until at least the next service pack. If Corel can fix the problems in the next service pack I will change my rating.

Great Software - East to use. All kind of ideas of what can be done to improve your photographs!

I like this photo program. I use it often. All my friends can see my photos.