Paint Shop Pro 9 Shines as Digital Camera Prices Plunge

by Ira Wilsker
Golden Triangle PC Club
From the February, 2005 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter

As I stated previously in this column, I was at the recent APCUG and CES events in Las Vegas, where I saw a myriad of new and improved products. Digital photography, both still and video, was a key portion of what was displayed and demonstrated, as digital photography is rapidly replacing traditional film as a media. One speaker mentioned that some studies indicated that digital photography has surpassed film in both the number of users, and the quantity of images, both still and video. There were full featured digital still cameras on display with a retail price starting at $99 that could compete nicely in picture quality and ease of use with the popular film type point-and-shoot 35mm cameras. Some of these were from the rapidly growing Concord Camera company (www.concord-camera.com) which had its 3 megapixel model 3346Z priced at $99, and its high-end 6 megapixel 6340z all metal camera for $229, with a wide selection of models in between. As the price of digital photography has plunged, and the availability and quality of reasonably priced cameras has increased, there is an increasing demand for software to edit and manage the massive amounts of digital photos that are being taken.

One of my long time favorite photo (and other digital image) editing software products has been JASC’s Paint Shop Pro (www.jasc.com). In October, Corel purchased JASC and introduced its version 9 under the Corel Paint Shop Pro label. Apparently I was not alone in liking Paint Shop Pro, as a recent edition (12/28/04) of PC Magazine awarded Paint Shop Pro 9 its coveted “Best of Year” in the “Image Editing—Serious Hobbyist category”.

Paint Shop Pro is a feature rich product comparable in capability with its more expensive competitors. It is priced within reach of most at $129 retail, and is often discounted, or associated with significant rebates. If you take digital photos, you will likely find Paint Shop Pro a vital utility to improve the quality of your photos. Among the features it offers is an “Automatic Photo Fix” which with one mouse click will sharpen, brighten, and enhance your digital photos. A variety of image filters are available that can enhance the contrast, brightness, and color in an image that can bring back detail that may have been lost in shadows or underexposed images. In one demonstration that I witnessed, a digital photo of an old church was shown; it was clear that the sun was behind the church, and the façade was in dark shadow, rendering it a dark mass of shape. One click of a “Fill Flash/Backlighting Filter” integral with Paint Shop Pro 9, and the church front appeared in full detail, with bright color, as if the sun had been shining on the façade, rather than behind it! Sometimes a defective pixel or spots, possibly due to “digital noise” may appear in a digital image, or the image appears grainy; using the “Digital Camera Noise Removal” utility the spots disappeared, and a sharp image was created.

One of the most impressive features I saw during a presentation on Paint Shop Pro was jokingly called the “ex-“ tool, where images can be quickly edited removing images of unwanted people (the “ex” referring to “ex-significant others”), pets, or other objects. On one image was a group of people, and as a demonstration, Paint Shop Pro quickly removed a member of the group, and calculated what the image would appear like behind the subject! Obviously, this works best when there is a somewhat uniform background. In another example of a photo of kids in a grassy park, a piece of trash blew into the image as the photo was taken, and with a few mouse clicks the trash disappeared, and clean grass seamlessly appeared in its place.

Another very impressive feature was a utility to seamlessly combine images vertically and horizontally into a panoramic image, merging a quantity of images into one larger image, automatically matching the shading, size, and color on each edge, such that the new merged image showed no indications that the imaged was cobbled out of over a dozen individual photos.

For those that like to do creative things with their digital photos, or other graphics images, Paint Shop Pro 9 includes a large selection of “tubes” and borders which can be used to make an image more attractive. Another utility allows the image to appear as a painted picture, with a variety of brush stokes, as it would have appeared if painted on canvas. Shapes of all types can be added, and a comical photographer can add cartoon style “balloons” with text to add some cute emphasis to an image. Of course text can be easily added wherever wanted as well, along with other capabilities for full editing and cropping of the images. Images can also be converted and saved from almost any graphic format to any other format, allowing for universal image compatibility.

Users who would like to try the software before they buy it can download a free trial version from the JASC website. Purchasers who have a competing product, or who have an earlier version of Paint Shop Pro, can download a certificate for a $30 rebate from the JASC website at www.jasc.com/products/paintshoppro/files/psp9comprebate.pdf.

For those who take their digital photography seriously, Paint Shop Pro 9 would be an excellent choice.



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Tulsa Computer Society 2/01/2005
Don Singleton, President