Behind this rather obscure name hides one of the most powerful graphics editing software…

I’ve been using Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9 since quite a long time… actually since 2004 when the software was first released… I’ve always been attached with Jasc PSP ever since I first used it on my Windows 98 PC. At that time it was really convenient for me, for minor graphics editing… i.e. cropping, rotating, etc.

In 2004, Corel purchased Jasc Software & rebranded the suite into Corel PSP. The latest version of PSP is the PSP Photo X2, where X2 stands for version 12.00 (XII).

One of the reasons why I decided to move to a newer version of PSP was that lately PSP was taking a bit too much memory & CPU usage for doing simple jobs… and it was quite tedious to do repetitive work if you have to configure the options now & then.

PSP X2 was quick to install & surprisingly when I ran it, it took ONLY 15 MB of memory!!! That’s incredible for graphics editing software – the application takes less memory, meaning more memory for the image!

Second surprise… all my settings & scripts from Jasc PSP 9 has been added to PSP X2! No need to configure ANYTHING then! There are many improvements, mainly in the UI… new icons & a new theme – graphite. Although “graphite” may not be the best theme for image editing on a cloudy day… but it’s better than the default “white-grey” background.

When you save an image, there’s no need to scroll up twice to get jpeg… it’s available as one of the default file formats. This is one of the strengths of PSP… most of the settings are on "last used." & it's a weakness as well if you need to crop… it just shows up the last used frame, meaning you need to clear it before “drawing” a new crop frame. & the copy-paste function has impressed me the most… no need to right-click anywhere – just Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V – the image will be pasted as a new layer! In short, PSP seems perfect for repetitive work…

Is it better that Photoshop? Yes… & no!
Both have their strengths – Photoshop (CS3 Extended Edition) is for the advanced user, you’ll have to configure settings everywhere, there is a large array of commands that are hard to find, it’s anti-user-friendly & you easily get lost.
Meanwhile anyone can use PSP, commands are easy enough to understand & the application is “light” on your system. Price is not a factor, although if it was… PSP would have been the winner… since it’s sold at 1/6 the price of Photoshop!
The verdict: use Paint Shop Pro for light to moderate image editing & Photoshop for advanced image editing & making…

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_Shop_Pro
Official site