Photo Editing Software

I am posting this topic as a way of hearing other fellow photographers opinions on the softwares they have used and what they prefer now. Just yesterday I had a major mishap with CS4, and I was pretty down about it but fate shined on me or at least it seems that way and I found what could be my replacement love in Corel Paint Shop Pro Ultimate Photo X2. I just purchased it tonight, I was actually going to purchase Elements 8, but it just didn't seem to have what I like to use, and then I saw this and have already been playing with it some, it is very different from CS4 in that the way you do things are a little different, but you still have crop, redeye, makeover tool, clone brush, earaser tool, and others. Anyways, upon this new experience, I would like to hear everyone else's experiences and preferences.

Corel is a pretty good program for the price, I used to use earlier versions of it which were pretty good. I think however, that photoshop still comes out on top as far as the in depth features go but you may not ever use the advanced stuff, even some pros don't use all the advanced features of photoshop and prefer to get it right in camera and only do minor post-processing. I read you last post and I don't think after spending all that money you should have given up so early. I would have gotten back on the phone with Adobe and tried again because they could unlock that license key if they wanted to. You should have told them it was an honest mistake and you will keep it to 2 computers from now on if they can unlock it, and stress the fact that you were a paying customer and that if they didn't help you out they would lose you as a customer and you wouldn't be buying future versions, that might get them to help out. Someone else had mentioned they had a similar experience and adobe unlocked the key for them so even if that first person didn't do that for you maybe someone else would have been more generous and helped you out. I've heard of people having problems with adobe support before but after trying several times they wrote a letter to the corporate office and promptly had someone a little more competent get in contact with them and resolve the issue. If you give it another try with no luck I would suggest writing a letter to their corporate headquarters at:

Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704

maybe after doing that you can get someone to help.

I started out a few years ago with Photoshop Elements 4, then stepped up to CS4 last year. The main reasons were full 16-bit support, actions/droplets, and to get the newest version of ACR as I was shooting RAW a lot more. Like many photographers, there are lots of things in CS4 I don't need - but figuring out what those are without trying to learn CS4 is difficult.

I've also used Gimp some, but don't like the interface much at all. And the features and support for certain things is spotty or inconsistent. If you're willing to deal with it, it's fantastic for the price.

On the RAW development front, I demo'ed Lightroom and LightZone, but wanted more and figured CS4 with ACR built-in would work great for me - and it has.

I'd be curious, Andrea, as to what you thought Elements 8 didn't have that you wanted. Even when using Elements 4, I didn't find much in the way of features that were lacking - layers, clone stamp, healing brush, curves, levels, sharpening, all kinds of filters, auto-corrections, red-eye fixing - it's all in there. Plus you get a very nice photo album/organizer to help to sort and keep track of things (I actually like the Elements organizer more than Bridge which comes with CS4.)

Elements is far more than merely a 'scrapbook' application as you noted in your previous post. As I mentioned to you there, it does everything that you were doing in regular Photoshop. PSP is a fine program, but there aren't nearly as many good tutorials for it as there are for the PS family.
I would strongly recommend Elements and 'The PSElements 8 Book for Digital Photographers'.

Adobe and Corel products aside - you might want to take a look at Picture Window Pro V5. It is full-featured, supports RAW, managed color workflow, 16 bit editing, a bit more intuitive if radically different interface from photoshop, various methods for masking, HDR image stacking, excellent B&W processing, and the best part - its only $89. You can download a full working 30 day trial at

http://www.dl-c.com/

I've been using it on and off since version 3.5 and I found that it uses less machine resources, loads faster, and represents no compromise in image quality compared to photoshop.

Hey Andrea, I would also suggest the PS Elements program along with two Nik Software programs. Nik's Viveza is an amazing tool for pin point processing of exposure and colors, I would also suggest their Color Efex Pro for the filter effects, very cool. If you decide to go this route I can save you 15% on the Nik programs with a promo code.

Hi Andrea, I use Corel Paint Shop Pro Ulitimate and love it. I highly recommend it!

Carlette Bragg

John, when I went to the store to look at Elements 8, the box pretty much described something like scrapbooking or organizing your photos, it didn't say anything hardly of editing photos like CS4, that's why I was hesitant to buy it, ONE: the online said it was $89.99, but when I went to the store it was $129.99 and I am really limited on what I can spend right now, at the moment, Corel seems to satisfy me, I mean I am just starting off and someday I will return to Photoshop CS4 or what they will have by then; but at the moment I am going to try this one out. I'd have to admit, CS4 did have a nice layout to it or at least I got used to it. As for trying to call them back Austin, I'd very much rather write them, I can't even understand the people I've tried talking to, honestly I'm sick of always having to go through somebody who can't even speak English.

Don't know if anyone has any interest - but Digital Light and Color, the publishers of Picture Window Pro, is offering it for $69, including media, from now until Jan 31st. Its hard to turn this great software package down at this price.

Mike is right; Nik software is a great combo with Elements. I have Elements 7 with Nik's Silverefex Pro and Dfine 2.0 and love it and John mentioned the book by Scott Kelby, who is the best author when it comes to writing PSE books. I've got his book on Elements 7, along with the other versions I've owned.

In the past I've had pros who've told me that Elements is all I'll ever need for what I do. So far, that's been the case.

Carlette, how does each of the watermarks work? And how do you do them? I'm so used to CS4 and it took me a day or two just to figure CS4 out.

Andrea, how's your blood pressure by now?! As a "fellow" female, I could see that you weren't thinking too rationally in the wake of your episodes. I can feel some of your pain, having gotten myself a "bad" copy of CS3 once...which I didn't find out until I went to upgrade. I'm not using CSx at the moment, although I reckon when I do I'll buy it directly from Adobe :-).

That being said, I have Paintshop Pro, and PS Elements (7), and Lightroom. They all do way more than I'm sure I'll ever learn. I use Lightroom extensively, but you might not want to jump in there until the time comes when you have a "workflow" and big batches of RAW files to deal with.

When I have editing to do, I find myself going to Elements, rather than Paintshop Pro. Not sure just why, maybe because the interface is very Adobe-ish. I sometimes add watermarks, etc, using the Text tool in PSE, and like it just fine.

Just from my own experience, I'm inclined to think that if you plunk down $80 or $90 on Elements, you will not be disappointed. The interface will resemble CS4, and it does a lot of really neat things all on its own - combining photos, weeding out backgrounds, etc. I was disappointed with its panoramas - I could see the "joins". My PSE7 is also buggy - it crashes upon "exit" every time, and sometimes in the middle...even tho I've reset and reinstalled, etc. I still use it, and like it for what it does.

Also, if you think your copy of CS4 is valid (your purchasing experience sounds a little fishy), and it quit because of two many installs, I would persist in getting the key unlocked. You can use it to upgrade, if nothing else. PSE also gets you a *small* upgrade discount.

Good look, persist!

Well, I will wait a little while (at least til next summer) to purchase CS4 again, but right now I am having fun with PSP, especially now that I have figured out how to watermark my images, my only question at the moment is how to resize my image for the internet.....I'll figure it out one way or another, thank you though.