Unless you do graphic design and image manipulation for a living, you don’t need Photoshop. As you know, Adobe’s Photoshop is the program that the heroes and villains of visual design use. And, it gets too much press!

I admit, the people pushing pixels day after day need Photoshop. It is the Jaguar, it is the Mercedes, and it is the Lexus of image editing and graphic design. You can create incredible images with Photoshop. You know what I mean, the ones that make people stare in wide-eyed wonder. It rocks.

But learning how to use it hurts. Trust me, it takes a long, long time to learn how to use Photoshop, and all of its tricks. The power is buried in strange places. That means the usability isn’t what it could be. Further, you often need to buy plug-ins from Adobe or third party vendors if you want to do some of the special stuff. (Ack, more money!) So yes, it can do what you want, but you have to know how to drive it.

Learning to drive Photoshop is probably not worth your time.

But who really needs that much power? Do you? If you just need to make a few graphics here and there, you need Paint Shop Pro. If you want to take a look at an image that you downloaded from the web, Paint Shop Prop will do the job. If you want to create a banner, or an icon, or a logo, you need Paint Shop Pro. It works like a champ.

Paint Shop Pro is not a luxury program. It is like an old rusty farm truck that you jump in and drive. It is reliable, it can almost always do the job, and you can take it off road without blinking. At the end of the day the job gets done. This is the tool for the average bear.

Here are some hot resources…

Download tons of free stuff from JASC software, including a trial version of Paint Shop Pro 6, some free Picture Tube add ins, and more: http://www.jasc.com/download.html

Visit the JASC chat to talk about Paint Shop Pro (note: requires Java compatible browser). It is an excellent resource and the people are very helpful: http://www.jasc.com/chat.html By the way, Adobe doesn’t have anything like this.

Looking for the Paint Shop Pro FAQ? Here it is! http://www.alphageo.com/psp/faq.html

Finally, if you really want to get into the thick of things, you should visit the PSP newsgroup: comp.graphics.apps.paint-shop-pro Get your questions answered!

Summary: The program is cheap, easy to use, and it gets the job done. It has all the features you’d want, and the latest version (6.0) has many goodies. If you need an image-editing program, you don’t need Photoshop, you need Paint Shop Pro. Oh, and read the manual. It is excellent.







Recommended: Yes