Jasc Overview

Jasc has an array of products but there can be no doubt that the key one is PaintShop Pro. Jasc is an example of a shareware vendor that successfully made the transition to the big time because PaintShop Pro has become one of the best bitmap graphics editors in the market. Notably PaintShop Pro is on a price-performance level rivaling if not outright beating Adobe Photoshop. Not bad for a program that just a few years ago was an image browser with the ability to do simple edits to thumbnail images. Now the image browsing prowess of PaintShop Pro has been imitated/copied by Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Suddenly the graphics program that got no respect - deservedly gets it now. Paintshop Pro has vaulted past Adobe Photoshop Elements, Corel's PhotoPaint, and Ulead's Photo Impact as the best $100 or less digital photo image editor on the market.

And despite taking on tons of added functionality to earn that honor, PaintShop Pro retains an ease of use level that other vendors are hard pressed to match. Take the new Effects Browser shown in the PaintShop Pro screen shot above. This tool is simply better than the new Filter Gallery in Photoshop CS for 3 big reasons. First, the thumbnails dynamically show all the saved presets (including all user defined presets) for every Effect and Adjustment (including all the Color Adjustments) available in PaintShop Pro. Ever wonder why bother to save a preset for an effect - now you know that your saved preset will be shown in the Effects Browser as a reminder of your own customized effects brilliance. Second, the effects are live demos against the selection and layer that you are currently editing unlike Photoshop which just shows the same canned thumbnail. Third, the tree window at the left lets you navigate quickly to the specific group of Adjustments or Effects you are looking for. This attention to detail makes novices as well as pros much more productive right away in PaintShop Pro.

Another example of ease of use is the consistent layout of all the Adjustment and Effects dialogs in PaintShoP Pro. Each one has the following set of standard features and controls: 1)dropdown of all the preset settings for that Adjustment or Effect both Jasc factory presets and user saved ones; 2)User Save and Load of presets; 3)Revert to default settings; 4)Magnify or Shrink the thumbnails; 5)Guide to adjust the thumbnail's location; 6)Toggle button to turn before and after thumbnails on or off; 7)Button to preview effect on full image; 8)Toggle to always preview every change on the full image; 9)Dice button which sets all the controls randomly - good to quickly check what the Effect or Adjustment can do for you; In sum, this consistent layout and set of options across all the Paintshop Pro Effects and Adjustments make them just a bit easier to learn and remember how to effectively use.

But Jasc is not just PaintShop Pro. It's Media Center acts as a complete browser and catalog of images and other rich media resources stored on the computer. Media Center's drag and drop ease of use, very fast thumbnail generator, and user customizable image description fields make it a versatile cataloging tool. Animation Shop on the other hand is getting long in tooth - as it only supports GIF animations; offering no support for the popular Flash SWF format. Finally, the SVG(-scalable Vector graphics)based Web Draw program allows user to do a pretty broad set of drawing operations producing vector images comparable in quality (but not in range of features)to Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. This program has great potential as Mozilla is flirting with releasing SVG processing internal to its browser and more SVG plugins become available for all browsers. Finally, Jasc markets the Virtual Painter plugin which we review elsewhere.

In sum, Jasc has made it as a major force in the 2D graphics world. As long as it continues to improve its flagship product as steadily as in the past; Jasc and PaintShop Pro will be a major player in graphics. Then emergence of Web Draw and/or Media Center will be icing on the cake.
See our review of PaintShop Pro here and lots of links and references to Jasc products here.