Feature: Corel has updated PaintShop Pro to Version XI
Motivation: Will it continue as the best photo editing bargain available ?

Corel has updated Paintshop Pro to version XI and there are over two dozen changes or new features added to the program. Most notable is the replacement of the browser with the Organizer which adds a number of Corel Photo Album (renamed Snapfire)features to the browser interface. And that has been the other major change, because the browser, now Organizer, is a major part of the workflow and it has changed in very important ways as well as many of the dialogs. The screenshots below show the overall before and after. First Paintshop Pro 10 screenshot:

and below is the new look PaintShop Pro XI:

The new Organizer dominates PaintShop Pro XI's new look. The Organizer adds an Information Panel plus the treeview is changed. Users now get to choose which folders will be displayed in the treeview of directories rather than the old system which started from the root, c:\, and expanded just like in most file explorers showing every directory regardless if it had images or not of interest to you. There are also 4 new icons for new operations:
- Rotate image left 90 degrees,
- Rotate image right 90 degrees,
- Quick Viewer (for full screen slideshows of selected images or movies)
- Find to search for an image by its title or tags.
Find also uses other info which has been attached to an image using the new Information panel. The new Find option is quite handy even though we found the initial tagging operation a bit sluggish. Once tagged, the Organizer is quick to find files even when there are more than 3000 to search through.

But the new look extends also to some new icons for familiar commands like Negative Image, Curves, and Hue Saturation, Lightness commands etc. But the big change is the new dialogs:


                    Old Dialog Styling<------------------------------>New Dialog Styling

All of the Paintshop Pro dialogs have changed with a new look which makes the best dialogs in photo editing even easier to understand and use. The Preview tab at the top of each dialog controls whether the Preview thumbnails will be used. Preview has a small black diamond carat toggle switch. Click it off (pointing sieways) and the Before and After thumbnails disappear. Click the carat on and the Before and After Preview thumbnails reappear. Click the Preview on image option on the right, and all the changes will preview on the full size image. Users have to be careful about choosing this option - some adjustments and effects take 1/2 minute or more to fully preview especially with large 5-10MB images commonly available from most digital cameras.

The next major layout change in the dialogs is the new Settings tab. This tab puts more emphasis on the the ability to store settings for every dialog - a useful feature in PaintShop pro missing in Photoshop and other photo editors. Paintshop Pro always remembers the Last Used settings - and for many dialogs has a 3-5 other saved settings. But users can store their own. I have several for Manual Color Conversion and Add Border commands. Just save a your own settings by clicking on Save (floppy icon) and storing it with a unique name, say myCurves. Then just look for the myCurves presets in the dropdown - or type the name there.

But more than the look and layout have changed in PaintShop Pro XI. There are a number of new convenience features which we describe below.

New Convenience Features

Both the Curves and Levels commands have new controls and Auto options as seen in the screenshot above. This makes sense. The Auto Contrast, Color and Levels commands automatically look at the image and make an auto-recommended Contrast, Color, or Level correction and then show what the change means in either the Curves (see screenshot above) or Level dialog. This is clever because that means users can then immediately make any fine tuning adjustments before accepting the Auto correction. Nifty idea.

Its the same idea that is used with the One Step Photo Fix command or the Smart Photo Fix. Both do the same type of automated scan and then fix of the image for brightness, saturation sharpness, and color corrections. However the Smart Photo Fix then has 4 sliders that allow the user to fine tune the final corrections. I find that Smart Photo Fix provides good corrections. Both auto correctors get foiled by images with complicated lighting and sharpness problems. But for most images, these tools help users get close to final corrections fast.

The Crop tool has a similar handy enhancement. The icons for accepting or canceling the crop are attached right to the crop rectangle.In addition, a dropdown of preset crop sizes is also available based on the images's size and DPI settings. Another quick and nifty enhancement.

The new Color Changer tool brings tonal awareness to PaintShop Pro. So unlike its neighboring Flood Fill tool which replaces colors within a tolerance range with one uniform color, the Color Changer tool uses the same tolerance range but retains the gray tone or brightness of the color there. This puts Paintshop Pro on par with Photoshop and other photo edit tools which have had this capability for one or two versions.

The Makeover tool has a new helper command Adjust | Skin Smoothing Wow. If you have ever taken a look at Hollywood glamour photos from the 40's and 50's, Skin Smoothing is delivered no questions asked. And to think they labored for hours in make up and the darkroom to get those glam shots - and now I can make my sister look like a glam girl. Uh oh, I am in trouble big time with Melinda.

Film Processing Commands

Corel PaintShop Pro has helped to lead the parade of photo edit programs that provide specific tools which appeal to photography experts such as Corrections for LensDistortion or Infrared Camera effects. Well PaintShop Pro XI continues that trend with 3 new photo pro features.

First, the Time Machine (Effects | Photo Effects | Time Machine) is a very clever special effect - it takes any image and adds the grain, color, tonal range, plus picture frame of 7 historical photo processing methods:
Daguerreotype - earliest method - strong dark sepia tone, slight aura
Albumen - another early 19th century process - lighter yellow to sepia tone
Cyanotype - inexpensive 19th century -contrasty cyano/blue prints
Platinum - expensive, archival process - delicate pewter to light green
Autochrome - early 20th century color process- washed out colors
Box camera - Kodak 20th century - pure gray tone from delicate to contrasty, blurry
Cross Process - modern mismatch color - tinny to extra punchy colors

This is a wonderful history lesson in photographic processing including pretty reliable renditions for most of the processes although experts are sure to quibble.

For example, when I did a Goggle on Platinum and Albumen processing, one already can discover a divergence among photo historians as to the nature of the processes and their stylings. So please don't take these stylings as definitive but rather close approximations of the historical processes. This will be good enough for most uses.

All the images need are a little distressing -and there is surely a filter for that. This is a delightful effect.

Next Film and Filters(Effects | Photo Effect | Film and Filters) does the same thing as Time Machine but allows users to apply modern films (think Velvia, Ektrachrome, Agfa, etc) with popular camera lens filters.
Here are the films:
Vivid ~ Kodakchrome - strong punchy colors
Vivid Skin tones ~ Agfachrome - natural earth tones shine here
Muted red ~ early Kodacolor - definitely looks like some of my Fathers old prints
Enhanced Reds ~ ???? - almost like Vivid
Vibrant foliage ~ Velvia - Not just Velvia but most Fuji films had this punch
Rich Earth tones ~ AgfaColor - a champagne rich red earth set of tones
Glamour ~ Premia??? - a little contrast and high key
And here are the filters with starting color and density:
Night effect - pewter blue at 30%
Cooling - blue green at 10%
Warming - light orange at 10%
Orange - vivid orange at 20%
Champagne - light purple at 20%
Sunset - even more vivid orange at 30%
Custom - user selected color and density
Again this is a novel mix and match of film styling and filter effects that can't help but stimulate some novel post processing thinking for photo finishers. This is a rich overall lighting/hue mixer. Imagine applying this to masked/selected areas of an image and you will have captured it utility.

The new Depth of Field effect is the least useful of the new camera effects.Its intentions are pure - to help create focus by blurring areas outside of the focal subject area. It is what narrow depth of field lenses do for you automatically - especially the big bazooka $5000++ telephoto lenses of sports photography. But the Depth of Field effect breaks one of the cardinal rules of effects - always honor any existing mask or selection. Instead the Depth of Field effect has its own selection mechanism which overrides any prior selections and is applied to the whole image. This would not be too bad - except the way you apply the Depth of Field mask is to the thumbnail preview. Bzzzzzzt! This can never be as good as a prior, full screen masking. The results are often clunky looking depth of field corrections. This effect needs rework. But there is a positive result - users will get to know and appreciate the powerful selection, feathering, and blurring tools already available in PaintShop Pro.

Organizer vs the Old Browser

This party is a bit conflicted on his opinion of the new organizer versus the old browser. On one hand the ability to designate which directories to browse instead of having a list of every directory is an advantage. Also the ability to add tags to images and then find them quickly is also much appreciated. This is exactly what I do on sites like Flickr, Fotki and Pacbase - and so to have it readily available through PaintShop Pro now is also valued.

But I have mixed emotions on the loss of a number of options when working with thumbnails of images in the Organizer versus the old Browser. Specifically, the new Organizer has 12 commands while the Browser had 21. Some of the important missing commands:
Copy to - copy the selected images to a specific directory
Move to - move the selected images to a specific directory, deleting the images from the current directory
Open with Options - allows user to open a file and have a script run on the file immediately
Print Layout - allows user to send a select group of images to Print Layout command
Sort - sort the the thumbnails by a new criteria
I know, some of these commands like Print Layout and Open with Options can be found in the menus, it is the convenience lost.

But also I have used PaintShop Pro to manage my images extensively. Now I have to use Snapfire - its just not as convenient. Finally, I am not certain of how Snapfire/the Organizer create and save thumbnail files - the .jbf files used by Browser. I had learned all the ins and outs of managing .jbfs, now I have .PIX files but no idea how to manage them. This is critical since I move hundreds of image files all over the place depending on what type of post processing and backup I have done. So Snapfire/theOrganizer are still a mixed blessing.

Summary

This update to Paintshop Pro has more of the feeling of a .5 upgrade. There are no blockbuster features. The new TimeMachine and Film+Filter effects come closest. The integration of PhotoAlbum/Snapfire Lite into PaintShop Pro is welcome but with the loss of some functionality from the old browser - the net effect is diminished.

For users new to PaintShop Pro this upgrade with its new dialog layouts just confirms PaintShop Pro as the easiest to use and price/performance bargain of the top flight photo editors. For existing users who did not upgrade to versions 9 or 10, the new photo-oriented effects and enhancements from the Makeover tool to the Time Machine effects are very attractive - do consider that the time to upgrade may be now. For the remaining version 10 users, this is a .5 upgrade, do your own utility math. For all its worth, this avid photofinisher plunked his money down.