Paint Shop Pro vs. Photoshop Elements

[Lazy8s]

If you think it should be an unlisted program please put it in a reply and I'll add it to the poll.


Basically I am wanting to get one or the other for the g/f for her b-day. She is NOT a computer person, however she is about to finish a master's degree and she does manage a couple of websites that she built from the ground up using Microsoft Frontpage so she is not computer illiterate.

She used to have a copy of photoshop elements (really, REALLY old one of the first releases ever) that came with her very old, very crappy digital camera but her dad reformatted her HD to install XP (because he thought she had a virus...anyways) so she lost the program and does not have the disk. At first I thought photoshop elements because she might be the most familiar with the interface, but she did do a LOT of editing with it and if PSP can really do that much more perhaps she would enjoy the added features.

Basically she removes redeye, plays with tint, hue, contrast, lighting and just about everything to get the best picture. I have never used a digital photo suite other than Photoshop CS once at school because I hate doing that stuff so I cannot give much more details. All I know is I could give her a kinda crappy pic of the mountains and it came back looking better than what I saw with my naked eyes.

This is just her hobby (maybe 10 hours a month on good months) so I don't want to spend for photoshop CS, plus it's too expensive for poor grad peons but she has submitted a couple of her pics to amateur art contests and actually placed. She hasn't earned any money for them but they have been published and I really think with the right tools she could really be proud of what she's doing.

Bottom line: They are about the same price. She had a VERY old version of photoshop elements so she might be more comfortable with that. From the reviews hough it looks like PSP has a good bit more features, though I don't know if her favorite one-click features might not exist in PSP. Any opinions would be great. Thanks in dvance, sorry it was kinda long.

EDIT: I think it might be helpful to mention she has tried Picasa and it's not even close to the feature set she wants (though she does like the slideshow screensaver) and I let her try The GIMP on my machine and she absolutely hated it.

 

[alfa147x]

Poll please

 

[jpeyton]

Adobe Lightroom
[/thread]

Try the 30 day demo.

Whoops, it's $299. Nevermind. Go with PSP.

 

[cvrefugee]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Adobe Lightroom
[/thread]

Try the 30 day demo.

Whoops, it's $299. Nevermind. Go with PSP.

Only $98 for students (like the OP's girlfriend).

 

[gsellis]

I messed with Lightroom for about 15 minutes, but while better, it still is an Adobe interface. Does the g/f get frustrated by obscure user interfaces? If so, PSP is probably the better choice. If she uses other Adobe apps, go Adobe.

 

[Lazy8s]

She doesn't use any other Adobe apps but she did use Photoshop Elements. Again, it was a really old version so I'm not entirely certain how much the interface will still be the same.

Also, the problem with student versions of software is if she entered her photos in any contests and won money it would be technically illegal. The likelyhood of being caught may be rather small but who knows; I'm not sure how/if that kind of thing is checked.

 

[Kaido]

I use Photoshop professionally, but at home I mostly use Picasa 2 and Paint Shop Pro 7. Picasa is an awesome photo album program (free from Google) and has a lot of great basic tools - automatic adjustments (contrast and such), black & white, sharpening tools, red-eye, and so on. Paint Shop Pro 7, although older, still has a lot of great tools and isn't as overwhelming to use as Photoshop - plus it's faster! So mostly I use Picasa to tweak images and then PSP7 to do larger edits. If I have a big project I'll use Photoshop, but otherwise the other two get me buy most of the time. Photoshop Elements is also neat, as is Lightroom. I do not like Aperture from Apple at ALL.

 

[corkyg]

Just to throw in another option. I have PSP XI, and PSE 6 and Picasa and acouple of others. But, I recently got Corel Media One to try and find it is really easy to use for editing and organizing as well as producing awesome slide shows. And at less than $50, it is a friendly price.

Media One

 

[Krioni]

Bumping this topic up because I'd like some more opinions... I need to figure which software to use as well

 

[warmodder]

I'd say elements, that way if she likes it she can step up to photoshop pretty easily. I have lightroom and it's terrific for my digital workflow, but it does have a somewhat steep learning curve that you shouldn't need to experience unless you require the speed it affords (ie deadlines!) It will do everything she wants though and exceedingly well if you can get the student discount.

 

[gsellis]

Are their trials of both? If so, let your 'user' try both and see what they like? Just a thought.

 

[montanafan]

She probably used the same Elements that I still do for most of my photos, 2.0. I recently bought PSE 5.0 cheap and it's a nice step up from 2.0, but not difficult to learn. I'd get her something she's already comfortable with, but that has more features like 5.0 or above.

 

[troytime]

Originally posted by: Kaido
I use Photoshop professionally, but at home I mostly use Picasa 2 and Paint Shop Pro 7. Picasa is an awesome photo album program (free from Google) and has a lot of great basic tools - automatic adjustments (contrast and such), black & white, sharpening tools, red-eye, and so on. Paint Shop Pro 7, although older, still has a lot of great tools and isn't as overwhelming to use as Photoshop - plus it's faster! So mostly I use Picasa to tweak images and then PSP7 to do larger edits. If I have a big project I'll use Photoshop, but otherwise the other two get me buy most of the time. Photoshop Elements is also neat, as is Lightroom. I do not like Aperture from Apple at ALL.

can you ellaborate on what you do with photoshop professionaly?

i know several "pros" that can't stand anything other than photoshop (myself included, but i'm not really a "pro")