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COREL PAINT SHOP PRO X ver. 10.0
www.corel.com
By Val Conway
Member of SCUG
February 2006
Corel's Paint Shop Pro X Ver 10.0 comes with a promise of a quick and easy way to edit, and organize photos and personalize pages using collages and templates. For about $120 you get one CD containing "Paint Shop Pro X" bundled with "Photo Album 6 Standard Edition", "MyPublisher Bookmaker 1.6" which is a free program used to order pictures in a finished album, "Tutorial Videos by Lynda.com" that give a good overview of how to work" and "Pixmantec RawShooter Essentials" for those using RAW images and a printed 106 page "Corel Paint Shop Pro X User Guide".

Installation was simple with no complications. There were already 2 major upgrades for a total of over 30 MB. As I'm on Dialup I wasn't pleased. Makes me feel the program could have been tested better before it's release. Corel can be contacted by telephone, e-mail on site or snail mail. I used their online e-mail to ask a question and was required to become a member before making submissions. Membership gives you options of getting some of their newsletters and bulletins and enables the checking of previous e-mails in my account. Paint Shop Pro performs photo adjustments and retouching such as colour adjustment, brightness, contrast, noise, sharpness etc. much like the larger more expensive programs. This list is long and you can read them at Corel's web site. I will deal with the features I found most memorable.

Moveable pallets are great allowing freedom to organize desk space. The Browser pallet shows resizeable thumbnails of all the images in a selected folder making finding and loading one or more pictures quick. The program uses Layers and this pallet shows each layer as a thumbnail. The History pallet is not only useful to undo and redo actions by choice, but it makes creating scripts a breeze. The ease of changing brush sizes by clicking Alt and dragging is truly a blessing and helps with the use of many tools including my favorite and most used the Clone Brush. This is also part of the reason that Red Eye Reduction can be done so easily in Paint Shop Pro X. Adjust the brush size and click on the eye until the red disappears. When it comes time to print, drag and drop your pictures on a Print Layout page resize them and print. You can also use one of the preset templates or create your own.

What makes this program easier for novices in photo editing is the combination of the training video and Corel's addition of a Learning Center which is a pallet that resides at the side of your screen giving specific directions on seven categories; -Get Photos, -Adjust, -Retouch & Restore, -Collage, -Text & Graphics, -Effects, and -Print & Share. A click on any of these interactive help categories takes you through the operation step by step.

Most impressive is that the Learning Center not only tells you what to do but it actually selects the tool you need from the toolbar which resides at it's side. If more help is needed the Help Files with more detailed explanations can be accessed directly from the Learning Center. With one click the Help file will open at the appropriate page and if you don't find your answer there you can use the Contents, Index, and Search in the normal fashion. Along with this Help had a "Favorites" section to Bookmark favorite Help pages and then go back to them again with one click.

Once you know how the program works you can turn off the Learning Center and gain the extra real estate. Photo Album 6: The program starts the first time by loading all or selected pictures on your computer into it's database. Once they are loaded you can choose get your photos from your files or your camera as thumbnails and then Organize, Enhance, Create projects using templates or share your photos by e-mail or CD. Sorting can be done on all your pictures or those in a particular folder by; name, date modified, date taken, size, or type. Assigning keywords to each photos will give you yet another way to search. Keep track of photos to e-mail, print or update by placing them in a tray until you decide to complete the project.

Downloading your files from a Camera is convenient and choices are given for saving, rotating and naming your files saving camera information. Backing up your photos to CDs is fast and easy with the PhotoSafe Backup System. Once you put all of them on CDs each backup will be done on those not previously backed up and a reminder can be set to popup at your set interval. You can also set up the program to backup your image files to another folder or drive automatically at an interval of your choice.

Pros: Not only is Photo Shop Pro X cheaper than professional programs but it does just about everything most people need faster. The help tools which include the Tutorials, Learning Center and Help Files all make this program easier to use. Cropping to a specific size has been a problem in some photo programs but is very easy to put in dimensions in Paint Shop Pro X. The Background Eraser tool senses changes in colour making cutting out selections for creating layers a little easier.

The best feature of Photo Album 6 was the PhotoSafe Backup System with automatic backups and reminders to create CD backups at user specified intervals. It was also easy to pick a picture get the EXIF Information and assign photo titles and descriptions.

Cons: Creating Collages in Paint Shop Pro X is still an ordeal. The Background Eraser tool helps but the Learning Center doesn't go through all the steps so we are left to do a lot of reading and learning ourselves. Same goes for adding objects to the photo using what is called "Picture Tube" which is a series of files with various images.

I've yet to figure out if it's possible to only use one image from a multi image file and without being able to reach Corel by e-mail I'm left wondering. The tutorial videos would have been much better with the addition of a voice.

Photo Album 6 was disappointing. Organizing the files was cumbersome and searching sometimes didn't find expected files. Searching the Help file locked the program several times. Templates for creating projects is very limited. Red eye reduction and cropping is better done in Paint Shop Pro X.

The bottom line is I enjoyed using Paint Shop Pro X but Photo Album needs more work. Thanks to Corel you don't have to take my word for this. Go to their site and download a fully functioning 30 day trial version of both Paint Shop Pro and Photo Album 6. I applaud companies who are taking the initiative to let us try the programs.

System Requirements:
Minimum System Requirements
* 500 MHz processor
* Microsoft Windows 2000 (SP4) or XP (will not work with Windows 98 SE)
* 256 MB of RAM
* 500 MB of free hard disk space
* 1024 x 768 resolution display, 16-bit color display
Recommended System Requirements
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