Paint Shop Pro

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET Staff on November 08, 2008

With a smorgasbord of tools for working with digital photos and creating illustrations, the latest version of Paint Shop Pro clearly has lofty intentions. However, this application shares a few minuses found in similar full-featured image programs. The busy, cluttered interface is almost certain to overwhelm newcomers, though more seasoned veterans of image-editing applications will quickly find their sea legs. Also, the installation file eats up a whopping 98MB of disk space, so be prepared for a wait before you can begin testing Paint Shop Pro's powers.

In return for the hefty toll it takes on your system, this program offers just about every tool you'll need for illustrating and perfecting your digital photos. In addition to the standard assortment of drawing implements, you'll find such new additions as a palette knife and a smear tool. Any errant brush strokes or adjustments can easily be undone via a small pane in the lower-right corner. If digital photography is your game, you'll appreciate the boatload of image-editing options Paint Shop Pro puts at your disposal. You can manually adjust such attributes as sharpness, color balance, and contrast, or you can use the program's One-Stop Photo Fix feature to automatically whip your shots into shape. A wide variety of effects will come in handy if you want to go beyond simple corrections, or you can simply resolve flash or backlighting problems. If your shots have too much noise or purple fringing, Paint Shop Pro can fix them up in a jiffy. Though this program may leave casual photographers or illustrators a bit bewildered, its all-encompassing feature set makes it a great bet for pros or anyone else craving a fine degree of control over his or her images.