"Photo editing is usually considered to be an area monopolised by Adobe’s Photoshop, but with PaintShop Pro this is done just as smoothly and with an almost equal amount of tools whilst costing a fraction of the price"
Matthias Scherer
Corel’s Paintshop Photo Pro X3 Ultimate is a photo-editing software kit that includes tools like digital painting and website creation. The Ultimate version of this software comes with features that allow the creation of websites and podcasts without having to learn any coding.
What we like best
Far from being only a photo editing suite, PaintShop Photo Pro X3 Ultimate (yes, we agree that the name isn’t exactly catchy) throws in the aforementioned tools for web creation and digital painting and sketching. The former, the WebSite X5 Special Edition, is very simple to use and produces if not professional, then at least presentable enough results to get you started in the field of web creation.
There are more than 1,400 website templates to choose from, and the layout function makes it very easy to structure your website – you can set up your sub-menus and categories according to your preferences, and the content input feature is as straightforward as any blogging platform out there. Videos and images are easily integrated into the website layout, and you can give the whole thing a final polish with the ‘advanced features’ function.
Photo editing is usually considered to be an area monopolised by Adobe’s Photoshop, but with PaintShop Pro this is done just as smoothly and with an almost equal amount of tools whilst costing a fraction of the price Adobe make users cough up. Plus, there’s the seldom-seen bonus feature of HD video support to create high-quality slide shows.
The new Raw processing facility is also a great addition, albeit not as comprehensive as the Photoshop equivalent – but saturation and exposure, among others, can be easily adjusted. There is an improved version of the Express Lab, which is a quick-fire photo editing tool for when you’re in a hurry, and the Project Creator allows almost instant uploading of images and slideshows to social networking platforms.
What we like least
The Painter Essentials 4 included in the PaintShop X3 Ultimate package is more of a playful tool that we didn’t really see the point of – the images that are created when using it look like fairly lifeless digital drawings of the original photos, although drawing from scratch did produce more colourful results.
Also, there is an overriding feeling that Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 is more of an entry point into photo manipulation. The fact that there now is a Raw processor doesn’t quite mask the fact that Adobe Photoshop still is the industry standard in photo editing.
Clunky name aside, Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 is a well-put together goodie bag of different editing software tools. Its interface might take some getting used to, but is ultimately very user-friendly. It tries commendably to be multi-functional (see the HD video function and the Raw processor), but won’t take on Adobe Photoshop on the professional market. It is, however, a fantastic budget option.
Features
Photo organiser
batch processing
Express Lab
Smart Carver
Vibrancy
Object extractor
Add On
Yes
Download or CD
Both
Compatible with
Windows
System Requirements
- Windows XP or higher
- 1.5GHz processor
- 1 Gb RAM
- 3 GB free hard drive
- minimum display res 1024x768
- windows compatible DVD-ROM
- Incomedia Website X5 Special Edition
Type of Software
Photo editing
Painter is a series tool for anyone interested transforming and manipulating images. It’s a serious tool for graphic artists, illustrators and anyone who does a lot of work with images.
You can now do more selecting and transforming functions meaning, that you don’t have to keep putting the image into Photoshop.
On practical terms the new program is marginally faster and you can now copy multiple layers. Even better the palettes are resizable making them far more convenient.
The big news about the new edition is that there are 40 new brushes including acrylics, blenders, chalks, pencils, pens and pastels.
One of the best features about Painter is the RealBristle™ Painting System. With pen and tablet input you can alter the width of brush strokes with the angle of your pen, just like in real life; the more vertical you hold the pen, the thinner the stroke and even the speed at which you paint will affect the depth and effect of colour.
You can build up colour by going over the same area, just as you would in real life. In fact there’s nothing that you can do with a real brush that you can’t do in Painter.
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