I’m finding myself a bit disappointed in Photoshop Elements. First, the warp tool was missing, and then I find out there is no pen tool. And now because there is no pen tool, I can’t do vector drawings outside of basic shapes with the shape tool. I had been under the impression that Photoshop Elements was very comparable to Paint Shop Pro, but it seems that (despite the lack of stroke path), Paint Shop Pro is a few levels above Photoshop Elements in graphics capability.
Don’t get me wrong. Photoshop Elements is quite good for what it can do. For a person who primarily uses a graphics program to edit photos, Elements might very well be all they’ll ever need, but since I also use these programs to create web graphics, I’m finding it pretty lacking in that area. I’m still planning to use it pretty extensively since there are some other things I really do like about it, but nevertheless, when I recently found the most recent version of Paint Shop Pro, Ultimate edition for $41, I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and pick it up. Unless I later decide to upgrade to Illustrator or Corel Draw, it has most of the vector functions that I need. Paint Shop Pro has also had the capability of using Photoshop filters for years, so there’s a lot of good interchange between the two programs.
On another good note, I found out that I can buy the regular version of Photoshop for about half off the normal price simply because I bought the Wacom tablet and there is a special deal included for tablet owners to get a discount. So maybe I’ll do that too in the future. I’ve also found myself kind of wanting Corel Painter, so it may end up being a matter of which of them wins out first whenever I want to spend more money on these sorts of programs.
I’m actually pleasantly surprised by this latest version of Paint Shop Pro. It still has the bloatware problem that started occurring around version IX or so, or whenever Corel took it over from Jasc, but outside of the bloat, it really seems to have a lot to offer, especially for the price. It also still has tubes, which I believe is an exclusive feature that the other programs don’t have. Tubes are graphic options that you can store and then “paint on” whenever you need a lot of those options. The software comes with some tubes, and you can also make them yourself. They work kind of like Photoshop (and Paintshop Pro) brushes, except they are full colored graphics and not just shapes. Maybe Paintshop Pro is getting better again.
Or maybe I just like playing around with all of this software. It’s probably a mixture of both!
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