Need Help Paint Shop Pro vs Photoshop

[rstein]

I am fairly new to digital, having used an olympus c3000 and am now starting out with a D30. My question, can I get by with Paint Shop Pro v7 or do I need to try and learn PS? I am strictly an amateur and I'm not sure I have long enough to live to learn all the ins and outs of PS :-) Can you use some of the plug ins with PSP. I've used ver 4 and 6 and it's easy enough to me for the things I have done in the past. Now if I'm moving up can I still get by with the new version of PSP. Besides the cost difference I am really concerned about the learning curve. Appreciate any feed back you have to offer.

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Rick,

I can tell you about my experience with this dilemma.

I already owned PSP when I got my D30 (16 months ago now). It is a very good program at an excellent price. However, I became increasingly frustrated by the fact that an awful lot of people were using PS. This is what they talked and wrote about. It is certainly possible to do much of what PS can do in PSP, but I did not find it easy to "translate" from one to the other. I was not an expert in PSP, so converting instructions was something I found difficult. In the end, I decided to spring for PS6 and go with the "de facto standard for image processing". I was clearly going to suffer some pain :) , so I figured "go with what the pro's use".

One factor in my decision was not plug-ins - many PS plug-ins are compatible with PSP - it was things like Pekka's LinearSharpen http://photography-on-the.net/D30/linear/ and Fred Miranda's actions www.fredmiranda.com. These have been a great help to me and lots of D30 owners.

I cannot say that D30 images can NOT be processed adequately in PSP, but personally I am convinced that _my_ images look better because I made the switch to PS6 (now PS7). You are right about the steep learning curve, but there is so much info around to help and lots of friendly, helpful people on this forum and Fred's to offer advice that it may not be as steep as you fear.

Since you are a beginner, you may like to look at my site www.rogercavanagh.com. I have collected a lot of stuff and links that helped me with my D30.

Regards,

[mlfrancis]

I use PSP because of three real reasons.

1.) Spent most of my money on the camera.
2.) 17 month old daughter.
3.) 2nd kiddo due in August.

Now if I were to find a GREAT price on PS , I would go with it in less than a heartbeat, but that isn't going to happen any time soon.

PSP 7 is able to do the vast majority of the things I want to do to my photos, but like Roger pointed out, everyone seems to use PS. That isn't to say there isn't a lot of tutorials and people out there to help you learn how to correct a photo using PSP, there are tons of people out there. The trouble is in most photography related sites, PS is the defacto standard and any steps are going to be given for it.

As far as figuring out how to do things in PS vs. PSP, the help desk at Jasc is actually very helpful. I have several times emailed them and said "PS can do this, can PSP"? Usually there are about ten steps in PSP to the PS one step, but it can usually be done.

I would love to be able to use some of the PS actions that are out there, but until I can save up the money and prove the justification, I will have to stick with PSP.

One other thing maybe to consider is PS is actually a marketable skill whereas PSP isn't. Just food for thought.

Happy shooting,
Michael

[Wildman]

Photoshop Elements shrinks the cost of Photoshop down to reasonable size. I received a copy of Photoshop LE bundled with my camera. The upgrade to Elements came to about $50.

I'm not going to bad-mouth Paint Shop Pro, I've never used it. Photoshop has become pretty much the standard and Elements lacks only color separation capabilities and one or two other features of the expensive product and adds a couple of new ones.

Photoshop isn't user friendly, tho' Elements is less user hostile than its big brother.

[rstein]

I think the answer is the one I didn't want to hear, but I will definitely start looking at PS Elements, at least for a start. I guess I will use PSP for a while longer, until I start to feel a little more comfortable with PS. Thanks for the input and advice. I'm sure as Arnold said, I'll be back.