Review by Caraleisa

I’m a Photoshop professional- I use Photoshop daily and have for many years. Most of what you can do here you can do in Photoshop, of course, but it’s a lot harder to learn and the cost difference is phenomenal– $40 vs $6-700! So my review will have some bias. That said, CPSPX4U is a delight. I won’t run down the individual features as many others have done a great job describing them.

I can imagine a bit of a learning curve for someone who hasn’t used any image editing software, but it’s worth taking the time to learn. My advice to beginners is to explore. Open a copy of whichever photo you want to manipulate (ALWAYS work on copies- whichever program you’re using!) and start trying each section. Within a section, explore the tools and within each tool, explore the variations you can use.

For the intermediate user, someone who has used other photo-editing software, I think you’ll enjoy the different approaches you’ll find in this application. Let yourself go wild and play. Work using a succession of copies, then toss the ones that don’t work out and save the good variations.

For professionals who create digital art - I find using another program - even if you work primarily in Photoshop or Illustrator, is particularly helpful from a creative perspective. Sure, you can pretty much do everything in your main app, but I’m willing to bet you didn’t think of many of these ideas- so having them in front of you is wonderful. We ALL get set in our ways – working in a different application forces us to create with a different tool - and I believe you can’t have enough tools at your disposal. I don’t use secondary apps for the primary things I do in Photoshop as much as for the filters, layer effects, etc, available in another app. PaintshopProX4 Ultimate has a delightful range of filters and plugins. I find switching between Photoshop and Paintshop Pro (or Corel Paint) offers me the widest range of inspiration within my work. I recommend this app for all levels of users- you simply can’t go wrong for the price.