Review by ASP

Paint Shop Pro X7 Ultimate is a great program that offers a lot of features. Comparable to Photoshop Full, it offers a wide range of creating, editing, adjusting, and manipulation tools. Even though I prefer Photoshop a slight bit more, especially since I’ve been using that for the past seven years, this program offers a similar experience to Photoshop. If you have experience working with past version of either, you know what you are getting. If you are new to photo creating/editing/manipulating, both program require you to learn how to use the features. PSPro has video and written tutorials available on its website (link through PSPro), that explain the features. It takes practice to get good at these programs.

The Magic Fill tool works great in the tutorial, but worked okay for most of my photos. I had to apply it multiple times to get the photo I wanted. It is a feature that does complex work, so don’t expect it to work wonders or work perfectly every time. Sometimes manually doing the work instead of using the Magic Fill tool will provide better results. But definitely try the Magic Fill tool first.

I worked with the new RAW editor and it’s good. It’s not as good as the Photoshop RAW Editor due to less precision in its adjustments, but it did help edit RAW images nicely. It works quickly and smoothly, although one or two features did require a few seconds to think before applying.

The Face Tagging program does a great job most of the time, and an average job some of the time of finding faces in photos. It will search through the photos you specify in folders and bring up the faces. Then you create a new name or specify the name to associate with that face. You have to do this with every photo. But the process quick. Then you can just click on a name in the work area and it will bring up every photo associated with that name. A great way to find photos. The feature works very smoothly (using my PC specs) and quickly. I am using a Intel Core i5 3.1Ghz PC with 12 GB of RAM. I am running 64-bit Win 8.1 Pro.

You get two discs: Paint Shop Pro X7 Ultimate on the first disc, and FaceFilter Studio 3 on the second disc. PSPX7U requires 337 MB of space for the install. Install takes about 7 minutes. I’m using a Core i7 with 12 GB of RAM. The program runs very smoothly while editing photos. After registering, you get access to free video tutorials, free written tutorials, tips, and theirnknowledgebase.

I’ve been using Photoshop Elements for the last 7 years. For one year, I used the full version of Photoshop. I enjoy photo editing and manipulation, but I haven’t had the need to use the full version of Photoshop every year. Paint Shop Pro is a great alternative to Photoshop. It is very similar in functionality. PSPro offers a wide range of brushes and tools, but at a lower cost than Photoshop Full. Working with layers, photo editing, removing objects, using filters. All those are the same as Photoshop. PSPro runs mostly smooth on my Intel Core i5 3.1Ghz PC with 12 GB of RAM. I am running 64-bit Win 8.1 Pro.

TUTORIALS: There are video tutorials and written tutorials available on the Corel website, and the link to them is also available in the PSPro program. They are useful tutorials. Some of the features are not intuitive. There are some details provided for each feature at the bottom when you click on it, but trying to find certain things and how to use them properly takes some getting used to. I definitely had to research how to do a few things I do so easily in Photoshop. Good thing for the tutorials though.

The 64-bit and 32-bit versions are included. After importing photos, you can add star ratings and tags to photos. You can’t do this during the import. You can save photos in about 35 different file types, including PSD Photoshop format. You can customize the workarea by closing out windows and panels you don’t need. When working on photos, you will see the changes occur directly on the image you are editing/adjusting. Some of the options do need a few seconds to apply your changes. Most simple changes of features occur instantly. You may be expecting instant changes, but some of the advanced features do require time to calculate and implement.

Paint Shop Pro X7 Ultimate runs smoothly, but I find that Photoshop Elements runs a bit smoother for me by about 10%, and Photoshop Full ran even faster by another 10%. It’s not a huge speed difference, but it is noticeable a few times. If you are serious about learning how to create, edit, or manipulate photos, this program will help you do some amazing things. But you will need to spend the time learning the features. Learning this program is just as time consuming as learning Photoshop would be. But it will let you do some amazing things that will let you impress others with your photo skills.