paint shop pro vs photoshop

How limited is PSP vs photoshop... where are the 'gotchas'?

Thanks

I haven't kept up with all the latest versions so I can't answer your question directly, but this might be helpful.

The one thing I'm not sure PSP9 provides is extended support for pressure-sensitive drawing tablets. I seem to recall reading that PhotoShop has done this since 6-point-something. Perhaps someone can verify or refute this.

All I can say is that I've never encountered any roadblock with PSP (even v. 7) that would be solved in PhotoShop, either in my professional (some Web and print design) or hobbyist (3D modeling) activities. YMMV of course.

Paintshop Pro will do just about anything you need to do in SL and Photoshop, in my opinion, is too feature rich with stuff you will rarely if ever use. PSP's interface is straightfoward and intuitive compared to Photoshop. The biggest gotya I can think of is the fact PSP doesn't do large images well compared to PS but you won't run into that very often on SL. That being said I much prefere PSP over PS for everyday tasks I usually need a graphic program for. PSP starts up almost instantly where PS takes a while which irritates the hell out of me.

On the other hand, once you learn Photoshop, you will have a skill that can be put on a resume and can be useful in a proffessional level. Most anyone who uses graphics in their job tend to look down their noses at PSP or anything other than PS in many cases even though PSP can do just about everything PS can do except CMYK processing. (In essence, PSP is equivalent to Photoshop Elements since they both lack that ability but PSE is lacking compared to PSP in other features )

It's funny you should say that. I found PSP 8's interface to be totally whacked, completely nonsensical (I never would have bought it but it came with my scanner so I gave it a try). Photoshop's interface on the other hand makes complete and total sense to me, very intuitive.

I dind't realize PSP can't do CMYK. I guess that makes it useless for any quality printing. Yuck. I'm glad I tossed it.

As for the "feature rich stuff you will never use", I have yet to find a feature of Photoshop that isn't extremely useful. Granted I don't use filters much and I almost never clone stamp since coming from a traditional arts background I prefer to paint most everything by hand, but many people use those tools every day. Beyond that, I really can't think of anything that I don't use all the time. Besides, even if there were tools in there that someone might not use, isn't it better to have it and not need it then to run the risk of one day needing it and not having it?


To answer the original question though, I would put it like this. You can't go wrong with Photoshop. You probably won't go wrong with PSP either, but the point is you could. Why take the risk?

Like all professional tools, Photoship is expensive, but it really is worth every penny. If all you're ever going to do is SL stuff then chances are PSP will do the job for you, but I'm of the opinion that one should never limit oneself. What if one day you find yourself wanting to do something that PSP can't do but Photoshop could (like for example print an image and have the colors be the same on paper as they are on the screen, which is what Kat and I were just talking about when we mentioned CMYK)? Are you comfortable assuming that all you want to do right now is all you'll ever want to do?

To use an analogy, you can buy a cheap set of tools at Walmart for a couple of bucks or you can buy a set of Craftsman tools for several hundred dollars. You might be okay with the Walmart junk if you only use them for things that are safe for them, but one day you might find yourself in a situation where you need to do a more heavy duty job that will end up breaking the cheapos and then you'll just either go out and buy the Craftsmans anyway or else you'll spend even more than that by buying the cheapos over and over again every time they break. You might as well save yourself the trouble and get the highest quality tools right from the start.

Good tools are much less expensive than cheap ones in the long run, much more enjoyable to use, and they will never let you down. This principle is true for hardware and software. Why sell yourself short?

I was a paintshop pro user for 7 years... started wayyy back in highschool and it worked for me. It was very user friendly. and when i was only making website graphics, and touching up photographs it was perfect.
THen a year ago i started playing SL, and someone told me that PS was soooo much better for SL stuff.. so i started using PS. I don't think i would have liked it so much if i hadn't learned PSP first because PS was a bit to get used to, but now i don't know what i would do without it. aside from my email program and SL, it is Loaded first thing and is running all day long.
I don't really like the way PSP handles the Alpha channels, and PS is just more versitile.. I love all the hotkeys. i very seldom use my mouse for clicking when using PS. I have Tons of filters for it, and enjoy just playing.
SO my personal opinion.. PS is the better program

Hope this helps
Lady

I have been a user of Paint Shop Pro since 1995 and I have used Photoshop since 3.0 and I prefere the way PSP's UI is layed out compared to PS, it makes more sense to me. Photoshop is Mac based so therefore it has a lot of Mac's idiosyicaties like not using the right mouse button instead of the "alt" key. It's all in what you get used to basically. I have 3 books on how to use PS that I have to use to figure out how to do even simple things sometimes. There are countles functions available to use that are only possible through short-cut keys(and usually only documented in 3rd party books) and in some cases you are doing some real keyboard gymnastics. Me, I like a nice, simple icon to click although PSP has lots and lots of short cut keys you can learn too.

Chosen is right, PS is an excellent tool and if you need all the functionality of a high end graphics program then it is what you should get. On the other hand, you don't need a $3000 ocilliscope to check a fuse. If you can't afford $600 for a program just to make black panties in SL, Paint Shop Pro will do anything you need to do for a fraction of the cost. (PSP 8 does support advanced digitizer functions like tilt and altitude so I assume 9 does too)

Consider this, if you are just starting out get PSP and learn to use it, I have seen it for sale for $75 or so online. Use it until the next Photoshop upgrade version and if you find PSP just isn't up to what you need it to do, pay the $600+ for the latest version of Photoshop. It will be significantly cheaper to buy PSP for $75 and then $600 for the next version than it would be to pay $600 today then another $170 or so for the next upgrade. My money is on the notion you won't need Photoshop at all and that will save you $640 ($770 - PSP 9 at $75 and one upgrade at $55).

To each his own I guess, but I'm really having a hard time understanding why you have so much trouble with the PS interface. The Windows version absolutely supports using the right mouse button to perform the functions one regularly associates with right clicking (calling up menus, etc.). Alt-clicking is only for special functions like entire layer selection, which is not something one would expect to happen when right clicking anyway. I'm not aware of any function that is only available through shortcut keys. Between the pallets and the menus, everything is right there in the open.

I think what it really comes down to is what you're used to and how open minded you are towards learning different UI's. You started with PSP so PS seems foreign to you, just as PSP seemed foreign and nonsensical to me having come from a PS background.

I agree with your comment that you don't need an expensive ocilliscope if all you're gonna do is check a fuse, but the point I was trying to make is that if you're gonna buy a tool that can only check fuses, you'd better be damned sure all you ever intend to do is check fuses. Otherwise, as soon as a more complex task arises, you're gonna end up spending the same money twice.

So again the question for the original poster really is do you believe you will never have need of Photoshop's full abilities. If the answer is yes, then by all means get a cheaper program like PSP. If there's a chance though that you might want or need to do more than PSP is capable of, then there's no point in spending money twice, even if it is only $75.

I know you were probably looking for a straight feature for feature comparison, and I'm sorry no one has been able to provide one, but that's a pretty tall order. There are literally hundreds of things the two programs do differently from eachother, and hundreds of things they each do more or less the same. It's really hard to just say PS does this and this and PSP doesn't or PSP does that and PS doesn't.

For me, one thing I can say is that the CMYK thing is a biggie. CMYK is the color theory that all color printers use. It is considerably different than the RGB color theory that monitors use. Without support for CMYK in your image editor, you have no way of knowing what a printed picture is really going to look like while its on the screen, which means you can say goodbye to any kind of reliable photo editing, layout work, etc. That's huge.

Kat's right that PS9 is right around the corner so if you are planning on going the PS route, it makes sense to wait a month or two. In the mean time, you might also want to consider GIMP, which is free. Functionally, it's supposed to be about as capable as PS, give or take a few things, but I've never used it so I can't say for sure. Most people I've talked to really hate its UI though. GIMPshop has recently been introduced to mimic the PS interface within GIMP, but several people on the forums have reported that it's a bit buggy at this point (still in beta).

I hope all this discussion has helped in some way.

Lucien, obviously you're starting to explore computer graphics. The botom line imo is whether this is a going to be a casual hobby or a career move.

Hobby- go w/ PaintShop Pro- it does most of what you'll need for SL, light image processing for the web, etc. The interface is less complex for the beginner. Also, if you find graphics aren't your bag, you'll feel alot less guilty walking away from PSP with its relatively low price tag.

Career move- Photoshop, with no hesitation. You'll shell out the better part of a month's rent but you get what you pay for-- the program has balls-lol. With all its bells & whistles, the learning curve is steeper, but once you know the ropes, there are alot of things it does faster (fewer user steps) and just plain better. Knowing Photoshop well is almost an obligatory element on a professional graphic artist's resume these days.

In the end of the day, intent and finances will make the decision. Myself- I switched from PSP3 to PS4 about 7 years ago & would feel seriously hobbled going back to PSP. I easilly spend 2/3 of my digital life in Photoshop, for what its worth & saving my movie money for the new upgrade...

what is it you want PSP to 'do' with CMYK? There has been an option to split to CMYK channels since forever. I have a five color a3 printer and PSP prints excellently to it. Better than PS, in fact.

As a happy PSP user, I wanna chime in here on a few things.



No arguement... Comparing PSP3 to PS4, the winner was clear. PSP has matured alot since those days. (Those were the days I started doing graphics work). Exponentialy more than Photoshop. Photoshop continues to be refined, and gets a few new features here and there, but it is still more or less the same product it was years ago. This is not true of PSP... Almost every version is a massive update. Particularly with the upgrade to 8, and then again most recently to 9. Comparing PSP3 to PSP9 is like comparing... A model T ford to a modern day pickup truck. Neither might be a Hummer, but there isn't any comparison between the two.

I've been doing graphics work on a small, hobbiest scale since the aformentioned PSP3/PS4 days. I used PS4 at school, and needed something cheap to use at home... Hence I found PSP.

Right from the start I've always found the PSP interface to be a lot more comfortable, and that's only gotten better as versions have gone on.

PSP isn't photoshop, no. The gap gets closer, but it's not there yet. It doesn't do some some things that PS does. But it does alot in it's own right. Don't think your getting a "crippled" program with PSP. As long as you don't need some of the features PS has, you'll be fine with it. For just doing art, it's just fine. It's mostly a few advanced publishing features that PSP lacks anymore. I use PSP exclusivly these days and don't have any problems.

PSP is hardly "Walmart junk." Comparisons like that reinforce Kathmandu's point about brand elitism in the graphics industry. That shouldn't be a concern for use with SL.

Personally I don't understand the comments about PSP vs. PS interface though. To me they've always seemed pretty similar -- you have menus, you have tool palettes, you have controls and filters that operate on the same basic graphic principles. It's kind of like switching between a Japanese domestic car and one for export -- driver switches sides, shift gear is on the other side, but the controls are fundamentally the same despite being rearranged.

Well, it seems I am being overruled by popular opinion that my dissatisfaction with PS's UI is me being silly, but ok. I don't like Pepsi either. When you are zooming in on an image with the left mouse button and then you want to zoom out one would naturally assume the right button would allow you to do that: alas, no you must "alt" + right click. You wish to use the clone brush, first you want to select the area to clone and one would naturally assume you would left click to select, no perhaps right click? Wrong again, that would be the obvious and intuitive "shift" key and a right click. Until PS 7 you only had 1 level of "undo" otherwise you had to use the actions pallet which was utterly stupid and to top it off, until PS7(I think, maybe 6) you didn't have a thumbnail browser, something PSP has had since PSP was on a 5 1/4" floppy. I can go on and on. PSP is more intuitive "to me" than PS. (this is as of PS7, I got off the ridiculously expensive upgrade treadmill for relatively minor changes per $170 spent)

I went and looked around and yes, PSP can do CYMK color separations..holy cow! I didn't even know it was there. If I ever need it, I can use PSP to set up files for offset printing now!!! I can do four color process wooo! Umm, how this would effect anyone using an inkjet or laser printer I have no idea. The way I understand it, the printer software automatically separates the color information in the optimum manor for that printer (CYMK may be what is used or CYMPCPMK separations for a 6 cartridge printer like mine). I was under the impression the way to match between the monitor and the printer was the use of monitor color profiles and monitor calibration, but what do I know? Then again, someone asking if there are any "gotyas" in PSP likely isn't going to need 4 color offset printing functionality anytime real soon. As far as printing goes, I tend to have better results printing from PSP.

Also, I forgot about this, JASC offers a free 90 day trial of PSP9 so you can try it out for free and if it doesn't do what you need it to do, go ahead and buy PS9 when it comes out and save even more.

PSP is not functionally limited nor is it junk ware and it isn't limited to "only checking fuses", I have yet to find anything I need to do graphics wise that only Photoshop can do and PSP can't except for one thing and that is manipulating and printing large (ok, fricken huge) files. Bottom line, PSP is a good program that will do what you need. If you have the money then I recommend getting Photoshop since it is the industry standard. On the other hand, if you would rather spend $600 on PSP and have enough left over to buy a 21" flatscreen monitor and lunch at Taco Hut then you aren't making a mistake.

The Gimp is a powerful program but it's UI is totally hosed and very much harder to translate should you move to PS later. The only reason to pick The Gimp over PSP is the fact it is free. Gimpshop, when it matures, may be a viable alternative but not anytime soon.

Actually it's a 60 day trial, but point is, a trial is still available.

I'd be curious how you define "fricken huge" though. My computer isn't optimally set up for graphics work -- 512MB or so RAM, 64MB video card, by now on the crappy end of the scale -- but I haven't had terrible issues working with 18-20MB files. Maybe I'm patient because I know it's a stretch. I haven't tried printing such however. The fact that I probably couldn't work with the 65MB files I occasionally deal with at work I attribute more to my computer than what software I'm using

Whoops, 60 day trial. They used to do the 90 day thing back in the shareware days.

PSP doesn't do well with files over 20 meg or so and I am on a AMD 2800 with 1 gig ram and a Nvidia 6600gt with 128 vram. When you get up into the 70meg range it becomes really slow. It doesn't print well much above the 20-30 meg range as errors start to creep in. Photoshop doesn't have near as much problem with large files as PSP does. Then again, you will rarely ever run into that sort of thing with SL except maybe dealing with the high resolution snapshots.

I personally use PSP, because I've used it since forever and I'm set in my ways.

However, another alternative would be The GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It's an open-source, totally-free graphics program. It's certainly on par with PSP, and I've seen a few for-print things done in GIMP that didn't seem any worse off than Photoshop stuff.

Plus, y'know, free. Legally so, as opposed to the zillion pirated copies of Photoshop out there. There's even a "GIMPShop" addition that makes it act very much like PS, so you won't be disoriented if you do decide to upgrade in the future.

GIMPShop is horribly, horribly buggy right now, at least the windows build... I wouldn't suggest it.

Thanks for the clarification and warning. It actually could come in handy at work for me since we will be looking soon at PS alternatives "for the common folk" who aren't in design, Web, or photo services. It could be an issue since we deal regularly with files of ~65MB.

OK- for the record- I never meant to imply that PSP was any form of turdware whatsoever. On the contrary, its a good, stable & beefy program & will likely do whatever needs to be done for SL & most casual hobbyist applications. I used it for years & was happy with it till I saw the PS Promised Land- lol!

I really think PSP's a better choice for the average user than PS is, price being a major factor, learning curve the other.

I am used to Photoshop & I love its extras-- layer styles, actions, & filters, etc-- these things entertain me to no end I am also used to it & have barely messed w/ PSP since ver 5.something, that mostly for the sake of helping others figure out alphas, etc. I also do a bit of pro work here & there, so will stick w/ PS, as I shelled-out the extortionary price for it.

Ill just chime in on this old question.
To put it really, really simply, the others are right:

PSP is for hobbyists, SL, and light web development.
PS is for graphics professionals.
GIMP should honestly be owned by eveyrone, there's no reason not to.

If you plan on doing clothes, website images, textures and whatnot, PSP is fine and affordable.
If you plan on making a 4 foot by 9 foot tradeshow banner and need it in a .pdf or .ini for the print shop and you need it in CMYK and you need it in an hour, you need photoshop.
Photoshop is the industry standard for a reason. PSP is also very popular for a reason.

If you want to do web images, you want to do SL clothes, and make nice wall textures for your SL house, by all means go get PSP, its a good program and will do the trick nicely.


If you plan on being a professional (and I mean that in the literal sense, i.e. a paid designer/illlustrator) dont waste time with PSP, get GIMP, and as soon as you can afford it, PS. If youre SERIOUS, you can go to school for design, get student discounts on Photoshop, and go the whole nine yards and learn the entire Adobe creative suite (which you'll be using on a professional level anyway). Taking the time to become a PSP guru will simply be wasted effort as once youve reached a level where you are regularly doing graphics for print, Photoshop will become a nescessity. *ESPECIALLY* if you plan to work in a shop as opposed to freelance.

I have both and for my work in SL I seem to use PSP more. I only really break out Photoshop for photo restorations and a few other things. But I started on PSP so , eh.

Any Marcomedia Suite users here? I just got it and haven't loaded it yet. Everyone I have spoken to says it is worth learning to use all the tools. Any tutorials? LOL,jk.

*Edit:
I just saw that Adobe bought Macromedia so I guess they will become one suite now.

It all depends on what you need it for. If it's creating textures or clothes for SL and whatnot you can probably get away with PSP but if you are heavy on editing things, the things you can do with photoshop are endless. I've been using Photoshop for 6 years and loved it. Oh, and price isn't much of an issue - you can get a used copy of a version or 2 down of photoshop on eBay for $150 and under. I'd go with at least version 6.0 though as 5.0 and less don't have a lot of great features that 6.0 and up do. Also, if you don't mind the risk you can find pirated versions of photoshop on P2p programs very easily LOL. Not that I condone that sort of stuff ya know...er...yeah.

Okay, okay, I get it. Photoshop (PS) is for "pros". Paint Shop Pro (PSP - having trouble keeping these acronyms straight) is for casual users. Not a small detail is the x10 price difference between the products. And Gimp is apparently in a state of becoming.

But my impression is that ALL of these tools are for moderately heavy duty designers - people who take their "fun" seriously. Some might say that if you are contemplating design, you are already on the more serious side. I'm trying to buck that trend.

What about a tool for those of us that don't own property, and consider the $10 ONE TIME FEE already pretty hefty (as in, I don't want to spend 8-10 times as much for editing software as I did for my online membership)?

I did a web search for "image editing freeware" and there are a TON of hits. I also have a ton of photo editing software that came with every CD/DVD player, scanner, camera and computer I ever bought. Some of its old, but I could spend six months just trying them all out (I've never had any interest in "photo editing" before SL).

So, if one rules out Gimp, PS and PSP, is there anything left? What if all I really want to do is change the color of the panties? How much Umph do I really need for very light, very casual tweaking of existing stuff?

I have Sims 2, and I've done considerable tweaking of the clothes and skins there using plain old MS Paint. You have to dig around to find a suitable template, but then its reasonably easy to tweak with them. For example, its hard to line up the multi-layer files by eyeball, but it CAN be done. Usually with the right template, its already done for you. To change transparency, all you need do is set the gray level of a mask higher or lower. To change color, I usually defer to Lview, a freeware Windows 3.1 package that still works quite nicely on XP, thank you very much.

Perhaps SL is more complex than the Sims2, but for someone such as myself, with no interest in "serious" design and creation, and very, very little interest in spending money, what features are the bare, BARE minimum in an editing product to make basic "play" design (as opposed to becoming an online clothing mogul earning RL bucks, which could not possibly be more UNinteresting to me) possible in SL?

Are PSP, PS and Gimp REALLY yhe only boats in town? Is Gimp really the first freeware program ever developed to compete with them? Are the freebies you get with hardware purchases completely useless? And, how can I tell? What do I need to look for?

Clearly PhotoShop is out of my league, but I can't believe that I can't get by with something a little lighter than PaintShop Pro.

Thanks in advance! Great discussion! I feel wiser already!

V.

Welcome, Vershana

For recoloring existing stuff, the best way to go is IMO just tinting it. That means your clothes need to be set as modifyable, and a lot of them are. Just right-click on the item in your inventory, click "Edit" and click the color swatch to the right of the texture box on the window you get.

As for your question, I admit I have not looked -- PSP does all I need it to for SL. $130 is not cheap but it's reasonable. It all comes down to what you want to do and how easily you want to do it though. If you're happy controlling the see-through areas of clothing through the length sliders, just about anything will work, technically speaking. The GIMP and probably other free or shareware software packages will let you convert your file into a TGA. You may or may not have the tools available to do nice color blending and tweaking though.

If you want to make or work with textures that have "open areas" -- say a pair of jeans that has holes in the knees -- then you need a program that can deal with alpha channels. Look for that feature when shopping around. If you find something that can do that, it may well be able to do everything you need -- basic color correction, shading, etc. If it's free, download it and try it. It will be helpful if it can work with layers and open .PSP and .PSD files (so you can work with advanced templates) but when push comes to shove, those features are not absolutely necessary.

I hope this response is useful. If you find anything that can deal with alpha channels (sometimes called alpha transparencies) please post a link

The GIMP. It's not so much in a "state of becoming", but rather as an open-source project it is continually updated and revised.

However, it's free and you can do anything you'd like to do in MS Paint in it fairly easily.

EDIT: Allow me to clarify. the GIMP has a similar set of tools as Photoshop or PSP, but as it's free and been available for a few years you can ignore the complexity if you wish, or start simple and work your way up as you like.

Photoshop wins! FATALITY!