Re: PaintShop Pro 5.0 vs. Photoshop?

Hi Melinda,

>While I appreciate that everyone has their favorite editors, the question
>was "what does Photoshop have that PSP 5 doesn't".  I'm very interested in
>hearing *exactly* what Photoshop can do that PSP can't.  Not being
>argumentative here, but one often hears from the Photoshop enthusiasts that
>it's the *only* graphics editor in town.  I do wonder if this is a holdover
>from the old days and if they've worked with PSP lately.

I'll try to answer your question the best I can and yes I have tried PSP5
and worked with it a couple hours.

Now what does Photoshop has that PSP doesn't and what does it do better.
First a couple subjective things:   The interface.  To my taste it is far
better designed than PSP's and I work quite a lot faster in PS than in PSP.
 Better designed palettes, better right mouse button implementation on the
PC and all around faster processing of images, filters, resizing and
everything I can think of.  Someone mentioned better image processing
algorithms... I agree.  The image quality that Photoshop outputs both in
print and on-line has consistently been better on Photoshop than on any
other similar programs I tried.  If your work is mostly for the Web you
might choose to stick with PSP 5 but personally I am far more productive
working in Photoshop.

Now for some features Photoshop has that PSP doesn't.  I'm sure I'll forget
a lot but here it goes.  New in Photoshop 5.0:  Undo History!  That alone
was worth the price of the upgrade for me... along with editable layer
effects.  You can add drop shadows, bevelling and embossing, glows etc to
text or elements in layers and come back later to re-edit them without
having to erase the layer, redraw or retype the element and re-apply the
effect.  You also can add more than one effect at once which is something
Fireworks doesn't do to my knowledge.  Another new amazing feature is
re-editable text.  Any text you type in Photoshop can be re-edited later
(color, font, size, leading, kerning, etc...) and anytime you re-edit it
any effects applied to it will be updated as well.  If you want to apply
"normal" filters or plugins to the text you have to "render" the layer but
you could make a copy of the "un-rendered" original first if you want to be
able to come back to it.  That feature alone saves me hours of work and is
something that PSP 5 definitely cannot do.

Other advantaged include a lot more native filters than PSP, better
handling of colors for print, sharper print definition... etc.  I really
could go on and on.  The only thing PSP has over Photoshop is the animation
thing... I already use Ulead's Gif Animator for that so I don't need it.
Photoshop has not remained number 1 for so long because it's not the
best... IMO it is... by far.  You do get what you pay for.

Hope this helps!

St=E9phane Bergeron

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