Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI (PC) (CD-ROM)

Download the demo first! Well folks I've downloaded the demo from Corel's website. As with the last user, I hate the new Organizer. If this is Corel's way of organizing files as opposed to the older Browser system then they've made a big mistake. The other problem is this program makes my processor fan sound like a helicopter. Even when the program is idle the fan sounds as though it's going to have an "out of computer experience" I've used PSP for many years but then went on to Photoshop CS2. CS2 doesn't hog the CPU as much as PSP. For the money PSP is a real bargain because it will do most things that CS2 will do and probably all that a photographer would want it to do. But the burden it puts on my CPU is very worrying.

Please do not buy this if you already have PSP 7 They have actually managed to take a useful, user-friendly piece of software and ruin it with unnecessary tinkering. I use the browser utility of PSP 7 all the time, and have done so for several years - it is excellent. Once I bought this version, I couldn't get the browser to see other files on the network (despite trying to get help from their website) and have not found it very easy to use. You can no longer just navigate to a folder and click on it to see thumbnails. A more complicated, and less user-friendly way that has been devised for this version. For me, PSP XI was a waste of money. I will stick with PSP 7 in the hope that the makers will see sense and change it back soon.

Extremely slow software I have been using Photoshop 6 for professional image editing and restoration. It does have significant support for 16 bit per channel editing, (which allows basic tonal and colour adjustments before converting to 8 bit for more sophisticated editing using layers), but crucially does not support 16 bit layers. Recently I tryed out PSP XI and it was EXTREMELY SLOW, even on a very fast computer with 1.5GB RAM. I am therefore trying out the demo version of Photoshop CS2 and will almost certainly upgrade - both Photoshop CS2 and 6 are superbly smooth and quick programs. Quite frankly PSP XI was appalling, and I doubt whether even non-professionals would have the time to wait for it to execute commands, even though it is so much cheaper than Photoshop. I cannot understand the other reviews for this program - why they have found it good baffles me. It has some nice features allowing some professional editing capabilites (adjustment layers, channel mixer, some colour management etc), but it's ridiculously slow. Some reviews on Amazon.com support this assessment. I found PSP X equally slow. Maybe the Ulead program is better?

Wait for the bug fix! The main differences between PSP X and PSP XI are a few extra 'makeover' tools, and the transformation of the Browser into the Organiser. Herein lies the problem. Firstly the Organiser will try to create a database of all files within a chosen folder (or My Pictures), including any subfolders. More critically, it may run your processor at about 50% even when the program is not doing anything. There have been reports of computers - especially laptops - overheating because of this. Corel acknowledges the problem and has posted a temporary fix which involves deleting several database files, moving everything out of the My Pictures folder and not using the Organiser. That's not very satisfactory, and I'm sure they will fix the problem in a future maintenance release. So my advice is to wait until then, and meanwhile use PSP X which is very good and does not hog the CPU.

Excellent software PSP XI is great. Having been a faithful user of version 7 for some years, I thought it was about time to consider an upgrade so I tried the free trial of XI - and the fact that I bought the full program only a few days later should tell you how useful I find it! There are a few major changes since version 7: * Animation shop is gone - why?! * The vector select and deformation tool have been merged to a picker tool - not a good idea: selecting small vector objects is a lot tricker because it always ends up picking the raster layers below * Vector editing is also harder (I still do all my complex vectors on PSP7 for this reason) * The tool options palette has changed, but text editing is slightly easier once you get used to the changes * Where are all the presets?! PSP7 had loads of presets for all the different effects and filters but PSP XI has very few and the ones it does have are mostly rubbish * Masking is a lot more effective and user-friendly but the Mask overlay function takes an AGE!!!!! * It's also incredibly slow loading and carrying out effects Overall though it's a neat piece of kit. The in-program help files are excellent and there are also some useful tutorials on the corel website. At this price, its a very affordable app and makes me wonder why non-pros want to spend half a grand extra on photoshop! If you've never tried PSP before and need convincing I would definitely recommend giving the trial version a shot.