Part 3: An overview of the last 8 releases of Paint Shop Pro

I took the time to install trial versions of the last eight Paint Shop Pro releases and wrote down my impressions:

Paint Shop Pro 6 (1999)


This version added new concepts such as vectors and made a step towards web graphics. Compared to PSP 5 it has almost the same look, but has major improvements in the layer and tool options palettes.

- Added vectors and preset shapes
- Added new types of bezier lines
- Increased maximum brush, feather and zoom values
- Improvements in the tool options and layer palette
- Added auto-roll palettes
- Added dozens of new effects and deformations
- Introduced watermarking and picture frames
- Added a specialized GIF and JPEG optimizer
- Added menu icons
- Rebuilt the text tool
- Brush quality and speed of rendering has been improved.
- Increased customizability by adding right-click options to toolbars
- Added new options to General program preferences.

Paint Shop Pro 7 (2000)


Version 7 made PSP ideal for web-graphics and built the core package of image filters. The most noticeable improvement was the new color palette.
- Rebuilt the color palette, added new “effect” and “photo” toolbars
- Introduced textures, patterns and gradients as color styles
- Improved the line and shape tools, added a scratch remover tool
- Added new vector editing options
- Added an image slicer and PNG optimizer
- Added advanced color adjustments like channel mixer, color balance, levels, etc.
- An explosion of new photo, 3d, artistic, geometric and texture effects. Added a total of 32 new effects and organized them into a separate “Effects” menu.
- Further improved customizability and added new general program settings
- Added new features to the text tool

Paint Shop Pro 8 (2003)

This is the most revolutionary PSP version to date. It has been rebuilt from scratch, and the result is simply spectacular. My hat goes off to the people who summoned up the courage to go through with such a task. There's a completely new interface, the core structure is the basis for all following versions and most of the toolbars, palettes, icons and menus have remained untouched to this day.

Advanced customization:
- all buttons can be moved
- custom toolbars and menus
- custom keyboard shortcuts
- docking
- new general program settings
- introduced button grouping

All toolbars and palettes have been rebuilt, the most important improvements being:
- the new tool options palette
- new layer palette
- new material palette (with more advanced settings for gradients and patterns)

New brush engine:
- higher brush quality
- new basic settings: thickness, blend mode, rotation, presets, brush styles
- advanced brush settings organized in a separate “brush variance palette”

- Added scripts and macros
- Added nearly 50 new effects, filters and photo adjustments, too many to list even the most important ones. This enormous collection of photo filters created in 2003 has remained almost unchanged to this day.
- Improved crop, zoom, selections, vector tools, line/shape tools

New (and quite essential) tools:
- background eraser
- warp brush
- perspective correction/straighten
- mesh warp

A huge list and I still feel like I've missed something...

Paint Shop Pro 9 (2004)


Though JASC was only months away from being taken over by Corel, they still managed to fit in some important things. This last genuine JASC version tried to offer something new both to digital painters and photo editors.

- Added a history palette to complement the recently added scripts and macros
- The only genuinely new tool PSP9 introduced was the art media brush that simulated natural painting instruments: oil brushes, chalks, crayons, etc. Though they they lacked realism and I never used them in any real work, the art media brushes were a good technical exercise, maybe a prototype for something better. Sadly, it never got past the prototype phase. For their technical complexity and sheer amount of different settings, the art media brushes deserve our interest.
- Improved the preset shapes tool by adding custom symmetric shapes
- The color palette is a bit more intuitive
- Minor improvements in the interface, such as tabbed documents
- Four new filters

Paint Shop Pro 10 (2005) rebranded as Corel Paint Shop Pro X


This version is pretty much the same as PSP9, except for some memory and cache leak fixes, which actually makes it the last “good” release of PSP and the version I'm recommending if you don't know which one to choose. It uses a bit less memory than PSP9, far less memory than all the next versions and is basically the same program.

- The only real addition to PSPX is the makeover tool, combining “blemish fixer”, “toothbrush” and “suntan”, which are essentially super easy to use, but low quality proxies for clone brush, burn and dodge.
- Added a gray color theme as default. Thankfully, this can be disabled.
- Minor improvements to four or five existing filters.
- I've also noticed a bug fix when saving your workspaces

Paint Shop Pro 11 (2006) rebranded as Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI


This version looks exactly the same as PSPX, but uses more resources and installs the service “PSIService.exe”, which can be classified as spyware and doesn't uninstall along with PSP. And as if the name Paint Shop Pro wasn't already a tongue-twister, Corel decided to add the word “Photo” on top of it all.

- Skin smoothing – a filter that uses the algorithm as Digital Camera noise removal with the exact same effect.
- Color changer tool – perhaps the only real improvement in this version. Like the makeover tool, it's a point-and-click tool that's supposed to be very easy. It has some flaws and doesn't always work, but it can actually be useful.
- Time machine filter – builds on and combines some older filters into a “time machine” that ages your photos. After “thinify”, “toothbrush” and “time machine”, I'm actually waiting for a new PSP filter that doesn't try to impress people with its name.
- Built-in photo organizer which I don't believe belongs in a graphics editor.

Paint Shop Pro 12 (2007) and 12.5 (2008) (Paint Shop Pro Photo XII Ultimate)


I'm reviewing these two together because like I mentioned before, 12 and 12.5 are virtually the same program, the only difference being that 12.5 has an even longer name, “Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XII Ultimate” and offers a bunch of toys like USB sticks, more picture tubes, etc. Like PSP 11, they also install PSIService.exe, as well as the new and completely unnecessary background program MediaCataloger.exe

- For the fifth version in a row, there are no real improvements of the interface, unless you count the “Graphite” color scheme, which is annoying, but can be turned off.
- Express lab – a built-in photo enhancement program with just the most basic of features like brightness, crop, rotate, etc.
- Thinify and eye drops – more tools built especially for the amateur – Corel's new target customer.
- The new resize window is more advanced and overall it's a good addition, but it's twice as large as the old one and can't remember its settings.

Here's a comparison of approximate memory usage.



So as you can see, since being acquired by Corel, Paint Shop Pro has stopped offering much in terms of new features and is on the fast track to becoming bloatware. It's now getting obvious that PSP is becoming progressively worse and sooner or later this will lead to a fast withdrawal of users (if it hasn't already). What PSP needs is a major overhaul like the one in 2001-2003. That's why I'll be dedicating the next two parts to that idea.

NEXT - Part 4: A list of badly needed improvements