Digital Home Thoughts: Corel's Paint Shop Pro Photo XI: A Minor League Slugger

Product Category: Photo editing & Illustration software
Manufacturer: Corel Corporation
Where to Buy: Low Price Search
Price: $49.95-$103.48 (as of writing time)
System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista, 433MHz PIII, 256MB RAM (512MB Recommended), 500MB HD Space, 1024x768 or better resolution, IE6 or higher.

Pros:

• Powerful photo editing and illustration;
  
• More features than you can shake a stylus at;
  
• Easy to learn and use;
• Considerably cheaper than the leading photo editing software.

Cons:

• Almost too much for the beginning/casual user;
  
• Ease-of-use of some functions are slightly overstated;
  
• Barely adequate printing experience;
  
• It’s not the leading photo editing software (and there’s no Mac version).

Summary:
Paint Shop Pro (PSP) has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a low-cost shareware photo editing program. Billed as “the ideal choice for people who want extraordinary photos,” Corel’s Paint Shop Pro Photo XI retains its humble price while continually offering increased functionality and productivity. Well thought-out and aimed square at the casual home user, Paint Shop Pro is a fully developed program in its own right, as opposed to being a, shall we say, ‘elemental’ version of a larger, more expensive program. If anything, PSP’s main shortcoming is that it offers too much for a user to do. Over the last few weeks I took version XI of Paint Shop Pro through its paces and found it to be a very robust program. Whether it would be right for you, however, depends on how you plan on using it.

Read on for our full review!