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

Then on Image Output
As opposed to input, Paint Shop Pro outputs to a mere 44 file formats, (plus some variations), this time omitting .CDR files among others, .PSD is still available though. You can also email the image, which formats it and opens your default email client with the image as an attachment, a function I would find only marginally useful.

Then there’s the print engine. You know, the print engine is more important to an image program than some might think. I know you’re reading this thinking, “Well, duh,” but you’d be surprised how often the print engine is only given a casual effort. Unfortunately, Paint Shop Pro seems to be one of those cases. The printing experience is at best ‘adequate’, and at times ‘frustrating’ (those are my official review designations). What makes this puzzling is that CorelDRAW (and Photo-Paint) have always had very strong print engines. Again, Corel, why must you shun the family so?

The very first thing I tried to do with Paint Shop Pro was open a photo and print it. That very simple task failed because PSP didn’t see my photo printer. See, I have two printers connected to my machine: a laser printer (default) for everyday use and a photo printer (secondary) for, well, printing photos. All PSP could see was my laser printer. Checking the help files and the guide confirmed that there should be a drop-down for me to select my printer, but it was mysteriously missing here. If I switched the default to my photo printer, the program saw it just fine, but I really should have been given a choice. Updating my printer driver had no effect. It was not enough of an issue for me to attempt tech support, but I still must take marks away for seeing a 10-year-old networked laser printer (seriously), but not a 2-year-old locally-connected USB photo printer. I mean, this program’s certified to ‘work with’ Vista, but not this printer? Frustrating. Once Paint Shop Pro saw my printer though, it printed great results.

I would also like to add that the Print Layout window requires the creation of Print Templates (to facilitate printing multiple images on one page) which I found annoying. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to do my layout within the program itself. Were I to do it in the print layout window, it had better have some powerful image handling tools for me to use. Most people this program is targeted at probably won’t have a problem with it though.

Until At Last, a Conclusion
After spending a bit of time with Corel’s Paint Shop Pro XI, I have to say I’m pretty impressed ovreall. PSP is in fact a very powerful image editing and creation program, even if the print engine could use some help. For my everyday graphics applications at the office, PSP would probably work for just about everything I need to do. If you’re an average user just looking to do a few alterations to photos or dabble around in a drawing program, Paint Shop Pro is clearly a better choice at a fraction of the price of even the ‘elemental’ version of its competitor. For those aspiring to be graphic artists, (and don’t have a lot of money and don’t own a Mac) Paint Shop Pro is certainly a good starting point, but you should consider saving up for one of the more professional suites, if only because it’s what everybody else is using.

Damion Chaplin is a graphic artist and digital media freak living in the San Francisco Bay Area with his brilliant and lovely wife Lorri and His Imperial Majesty “The Kitty” Grimalkin I. He did all the illustrations for this review using Paint Shop Pro XI.