Paint shop

[DoubleD]

Seems to be an awful lot in this forum about Photo Shop and very little about Paint Shop. Any special reason?

[TPF Sponsor]

[glaston]

Because PhotoShop is the industry standard.

PaintShop, although decent, isn't a professional application.
Seems like most people here prefer Photoshop since it IS such an industry standard.
Other apps like PaintShop are affordable alternatives to Photoshop.

So if someone can afford Photoshop then why buy something else?

[skieur]

One comparison of Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro by a magazine indicated that although Photoshop gave you, more options, more control, and a little more precision, Paint Shop Pro got most of the testers to their editing objective faster and with excellent image quality.

I use both.

skieur

[DoubleD]

So how did Photoshop get to be the industry standard, better marketing or better program?

[glaston]

Both.
It also started out in the early 90's and was pretty much the only option for high resolution imaging.
Adobe has just kept up with user demand over the years.
Especially in business and educational environments.
Since Adobe products are so commonly used in education, it makes sense from a business perspective to stick with it. And vice versa. Students want to maximize their employment and earning potential when they are paying good money for the education.
Which is the simplified explanation of "industry standard".
It doesn't come down to only better marketing or better product.
Situations are different. Maybe your needs don't justify the cost of Photoshop, especially if you aren't entitled to any discounts or upgrade prices.
Then you're in the market for a more affordable solution, which changes the whole scenario.
If someone just wants to play around with their digital photos, then they don't have a need to pay for something like Photoshop, which is why other products are made.
Since most other lower and mid-range image editors are modeled after Photoshop especially in terms of interface design, it's safe to assume you could grasp a lower level app if trained with Photoshop also.


I'm not saying that you can't achieve the same results with another app.

I'm just saying that these are the reasons you see most people discussing Photoshop instead of PaintShop.
If it works for you, then great stick with it.

But the original topic was "why so much Photoshop and not Paintshop".

[Digital Matt]

If you know how to use photoshop, and not just the surface of it, there is no application that comes close. That is why it is the industry standard. It is used by professionals, not as a stand alone product, but as part of a suite of applications for print, photo and web design.

[three_eyed_otter]

Can paintshop handle NEF (raw) files?

have a good one
3Eo

[John_05]

Can paintshop handle NEF (raw) files?

have a good one
3Eo

it can handle NEF files. the version i have is PaintshopPro X, and ive let a couple people use my computer to edit their NEF files. im not sure if the new version (XI) does, but it should if the older version does.

this is just my opinion, but if youre looking to get Paintshop Pro, i would buy a copy of X, not XI. i tried a trial version of XI, and it didnt really offer anything useful that X didnt have. it had a DOF tool and a couple additional filters, but everything else was the same. the DOF tool wasnt very impressive at all IMO, and the filters it has were for creating a couple different photographic effects, like making a photo look aged, or differently processed. they didnt so anything you couldnt do with version X if you knew how, or found a tutorial to show you how.

you can probably find Paintshop Pro X on Amazon or Ebay for maybe 25-50% off of what XI would cost right now.