This tutorial introduces Paint Shop Pro 9 - this is the
version used in European School 3 where I am currently teaching. It is
not quite the most recent version but versions that are slightly older
or more recent are very similar, especially with regards to basic
functions like those introduced here, so this tutorial should be useful
for other versions too.
Paint Shop Pro is much cheaper and less powerful than Photoshop and
should better be compared with Photoshop Elements, the 'light'
version of Photoshop which was released about 2003 and which costs about
the same as Paint Shop Pro (I bought Paint Shop Pro 9 bundled with Jasc
Photo Album for £67 or €100 from Amazon.co.uk in October 2005). Paint
Shop Pro is compatible with the Photoshop image format (.psd). A
significant weakness of Paint Shop Pro relative to Photoshop Elements is
that there is no upgrade path to a highly professional version, whereas
users of Photoshop Elements can upgrade to Photoshop, the program used
by many professionals.
Another difference between Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro is that
Photoshop is oriented very strongly towards working with photographic
images (as the name suggests) while Paint Shop Pro offers more options
for simulating different types of media, such as oil painting, and also
may have more options for working with 'vector graphics' (graphics
consisting of lines and shapes that are defined by mathematical
formulae).
Click HERE for the
official site of Jasc Paint Shop Pro. Click
HERE for more info on
Photoshop Elements. The Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is
a free alternative to Photoshop / Paint Shop Pro, with many of the same
features - I recommend it for you if you can't afford €100 or so for a
graphics programme. You can find my Gimp course
HERE.
Although the GIMP, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro
have many features in common, there are some differences, as indicated
in this table (compiled April 2005):
| |
The GIMP
2.2 |
Photoshop
6 |
Photoshop Elements |
Paint Shop Pro
9 |
| Curves |
+ |
+ |
|
+ |
| Layer Masks |
+ |
+ |
|
+ |
| Adjustment Layers |
|
+ |
+ |
+ |
| Color Balance Control |
+ |
+ |
|
+ |
| Multiple Color Modes |
+ |
+ |
|
+ |
| Red Eye Tool |
|
|
+ |
+ |
If you do a lot of work with digital pictures then you may also be
interested in ACDSee, a popular graphics viewer application.
Click HERE for more info. If
you can't afford ACDSee then download
IrfanView instead - it's useful, compact (less than 1MB) and
FREE!
Paint Shop Pro has many uses:
 | It can be a useful utility for converting images between
different file formats such as gif, jpeg, tiff, etc. (more on file
formats later). Or it can be used to adjust image size or file size
e.g. for faster loading on a web page.
|
| It can be used to correct faults in individual photographs, by
adjusting colors, contrast, brightness, sharpness etc to give an
image that is as true to life as possible.
|
| Without falsifying the image, the image can often be improved by
trimming the edges, a technique known as 'cropping' the image.
|
| At the next level, Paint Shop Pro can be used improve the
photograph in ways that deliberately falsify the image. For example,
unwanted parts of the image could be removed, such as the lamppost
that appears to be growing out of someone's head, or the unwanted
'red-eye' effect in a flash photograph. Or the wrinkles in the face
of an older person might be softened or removed. A boring white sky
could be replaced with a blue one...
|
| Paint Shop Pro can also be used to incorporate text into an
image
|
| At the highest level, it is possible to be highly creative and
artistic when using Paint Shop Pro, combining images together to
form montage effects or changing colors and using special effects to
give the photographs a surreal quality. In one exercise, students
are asked to convert this photograph (© Nigel Ward)... |
