Product Reviews

Despite the excitement over Photoshop 5, there is another bitmap editor that can legitimately claim its latest release is more important. As the press release says, 'With an installed base of over 12 million users, Paint Shop Pro is easily the most popular graphics and image editing software available today.' Of course, this glosses over the big difference between 'installed base' and 'customer base'. As a shareware product it's undoubtably popular, but many users manage to live with their consciences and ignore the reminders to pay up and register. This release, however, ceases to function after a 60-day trial period placing the program on equal terms with packages such as Picture Publisher and PhotoImpact. This doesn't seem to worry Paint Shop Pro's developers as they have a bigger target in sight. They're promoting Paint Shop Pro as Photoshop power at a fraction of the price.

Added layers

The major justification for this claim is the introduction of an image layer system that is almost identical to Photoshop's - in fact, so identical that Paint Shop Pro can now open, edit and save multilayer PSD files. Each layer acts like a sheet of acetate on which objects or brushstrokes can be placed independently of the background image. This makes the production of photomontages simple, as each layer can be positioned, scaled, stretched, skewed and rotated with the new Deformation tool. The system also opens up creative options by allowing a layer's opacity or the way it interacts with underlying pixels to be changed.

Creating a layer is simple. You either copy an existing selection to a new layer with the Promote To Layer command, or you create a new blank layer with the icon at the bottom of the new Layers palette. You'll have to work with this palette open, as each layer must be selected before editing actions can be applied to it. This is unfortunate, as the palette is ugly and intimidating. It only shows the names of layers rather than easily differentiated preview thumbnails and then complicates matters with icons, gauges and drop-down lists. It's certainly not pretty but it is powerful, allowing the visibility, editing mode, grouping, opacity, blend mode and layer mask status to be changed for any layer without the need to select it first.

Apart from photocomposition, the major use of layers is to enable experimentation without the risk of making unwanted changes. This is less important now as Paint Shop Pro, like the latest Photoshop, has a multiple-level undo. Clicking the Undo button on the toolbar or hitting will progressively undo all edits up to the limit of the memory buffer. Alternatively, selecting the Edit menu's Undo History command shows a list of all actions that can be undone. The system certainly works but there are a couple of quirks. In particular, all brushstrokes with the same tool are treated as one action and there's no way to redo an action that's been undone. After some searching, I found that individual strokes can be recorded by changing the program's undo preferences, but I couldn't find any way around the redo problem. This is a major limitation, as one of the main uses of a multiple undo is to toggle between two states when deciding which is preferable.

While it also lacks a Photoshop 5-style History brush, Paint Shop Pro's tool set is extensive. The new Smart Edge option for the Lasso tool allows selections to be automatically made around objects with clear contrast. The Line tool can now be used in BÚzier mode to create smooth curves, and the Crop tool's selection can be resized before being applied. The various Retouch brushes have also been enhanced with pressure-sensitivity and new options such as 'hue up' and 'hue down', which move colours through the colour wheel, and 'push', which picks up underlying pixels and paints with them. The most striking new tool is the Picture Tube which lets you paint on the image with existing bitmap objects. The tool comes with a range of image sets to apply such as butterflies and flowers, and you can also create your own.

Browsing and animation

Paint Shop Pro embarrasses Photoshop when it comes to painting and image retouching as it has a wider range of tools and greater control over them. The same is true of image management. While Photoshop has very little in terms of visual file management, Paint Shop Pro offers its excellent Browser window. This now includes an Explorer-style interface with an easily navigable disk outline in the left-hand

The secret of the Browser's success is Paint Shop Pro's ability to read an expanded range of over 40 file formats, including support for EMF, Photo-CD, FlashPix and Kodak digital cameras' native KDC. The program also writes to these formats and can be used as a glorified image convertor. The Batch Conversion command allows all the files in a directory to be converted to a new format. The Capture command lets screenshots be taken of the full screen, current window, given area or selected object.

The browser, image convertor and screen grabber are all integrated into the main program, but the latest Paint Shop Pro also comes with a separate utility, Animation Shop. As its name suggests, this application is used for creating animated GIFs. It offers filmstrip-style editing where individual frames can be retouched with the basic brush, eraser, flood fill and text tools. However, Animation Shop's strength lies in its ability to automatically create animations through its range of customisable frame transitions and text effects. Once the animation has been prepared, the Optimisation Wizard allows fine control over the number and choice of colours and also lets comments and non-visible elements be removed to reduce file size.

This control over animated GIFs is another feature that Photoshop doesn't offer. However, to compete head-on with Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro needs to offer professional colour handling. It claims to do this with its new monitor gamma correction, its support for ICM colour management in Windows 98 and, in particular, its ability to work with CMYK images. This last feature is crucial for users who are preparing images for final colour-separated output through a publishing program like PageMaker. To create an image for colour separation, you simply check the CMYK selection box in the Options dialog when saving and the RGB information is automatically converted, based on the current profile. This profile can be modified with the CMYK Conversion Preferences command which offers control over ink calibration and how the black plate is generated.

Falling behind

At first sight it looks impressive, but Paint Shop Pro's CMYK support proves inferior to that found in Photoshop in practice. To begin with, Photoshop offers finer control to take into account the dot gain of the press you're working to. Far more importantly, Photoshop actually offers a dedicated CMYK working mode with access to the separate cyan, magenta, yellow and black channels directly through its Channels palette and indirectly through its various colour correction dialogs. In Paint Shop Pro, the only way to work with the CMYK plates is to use the Split To Channels command to create separate greyscale versions of each channel and then to recombine them. In other words, Paint Shop Pro is always working in RGB mode apart from when it saves the file. This means that it can't show an out of gamut warning or an ongoing CMYK preview. In fact, it's not even possible to specify colours by their CMYK percentages.

In any case, Paint Shop Pro would soon prove inadequate for professional work. Colour correction lies at the heart of professional imaging, but Paint Shop Pro's control over levels and curves is poor, with its histogram functions, for example, only offering the two options of stretch or equalise with no interactive fine-tuning. The program's filters are equally disappointing outside the core sharpening and blurring effects. In fact, when the program is really put to the test, it soon becomes clear that it promises more than it delivers. There's no support for vector-based clipping paths, for example, or adjustment layers, editable text, automatic layer effects, spot colour plates, duotones or scriptable actions.

In short, there isn't going to be a rush of Photoshop users moving to Paint Shop Pro. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Paint Shop Pro's attempt to move into Photoshop territory only highlights how exceptional Photoshop is. The whole idea is misguided. Photoshop is aimed at high-end users willing to pay to ensure they have the most powerful program for preparing images for professional print. This leaves a huge market of office-based users who want to create striking images, quickly and easily, without spending a fortune. In spite of the claims made for the new print-orientated layers and CMYK support, these users would have benefited more from features like image map creation and improved Web graphics support. After all, a lot more people are going to produce their own Web site than their own full-colour magazine.

Rather than wishing it was something it's not, Paint Shop Pro would be better off playing to its many existing strengths and catering to the audience it already has.