Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 review

When you think of photo editing, the chances are you think of Adobe Photoshop. However, the majority of non-professional users don't need Photoshop's high-end power and can't justify its cost. That's where Paint Shop Pro (PSP) comes in. Its low price is definitely its initial attraction, but that has never stopped it aiming high. At times, as with version 6's introduction of vector layers, it has even left Photoshop trailing. However, version 7's minor fiddling was a serious letdown and, as time passed, it began to look as if PSP had run out of steam. Version 8 shows this isn't the case.

You begin to realise how fundamental the overhaul has been as soon as you load the application. PSP began life as a shareware package and its interface changed little over the years. Frankly, it looked old-fashioned, ugly and amateurish. Now everything has changed. The menu structure has been completely reworked, but it's the changes to the palettes that are most eye-catching. These are no longer free-floating but conveniently docked down the right of the screen. Meanwhile, the former Tool Options palette has been turned into an ever-present, context-sensitive Options ribbon bar running under the menus.

The alterations are so radical - even the keyboard shortcuts have changed - that it takes a bit of getting used to. Fortunately, assistance is always at hand. PSP's online help is good and there's a comprehensive Product Tour that shows you just what the software can do. There's also the new integrated Learning Center docker window, which provides HTML-based Quick Guide tutorials to walk you through common tasks.

The interface certainly isn't perfect - it's still too technical and fussy - but you'll soon come to appreciate the more streamlined way of doing things. And if you don't like the default setup, you can now customise your menus, toolbars and shortcuts and save and load your own preferred working environment.

Under the surface

The interface changes are far more than skin deep. The most obvious difference is to the former Colour palette, which has been transformed into the Materials palette. This lets you seamlessly switch between handling solid, gradient and pattern-based paint and fills. The control over these has also improved: you can rotate gradients, rotate and scale textures, and load new textures from any supported file format (including those containing transparency information). Plus, once you've got your material just the way you want it, you can save it as a reloadable swatch.

The Layers palette looks comparatively untouched, but its use has changed just as dramatically. The big difference is the introduction of Layer Groups, which are sets of layers that are treated as a unit. This is handy for arranging your composition, but the PSP implementation goes much further and affects rendering. In particular, it's possible to change the opacity of all grouped layers simultaneously and any adjustment layers apply just to the current group rather than to all underlying layers.

The same is true of masks. These are no longer treated as an attribute of a given layer, but as layers in their own right. Again, it takes a little getting used to - the former Mask menu has been incorporated into the Layer menu, for instance - but the new system is more logical and powerful. And PSP 8 goes further still. In Selection Edit mode, the current selection also appears as a layer, which means you can use any tool to fine-tune it.

It's not only the main docker palettes that have been revamped, though. The toolbar now provides 17 main tool icons giving fly-out access to related alternatives. In some cases, there has been consolidation - such as the incorporation of the Line and Node Edit tools into the Pen tool - while the main Retouch tool variations like Dodge and Burn have all been promoted to tools in their own right. Plus, you can now switch between opposite options such as Dodge/Burn, Darken/Lighten simply by using the opposite mouse button.