Paint Shop Pro 7 over Photoshop OK for web work?

[stlouislouis]

Hi,

I've noticed most experienced folks use Photoshop.

One person I know loves Paint Shop Pro 7.

Since Photoshop cost around $600 -- and Paint Shop
Pro cost around $100 -- I'm wondering what one is
giving up or not able to do working with their
digital pictures and creating graphics for the web
if they choose Paint Shop Pro over Photoshop.

What is one getting for the extra $500 that will
help in developing more successful, search engine
optimized, fast downloading, user benefiting web
sites if they choose Photoshop over Paint Shop Pro?

Could you share your thoughts and opinions on this?

Thank you very much for sharing!

Best wishes,

Louis

[chiyo]

I really dont see the need for Photoshop over PSP for Web work. It takes much longer to load, and PSP has all I need at least in terms of layers, undo's filters, masks, etc, and almost all PhotoS filters are compatible with PSP. If i was a full time graphic artist i would probably use Photoshop but as maybe 5 to 10% of my job, PSP does a brilliant job, and more efficiently than Photoshop

[BlobFisk]

I have both, but I find that for web work I tend to use Photoshop exclusively. Force of habit, I suppose.

Although, I do use PSP for it's very handy "Browse" feature, for quickly finding an image in a directory that may have a lot of images in it.

[ukgimp]

Photoshop is the Daddy, but you probably wont use 1/4 of the features it has.

PSP is good and now has "export to GIF/JPG etc for web".

I would give PSP a go and if you feel the need to become a ##it hot grahpic designer consider photoshop.

You will also find quite a few tutorials on psp on the web mere mortals can afford it.

HTH

[rewboss]

I think it depends which one works for you. I'm using Corel Draw 7 -- a dinosaur -- and although I have to work around a lot of bugs and misfeatures, it's always done whatever I've asked of it up until now. (Except for bevels on extrusions, but they're tacky anyway.) I have Fireworks installed, but have rarely used it -- not because it's any worse than Corel Draw, but because I am unfamiliar with it and don't have time on my hands to learn how to use it.

[Macguru]

Hi stlouislouis,

First welcome to WebmasterWorld!
Don't miss paynt's welcome message [webmasterworld.com], she wrote some nice tool to get started around this maze. ;)

I never used Paint Shop in my life. But I hear a lot of good about it. What I like a lot about PhotoShop is that it bundles ImageReady. It's a big time saver for graphic interfaced sites.

I am not sure Paint Shop comes with such features, does it? If not any other comparably priced program to use in combination?

[hayluke]

I use image ready to create animations and things so to me this is a valuable part of Photoshop. I haven't used Paintshop since about version 3 so I'm not really sure what it offers in comparison..

[DrCool]

For most of what you will probably be doing Paint Shop Pro should do you fine. If all you are going to be doing is editing images and not creating custom artwork you should be fine. Take the extra $500 you will be saving and spend it elsewhere.

[nancyb]

I just got PhotoShop and I looooove it!! Have been using PSP for a long time and thought it was killer until I used Photoshop.

There are so many features I haven't even begun to try them all out yet but the lasso tool is much more responsive in Photoshop, I like the interface to save optimized images much better and a bunch of other features I've tried are far superior in Photoshop. However, I still go back to PSP for some things - don't know if that's because I haven't learned how to do it in Photoshop yet or it is just easier in PSP.

For instance, I like being able to click two buttons to get rid of all history in PSP (edit> command history)and haven't figured out if/how to delete all history with two clicks in Photoshop yet. Copy and paste seems to require fewer steps in PSP (at least the way i use it between separate images) than in Photoshop.

I got by with PSP on the web for four years without spending the extra $500 though.

[richlowe]

My wife and I have used both, and PSP is by far the better editor, in my opinion. Paint Shop pro has lots of features which I'm sure make your graphics artists very happy, but for web work I found PSP better, and it has a far, far smaller footprint on the workstation.

Richard Lowe

[mivox]

If you're concerned about budget (and who isn't?), and you won't be doing much (if any) 4-color print work, I can't think of any reasons why not to get PSP. I've always heard great things about it...

I'm a PhotoShop junkie myself, but I'm lucky to have had my employer buy it for me, so now I just have to pay upgrade pricing. :)

[JamesR]

PaintShopPro works great for me and I don't know how to use most of it. Until I am a graphics pro, I will stick with that and very happy with the price paid.

[idiotgirl]

For web stuff I use PSP all the time just because it's so simple and efficient. I hand-tweak scans and colors almost exclusively in Photoshop, though (yup- I'm a control freak). But if there's even the smallest glimmer of a chance you may want to use the same images for CMYK artwork (I had a client change their mind once - believe it or not - just one, though), ad layouts, or anything other than "just the web" - do it in Photoshop the first time. You'll avoid doing the same job over - and miss all the fun that needless, tiresome, thankless repetition brings with it.

Oh the stories I could tell...

[EliteWeb]

My GF will swear by PSP she got it because there were some nice tutorials for some designs she was doing. Personally I dont have enough experience with the program when i think complete graphics editing program I think PhotoShop.

She makes nice graphics with it, lots of web stuff so heyit works i guess.

[Sandra]

Speaking about two of them (PSP and PS) there is a third one - Ulead PhotoImpact which in my opinion is a great tool, especially PI7. It has a lot of built-in effects and PS plugins works just fine with it. And it has a web tools which I found very useful - slicer, rollovers, image map.

[stlouislouis]

Hi all,

Thank you all for your input!

Also, thanks to Macguru and others for the warm
welcome to webmasterworld. This is a GREAT place!

Considering all the replies, I'm going to buy
Paint Shop Pro 7. Right now, Amazon is offering
a $40 rebate, too. So, it will cost me $60 for
the program....leaving me what I didn't spend on
Photoshop to spend on other computer stuff.

Thanks one and all for sharing. I might consider
Photoshop or the other program listed in the future;
but right now, it sounds as if PSP7 will do me fine.

Thanks again everyone!

Best wishes,

Louis

[kingkelly]

Ive always prefered Paint Shop Pro over Photoshop, mostly because my computer bursts into flames if i run photoshop. Paintshop Pro is easy, supports filters, comes with filters, layers....

For web work it is the easiest, and even shows the HEX value for a colour on the colour palette.

THE BEST FEATURE for psp is its export to web... The jpeg and gif export shows you a preview along with image size, to compare to the original image. You can thurn adjust some settings to get the perfect web image size and quality!

[papabaer]

Hello stlouislouis,
Welcome to Wemaster World!

I use Photoshop as my main image creation & editing program, with the occassional forays into Fireworks(v.3), Corel Draw/Photopaint(v.8)... I just received Paint Shop Pro v.7 as a gift and I am very impressed!

I think you will find lots of tools and useful features with your new purchase. Enjoy! ;)

[Filipe]

My graphic design team swears by Illustrator and Photoshop. They use them in conjunction to make killer sites and designs that they just can't do in PSP. Does PSP support Vector graphics nowadays?

[Carswell]

Hi everyone!

I have been using PSP for a couple of years now and find that it does almost eveything I need for web work. It is easily capable of a very professional "Photoshop" class output, and like all things in life, relects directly the amount of effort you put into mastering it. I do think that one of the areas overlooked within PSP7 is its ability to draw and integrate vector graphics and text within layers - a fabulous feature and (this must not be overlooked) at a very affordable price.

I sometimes wonder if the use of Photoshop as the norm is similar to say, the use of MS WORD in every word processing situation, where very often a smaller and cheaper program would do just fine.

I would also like to add how much I have enjoyed reading through the various discussions here - this is an absolute gold mine. Thanks to all.

[Hawkgirl]

My web guy uses Photoshop and Fireworks ... I never know when he's using which, unless he accidentally sends me a .png file, and then I know he's using Fireworks.

I'm a Photoshop person ... self-taught, so I'm never moving to another program. Illustrator trips me up ... I need someone experienced to teach me the ropes.

Then again, maybe I'm just *old*, because I have a hard time with a few other software titles, too. Like Dreamweaver. I tried it out for a few days and handed it over to my web guy, and went back to coding by hand. :)

[FlashLady2]

There's another graphics editor I've heard of, but never used because I have Photoshop (killer programme). Apparently, so I've heard, it's more than capable of doing anything PaintShop Pro (but not Photoshop) can do, and best of all, IT'S TOTALLY FREE!

[gimp.org...]

It's called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Has anyone else heard of it, or used it?

[mivox]

I've heard great things about it... for a while it was only widely used in the Linux community, but versions are now available for Windows and Mac OSX. I've heard it even give Photoshop a run for it's money for digital graphics. (Don't think anything's dethroned Adobe in the print world yet, though.)

[lak12]

Interesting discussion!
Even though I don't use PSP (didn't have a chance), I have to agree that PS has an alternatives due to the fact that basically from the version 3.0 (when I started using it) was a bit hard to learn and I had my share of headaches :-)
I bought a Photoimpact as an alternative software (didn't work for me except for GIF animator). Then I used Gimp for a while - great software (PS work alike but a bit better in my opinion as it offers better flexibility but works on Linux (or flavours of Unices only as far as I know..).
Any software you choose is good if it works for you and your visitors.
Based on what we usually do for the Web (buttons, logos, web site layout etc.) - it's usually a small (compare to the magazine illustrations) graphic images.

New Photoshop has great tools like Slice, JPEG and GIF save for the Web thing. Although I've noticed that Photoshop 6 saves GIF images in slightly bigger file size than GIF89 filter in PS 4.0. Photoshop makes it easy to butch process images (with some limitations of saving files etc.).

My point is - use whatever works for you.
If you know how to work in different programs or even scripting languages - use it. I totally switched from any GUI programs to process my digital camera pictures to NetPBM - takes a lot of headaches away. All I have to do is stick my files in the directory and run the program. The outcome - all files ready to be posted on the net with HTML pages. takes 15 seconds (roughly) per image and I can watch some TV in the mean time :-)
Nowdays I even post process (after Photoshop) my buttons and other web (JPEG only) images through NetPBM before posting them on the Net as this programs literally removes all unused portions of the file and makes files smaller. I save about 20% in image size without image quality loss.
cheers.
Mark.

[c3oc3o]

Hi - even though this topic is a few days old, there were some unanswered questions, so I thought I'd reply:

As far as I can tell, not being very used to Photoshop, PaintShopPro 7 does have all of ImageReady's features. There's an image slicer than can also handle mouseovers and output the HTML, and an image mapper (in the File->Export menu). A special and very sophisticated program, Animation Shop, is included for creating animated GIFs. There are optimizers for JPG, GIF and PNG in PSP, although not in the same window like in ImageReady, and with smaller preview pictures.
PSP does handle vectors (although not imported from real vector apps), did that before PS and is more advanced in this aspect.

Advantages of PSP include the dozens of file formats it reads and writes, the image browser, customizable button palettes, easier copy+paste (paste as new image, as selection, as new layer etc) and so on.
The greatest disadvantage is no CMYK support that I know of and bad support for resolutions other than 72dpi (the screen and web resolution), but you should really be using a vector graphics program for print things anyways.

A newcomer to web graphics or photo editing will like the dozens of pre-made buttons, shapes, picture tubes, easy texturing of shapes or type, several automatic photo enhancement filters including scratch removal, red eye removal tool, a dust removal filter for scans (Noise->Salt&Pepper), etc, but the newbie-friendlyness does NOT mean it's not a great web graphics product for professional users as well, even though you won't find it used in many design agencies for several reasons.

[Matt_James]

Having used PS for print work and tried PSP for web work, I always use Fireworks for the web.

It is the best tool for optimizing graphics and as good as Photoshop for most requirements at 72dpi.

[rmjvol]

Tried to install the GIMP on a W98 & a W2k Pro system about a year ago & kept getting crashes either during install or after install before saving files.

Anybody know if the Windows version has changed much in the last year? Anybody had success on XP?

rmjvol