Photoshop is a magnificent tool, but a good many of its users could do everything they need in Corel's photo editing software, PaintShop Pro, without having to pay monthly tribute to Adobe.
PaintShop Pro supports layers and lets you edit both raster and vector image formats—something you'd need two of Adobe's Creative Cloud apps to do.
You do miss out on some of the Adobe flagship photo editor's most advanced tools, however, including automatic subject selection, 3D modeling, detailed typography, camera shake reduction, and face liquefy.
Though performance is markedly improved from earlier versions, in some photo editing operations it lags behind the industry standard.
PaintShop's interface has improved greatly over the years, but it's still not quite as polished and unified as Photoshop's.
If you're a Windows user who's not committed to the Adobe ecosystem, PaintShop Pro is a worthy alternative, especially given its low cost.
Pricing and Options
PaintShop Pro 2021 is available directly from Corel for $79.99 (or $59.99 as an upgrade from any previous version), and it's frequently discounted.
The Ultimate edition ($99.99, $79.99 upgrade) throws in more software—AfterShot (Corel's photo workflow app), Corel Painter Essentials, PhotoMirage Express (converts still shots to animations) and more brushes and backgrounds.
You'll also need Ultra to get the new AI HDR Studio and Sea-to-Sky Workspace (see below).
The one-time pricing model may be a good fit for those who still resent Adobe's subscription-only model for Photoshop, Lightroom, and Illustrator.
For $9.99 per month, you get both Photoshop and Lightroom, but Illustrator starts at $19.99 per month, if you prepay for a year.
Photoshop Elements ($99), Adobe's consumer-level photo editing software, carries no subscription, but that has more of a hobbyist feel.
Getting Started With PaintShop Pro
PaintShop runs on Windows 7 through Windows 10—there's no Mac version.
You first install a small downloader program that completes the installation.
You have to choose whether you want 32-bit, 64-bit, or both—the last means you'll be compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit plug-ins.
After this step, the program asked me to enter an email to create an account, which only requires confirmation by responding to an automatically generated email.
Corel offers downloadable effect packs, too, such as ParticleShop brushes and ColorScript color effects (for $14.99 and $4.99, respectively).
I installed PaintShop Pro on my test PC with a touch-screen monitor, a Core i7 6700 CPU, 16GB RAM, and an Nvidia GTX 745 graphics card.
What's New in PaintShop Pro?
Corel puts a lot of effort into improving and adding features to the venerable image editing software.
The PaintShop Pro 2021 version adds just a few new tools, along with an interface revamping for the photography mode, but they're impressive tools, nevertheless.
The new mode includes a split before-and-after view, handy for seeing the effects of your edits.
(I'd still like to see a side-by-side option like Lightroom's.)
New enhancement tools (which I get into in detail in the next section) include AI Upsampling, AI Denoise, AI Artifact Removal, AI Style Transfer, and the HDR Studio plug-in.
The final big new tool is called the Sea-to-Sky Workspace (only in Ultimate).
It's a applies appropriate fixes to underwater and aerial shots, such as those from a drone.
Other recent updates added a slew of tools as well.
The 2020 version added SmartClone for blending multiple image selections; Refine Brush for selecting complex objects like hair or tree lines; new brushes, color palettes, gradients, patterns and picture tubes; Text tool enhancements; and an improved Depth of Field tool. Available within the Crop tool, Depth of Field lets you position the focus area with a five-by-five grid of squares.
The 2019 version added 360-Degree camera support, an improved crop toolbar, stylus and tablet support, and a more-customizable UI.
Before getting into the standard image editing program functions, let's take a closer look at what cool new tools the 2021 version of PaintShop Pro introduces.
AI Denoise.
This new tool for the 2021 version assuages one of my peeves about photo editing—having to fiddle with multiple sliders to remove noise.
The Corel tool analyses the image, and though this takes time, the result is impressive, as you can see in the image below (left side is before, right is after).
It's hard to see, but the way it removed noise from the eye results in a much more natural image.
Ironically, though some fine detail is smoothed over the image looks sharper because of the removed noise distortion.
AI Upsampling.
We've all had to deal with an image that was just to small or low-resolution for the purpose at hand.
This tool does a remarkable job of removing that blocky effect when you enlarge a photo like this.
The left side in the image above shows those blocky artifacts, while the right side uses Corel's new AI Upsampling tool to produce a pleasing, smooth result.
The tool offers denoising at the same time, but I was able to get this result without using any.
Photoshop offers several sampling options for enlargement, but when I used them on the same image, none of them produced a result as good; they all still showed blockiness and artifact distortion.
AI Artifact Removal.
Designed particularly for JPG image compression, this tool seems to use similar technology to the AI Upsampling tool above.
Like AI Denoise, this is a one-click tool that shows a creative full-screen animation while it's working.
In my testing, the tool only worked with one particular kind of distortion—blocks resulting from JPEG compression.
Blotchier distortion isn't corrected.
AI Style Transfer.
This is an effect that the previous version of PaintShop called Pic-to-Painting.
It's now available in the minimalist Photography workspace along with other effects in an Instant Effects panel.
These effects resemble the Prisma-app craze of a year ago, and have appeared in many a photo app, including the competing CyberLink PhotoDirector.
They use AI technology to generate art from your photos resembling that of specific painters, such a Picasso or Van Gogh.
The new feature is more easily accessible than the former Pic-to-Painting, which required additional downloads and was accessed through the plug-ins menu.
Corel includes a nice selection of painterly and artistic effects by default, while CyberLink's require extra downloading and extra cost for some of the effects.
You can use a slider to adjust the strength of the effect, for a degree of customization.
The Photography interface still lets you use the split before-and-after view, seen below.
One interface note: You need to double tap on the effect thumbnail to apply it, which isn't obvious at first.
I'm used to seeing an Apply choice for this type of action.
Sea-to Sky.
This module looks exactly like the Photography workspace, but it starts by showing just four buttons: Corrective, Scenic, Low Light, and Creative.
It's only available at the Ultimate level.
Pretty much every option improved my underwater film shot, even though the effects don't specifically say "this one is for underwater, and this one is for drone shots." A drone shot I tested with was less successful—the effects were mostly just applied the objects on the ground, not to the sky.
It did do a decent job of a hazy drone shot, though some color cast was added.
For excellent sky fixes, check out Skylum Luminar.
The Creative section offers some pleasing B&W, Sepia, Flare, and Retro effects.
AI HDR Studio.
This new tool is only available with the Ultimate edition of PaintShop Pro.
Corel decided not to fully integrate it with the outer program.
It's only accessible as a plug-in from the Effects Plug-ins menu, and its interface design is different from the rest of the program.
It lets you do single-shot HDR effects, though the program supports traditional multi-shot HDR as well.
As with AI Style Transfer, you simply choose a look from a selection of 16 sample thumbnails, and adjust the effect to taste.
For me, the effects are a bit extreme, but drawing down the strength slider can get you a more realistic enhancement.
Sadly, there's no before/after split screen view in this tool.
The PaintShop Interface
PaintShop shows a Welcome screen of your recent files, product news, tutorials, and add-ins for purchase, and then starts up in full-screen Photography workspace.
From the Welcome screen, you can select the other workspaces: Essentials, Complete, and Sea-to-Sky.
Only two tabs grace the top of the Welcome screen: Home and Edit.
You're already in the Home view.
the Edit button takes you to a simplified, touch-friendly Photography workspace.
I appreciate the ability to use a touch screen more and more as threat of carpal tunnel syndrome from excessive mouse usage looms.
In the Photography workspace you find basic tools like rotate, crop, brightness, color adjustments, one-step photo fix, and white balance.
You also get some of the new tools, including AI Upsampling, AI Denoise, AI Artifact Removal, AI Style Transfer.
There's an arrow offering even more tools, including the useful Local Tone Mapping tool, High Pass Sharpen, Fill Light/Clarity, Vibrancy, and Fade Correction.
I'd like to see adjusters for highlights and shadows here, too, but they're MIA.
The Photography view offers that handy split-screen view to see your edits' effect.
You can adjust the text and icon size and workspace colors, as well.
Another thing I'd like to see in this Photography mode interface, aside from highlights and shadows, is an easier, one-button way to get to the program's other, more-advanced workspaces—Essentials and Complete.
From here, you can also start with project templates, tutorials, recent files, or your user image gallery.
The row of buttons along the bottom links to help and newer features like Pic-to-Painting.
You can always get back to the Welcome screen from any other mode by tapping the home icon at top center.
I initially had a problem switching from Essentials to Photography workspace.
The program disappeared, even though it was still running.
After a Windows restart, the switching worked correctly.
PaintShop's templates are similar to the Create dialog that appears when you first run Photoshop.
The New Image dialog's Blank Canvas tab is rich with choices like Photo, Paper, Web, Mobile, and Social.
One thing I didn't see, which Photoshop has, is a Clipboard choice that sizes your new project to an image you've copied.
A first-run wizard helps familiarize you with each of the workspaces and modes.
The New From Template tab, like Photoshop's, offers several document types, including calendars, collages, cards, business reports, and social media.
Most of these are in-app purchases—in both programs—though you can create your own custom templates.
The interface is customizable when it comes to color and the size of elements such as icons and scroll bars.
These options get their own main menu option: User Interface.
The main window's side panels can also be undocked or dismissed.
The program includes sample images, so you're not starting from zero.
Additionally, the Complete workspace still includes the right-panel Learning Center, which helps you along with many image-editing procedures.
You can zoom in or out to any magnification you choose, unlike Lightroom, which restricts you to set ratios like 1:2, 1:3, and 1:1.
There are 1:1 and Fit Image to Window buttons in PaintShop, or you can zoom simply by spinning the mouse wheel.
In the Complete workspace, there are just two modes accessible from tabs at the top: Manage and Edit.
Corel dropped Adjust, since that term isn't widely understood by photo hobbyists.
Unlike Adobe Photoshop Elements, which has a separate Organizer app, you do everything in PaintShop in the same window, but you switch modes for different functions.
Import and Manage
As its name suggests, this is where you organize your photo collection.
Like Photoshop, PaintShop is not a photo workflow application, even though it includes tools for organizing and outputting.
It's especially evident when importing photos, because you don't get to preview or tag images on import.
PaintShop lacks the big Import button you find in workflow apps such as Adobe Lightroom.
You can now import content from previous versions of PaintShop, including not only photos, but also brushes, gradients, and Picture Tubes—as long as it's stored in the standard folders.
After importing images, you can add star ratings, as well as tags for keywords, people, and places.
You can also create collections, including Smart Collections of photos that meet specified criteria, such as date, name, or tags.
Smart Collections let you specify criteria, such as text in the file name or image size to automatically create a Collection.
PaintShop no longer includes an automatic face recognition feature, though neither does Photoshop.
On the left panel is source navigation, with folders and collections.
In the center is your main content view—thumbnails, full image, or a map showing photo locations based on GPS data.
You can double tap a thumb for a quick full-screen preview with options for rating, rotating, deleting, or launching the image in the editor.
Images aren't overwritten when you save edits but saved in PaintShop's own PSP format.
You can also save in Adobe PSD format, along with dozens of other standard image formats.
Essentials Workspace
Though less drastic than the new Photography workspace, the Essentials workspace addresses one of my major beefs about PaintShop—its cluttered interface.
Not only is it drastically simplified while maintaining tools frequently needed, but you can also add or remove tools to suit your needs.
There are still quite a number of menu choices along the top—14 of them, compared with Photoshop's 11 and Photoshop Elements' 10.
Photoshop even lets you create custom workspaces and offers six options by default compared with PaintShop's three.
Photoshop Elements has Quick, Guided, and Expert modes, which can be thought of as workspaces.
360-Degree Photo Editing
When you first try to open a 360-degree image file, a dialog asks whether you want to edit it as 360-degree image or to open for adjustments and effects.
The latter doesn't affect the geometry of the photo.
Instead, you can manipulate just the lighting and color effects, as though it were a warped 2D photo.
Doing so keeps it...
