How to evaluate PS before purchasing?

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Posted By
Nobody
Nov 18, 2004
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334
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I am a hobbyist Paint Shop Pro user. I am interested in learning more, but PSP books are all targeted at beginners and are too simple for my needs. So, I’ve been purchasing some PS books/magazines, thinking that the techniques described in them would apply fairly easily to PSP.

As I work through the tutorials, I find more and more features in PS that are lacking in PSP. So, I’ve started thinking about moving to PS.

I would like to evaluate PS, play around with it for a few weeks, and see if I like it better than PSP. However, I am not willing to spend $600 on PS only to find out that I don’t like it.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a person who is considering switching from PSP to PS? For example, is there a demo version of PS I can download? Or perhaps any books that have a demo version on a CD-ROM?

Also, is there any "competitive upgrade" path from PSP to PS?

Thanks!
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bhilton665
Nov 18, 2004
I would like to evaluate PS, play around with it for a few weeks, and see if I like it better than PSP. However, I am not willing to spend $600 on PS only to find out that I don’t like it.

is there a demo version of PS
I can download?

http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jsp

Also, is there any "competitive upgrade" path from PSP to PS?

No.
FD
false_dmitrii
Nov 22, 2004
Nobody …
I am a hobbyist Paint Shop Pro user. I am interested in learning more, but PSP books are all targeted at beginners and are too simple for my needs. So, I’ve been purchasing some PS books/magazines, thinking that the techniques described in them would apply fairly easily to PSP.

As I work through the tutorials, I find more and more features in PS that are lacking in PSP. So, I’ve started thinking about moving to PS.
<snip>

Nobody, as a "hobbyist", what are you looking to get from Photoshop? It has some indisputable technical advantages over PSP (16-bit support, color management, healing tools, large images, speed, & all sorts of press-related functions), but my impression from the CS demo was that the vast majority of operations have PSP equivalents. As long as you don’t mind sRGB output or cloning rather than "healing", you can probably get almost any result you’re after in PSP 8 or 9, plus access to quite a few extra features that Photoshop doesn’t match (vector tools, "art media" in PSP9, excellent new noise removal tools). PSP aims at providing full 2D graphics functionality and falls short primarily when specific higher-end vector, raster, or painting features are required, whereas PS is more oriented toward pure, high-quality raster editing with better support for professional processing and output requirements (it’s rather more stable as well, but PSP gets the job done most of the time 🙂 ).

I’ve been using PSP8 and 9 for close to a year; it took many months to fully grasp the extent of the available features and controls. A lot of things I thought were "missing" are just tucked away somewhere, require an overlooked checkbox, use a hard-to-guess key+mouse combo, or can be produced easily by combining two other functions instead.

If you’re not after the PS technical edge described above, try posting a question in the Jasc (now Corel) PSP user forums,
http://forums.jasc.com. KrisZ from Jasc or some of the more advanced users might be able to show you an alternative method to match the results of the tutorials you’re trying to follow. There are even some free plugins and scripts people can recommend that can stand in for certain PS filters (such as Highpass or PS-style Find Edges).

Also, though you didn’t mention it, I’d advise you not to even consider Elements 3 if you’re finding PSP too limiting. It has better color management, healing tools, special effects, and very limited 16-bit support, but it falls way short in most other areas.

Regards,
false_dmitrii

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