Review: Paint Shop Pro 9

I've been fiddling with Paint Shop Pro 9 for the past few days, and here are my impressions:

As some of you know, Paint Shop Pro is a relatively inexpensive alternative to Adobe Photoshop, and this latest version is well worth owning. You can download a 60-day demo version from jasc.com.

Of first interest to me are the app's many features for photo restoration.

During my move over the summer, I discovered a trunkful of old family photos, some dating back to the 1800s. Although some of the photos were still in good shape because of the superior ink and photopaper used (in 1890!), others had faded or otherwise deteriorated.

After scanning the pictures, I opened them in PSP 9, and went to work.

The despeckling feature and the brightness/contrast control were the features I used the most. However, PSP has numerous other tools for improving or restoring old photographs. These include methods for removing chromatic aberration (false colors due to bad lighting), over-saturation (too much blue, too much red), excess flash lighting, lens distortions, faded images, red eyes, etc. Changing the color balance of shadows, mid-tones and highlights can be subtly done by PSP. For example, if everybody in the party photo has a pale blue face, the mid-tone color feature will automatically change them to flesh tones. Brightening the highlights around peoples' heads and shoulders can keep them from fading into the shadows. One feature I used a lot was the automatic small scratch remover.

There are other tools which allow you to select, then retouch specific details in a photo, like the color of a car. For professional photographers (or technically-minded amateurs), there are the histogram and materials pallettes, which allow you to refine the photo down to the last pixel, if necessary.

At first this large array of tools can be overwhelming. You will have to experiment with them before you produce the kind of image you want, whether it's printed or displayed on the monitor. The good news is that you probably need only a few of them to crop or enhance a typical photo. Remember that light and color are often matters of individual perception, so have several people look at your graphics and comment.

One of the most important features, if you want to put photos on your web site, is PSP's tool for compressing files into the jpeg, gif and png formats. You need those quick downloads and don't want your visitors to wait while your photos crawl down their monitor screens. PSP's compression feature is very intuitive and offers ways to approximate download times and average color information.

On the other hand, printing photos is a different matter thatn displaying them on a monitor. This is because the printing paper you use both absorbs light and reflects light. Therefore, a color set called CYMK is used for printing whereas the RGB set is used for Web images. Make sure you choose the right one. On computer screens, which use emitted light rather than reflected light - the colors are not mized with anything else.

Printing also involves considering the kind of paper you use, which can make all the difference in the world. Glossy photo paper will make your image look a lot differrent from tinted flat paper.

PSP has features for "spiffing up" your photos with frames and other graphic embellishments. You can create various artistic effects with the array of virtual brushes and other art media tools. These produce oil, watercolor or other impressionistic effects on your photos. Or comic effects: You can paint a moustache on your mother-in-law or give your neighbor's kid two heads. (Just kidding.)

Additional features for more advanced users include a vector drawing tool and a scripting program for automating tasks. (The drawing tool is similar to the one in Adobe Illustrator and therefore a pain to learn. On the other hand, I've been told that it's worth the effort.)