PaintShop Pro 2024
(4.5/5)
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS
Price: Free trial or $79.99
Price: Free trial or $79.99
VERDICT: PaintShop Pro is an excellent photo and graphic editor that is not inferior to its main competitor Adobe. In addition to many helpful and easy to use tools, the program has an excellent customer support service. By the way, you can try PaintShop absolutely for free.
All you need to do is just enter the activation key and get a trial version of the program for 30 days. During this time, you can experience all the advantages of this photo editor.
PaintShop Pro is a convenient and easy to use program for photo editing and image creation. The only thing you have to get used to is the overloaded and strange interface (although after working in the program for several hours, it seems quite normal). It is even more cluttered than Adobe Photoshop, which makes it less appealing for beginners in PaintShop Pro vs Photoshop battle. Actually, it can even scare them away.
- Read my Affinity Photo Review that is a decent PaintShop Pro alternative.
PaintShop Pro Review
Paintshop Pro 2024 is a pretty good Photoshop alternative at a very affordable price. It has a simple interface and easy learning curve. It is ideal for both amateurs and professionals, thanks to a vast selection of tools, brushes, palettes, textures, 360-degree image editing.
In addition to photo editing features, PaintShop Pro is also used as a graphics editor. It means that you can easily edit your bitmaps here. In general, this is a powerful software that is worth trying. Now let’s learn more about its features.
PaintShop Interface
PaintShop Pro has an excellent, easy-to-understand interface that even beginners can cope with. All photo post-production tools are divided into tabs, which makes the program’s use as convenient as possible. Besides, there is a huge library of video tutorials and written guides to help amateurs master PaintShop Pro quickly and easily.
The program has two main tabs – “Editing” and “Management.” Using the “Management” tab, you can view and effectively organize your images.
Using the "Editing" tab, you can easily find all the necessary tools for enhancing your photos.
The program has two workspaces – “Complete” and “Essentials.” The “Essentials” mode is ideal for beginners because it contains only basic tools. “Complete” is a more complex version of the program, with more advanced features.
The developers have implemented the Essentials interface in light gray colors, and Complete has a dark gray background.
PaintShop Editing
PaintShop Pro has many photo post-processing tools for performing various tasks. In addition, there are about a hundred creative filters for changing the colors and textures of your images. Another significant feature is the availability of such useful options as “Smart Photo Fix” and “One-Shot Photo Fix.”
They will help you enhance your pictures and get an excellent result very quickly. Of course, the program also has many basic tools, for example, brushes, layers, text, masks, selection and painting.
The program has excellent features for working with portrait photos. You can improve the skin by removing slight wrinkles and spots. Moreover, you may eliminate red eyes and apply a makeup effect. Handy cloning tools and layers are available as well.
Do not forget that you can work with raster graphics here too, for working with bitmap and vector images. The program also has an automatic function of lens distortion correction that will fix the imperfections of photographs taken with wide-angle lenses.
- Check out how to get GIMP free, a great alternative to PaintShop.
New Creative Tools
PaintShop Pro has a large set of decent creative tools. Here you can find the function of 360-degree photo editing, and many filters that imitate the “master painter” styles using deep neural networks.
1. 360-Degree Edit
If your camera is capable of taking panoramic and 360-degree photos, PaintShop Pro will be a great solution for you. The program provides three ways to edit such pictures. You can use the editing window, the main workspace, and make changes by converting the image.
When opening a separate window for editing 360-degree images, you will notice two functions, such as “Remove Tripod Head” and “Straighten.” You can also work on such images in the main workspace.
To do this, use the "Adjust" tool and then choose the "Effects" option. Changing the image in Corel PaintShop Pro 2024 this way, all metadata is saved, and it can be opened as a panoramic picture on any device.
If you convert your photo to a flat image, such metadata will be destroyed. However, you can edit your flat photo and even add many interesting effects to it, for example, "Planet Effects," which will turn your picture into an image of a tiny planet.
Art Media and Pic to Painting
Art Media is a new feature. With its help, you can draw pictures in different styles, with different brushes, imitating various popular techniques (for example, acrylic, oil, watercolor, etc.). Moreover, you will have the opportunity to use the digital palette to mix colors and get the desired shade.
Pic-to-Painting feature will allow you to create an unusual effect, simulating uneven brush strokes without much effort. However, it is worth noting that such photo editing may take some time.
Price
PaintShop Pro 2024 Ultimate offers a free 30-day trial version. It will allow you to understand whether it is worth buying this program.
Developers offer two versions of the program to their customers. The first option is called “PaintShop Pro 2024”. It costs $79.99 (about $60 for updates). When buying a program, you pay only once, there are no monthly subscriptions, which is a great benefit. Another version of the program, “PaintShop Pro 2024 Ultimate”, costs $99.99 (about $80 for updates) and has more advanced features.
In addition to the PaintShop Pro program itself, users receive several exclusive bonuses, such as Painter Essentials 6 (a drawing application), PhotoMirage Express (converts pictures into animations), Perfectly Clear 3.5 SE (a quick tool for fixing image imperfections), Corel Creative Collection (lots of useful content, including more than 100 creative backgrounds) and Corel AfterShot (for working on RAW files).
Similar Products
Freebies for PaintShop Pro
Paint Shop Pro supports all image formats. Therefore, I prepared these cool PNG overlays for improving your images.
Red Smoke
This overlay is ideal for fashion photography. It will add more visual appeal and brightness to your images. This overlay looks better on a dark background.
Sun Flare
Use this overlay in Paint Shop Pro 2024 to add a cinematic look to your shots. The light leaks will perfectly improve the color scheme.
Night Sky
Add a few stars and the moon to the night sky to your pictures, making them look more expressive and vivid. A mystical atmosphere is guaranteed.
Ann Young
Hi there, I'm Ann Young - a professional blogger, read more
