Corel PaintShop Pro X4 or Adobe Photoshop CS5?

[Centrix]

Just wondering which is better I went to the Corel site and watched a few vids that show cased their PaintShop Pro X4 and I loved it! it offers features I have yet to see in Photoshop and PaintShop Pro sports a much cleaner interface to navigate through, figure out and learn. I know Photoshop is commonly used but theres oblivously demand and a fairly large fan base for Corel products, So I figure since this is the section for graphic, music and all art related mumbo jumbo I'd post this post here in hopes to get feed back from my fellow Graphic Artists as I am nearing the end of my schooling with DeVry Unversity for Website and Graphic Design. I have never really liked or enjoyed the company that Photoshop brings me, I use to use Paint.net but eventually scrapped it per my schools recommendation based on the industry standards that Adobe products are the most used, However I argue the point that I have seen lots of Graphic Artists and Site Designers and Game Designers use Corel, it just seems to be a common debate in my school and amongst my friends and on the world wide web. It always seems like Adobe keeps going one step back and one step forward, am I wrong to think this?

I guess I'm just looking for another alternitve to Photoshop and would like feed back on what looks to be an amazing prodcut "Corel PaintShop Pro X4" I'd also like feed back on the benefits of using "CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5" as it to looks like something I'd be rather interested in using! Any help and or feed back on these products and experiences you guys have had would be great and well apperciated as always thanks Temp memebers!

 

[Rydian]

Better is subjective. They're not made for the same thing, which is why you're finding features in one the other doesn't have.

Photoshop is primarily for digital manipulation and restoration. While it does have plenty of drawing tools, programs that aspecifically made for drawing are often better at it.

 

[dib]

I used PSP for years for my art. It was more customizable than Photoshop; far cheaper so I could afford to be legitimate about it (you can usually find the latest PSP for $30-$40 versus $500-$600 for Photoshop); it has a better software rendering engine, had basic features like docking windows/palettes years before Photoshop got around to it; and lots of stuff that I just _liked_ better than Adobe's shitty software.

Then Corel bought it, and it's only grown more bloated and annoying. PSP X3 installs tens of thousands of files, when PSP itself was actually relegated to a small subdirectory. The rest was all crapware that Corel wanted to install on systems once they had their foot in the door. No option to not include any of it. Some of it, like a Ulead distro usurps Windows system functions and integrates itself in a way that just cannot be removed. It is a huge pain in the ass.

They've done nothing to improve the brush engine, so for the purpose of the art that I make it has become woefully obsolete compared to Adobe's. They don't even support any Photoshop brushes since maybe version 6 or 7. They largely rebranded the software by adding "Photo" to the name and targeting it to batch photo management. Everything has been neglected in subsequent versions.

X4 cleaned up their act a little, but not in the areas that count and not nearly enough. It's also buggy and removed much of the customization that made it notable. Some of the worst changes like grayscaled icons and not being able to add/remove buttons to some palettes were fixed in an update. They still missed a ton of issues. For most purposes, it just doesn't feel like an improvement over X3.

Most of the attention to Corel is for products like Painter. Not to be confused with Paintshop Pro, which they ran into the ground. It's sad because I used to argue for it being better than Photoshop in many ways. Don't bother with it, and just pirate CS5 like everybody else.

 

[Supernova741]

Haven't used corel paintshop, but from the times I used photoshop, I found it really easy to use.