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Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 | 
 enlarge | From: Corel
Category: Software
List Price: £49.99
Buy New: £24.43
You Save: £25.56 (51%)
New (4) Used (2) from £21.51
Rating:  29 reviews
Format: Dvd-rom
Platform: Windows Vista
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Windows Vista
Shipping Weight (lbs): 11
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 7.9 x 2.1
MPN: PSPPX2IEPC
UPC: 735163114300
EAN: 0735163114300
ASIN: B000UZBYAA
Release Date: October 5, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 2 to 3 weeks
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| Features:
| • | Produkt Version: 12.0 | | • | Sprache: E | | • | Format: CD |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Version: 12.0/ Sprache: Englisch/ Produkttyp: Vollversion/ Format: Box/ Datentraeger: CD/ WIN
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| Customer Reviews:
 A lightweight easy to use alternative to Photoshop. December 30, 2007
John Nunn (Coventry, U.K.)
85 out of 90 found this review helpful
As a software developer working mainly with web technologies, I have to constantly manage and manipulate images. This is a task I am hopeless at I can crop and resize images but anything else and I find it almost impossible. I have a full copy of Adobe Photoshop CS3 yet find the program totally bewildering; I have completed several courses on using it but to no avail. Image manipulation is completely different skill to software development, requiring a different mindset.
After struggling a friend suggested I try PaintShop Pro, as it was a lightweight image manipulation package designed to make tasks easy. So I downloaded the trial version and started to give it a try; after about an hour I ordered the full version. It is so easy to use and create the effects my clients so often want. The ability to apply effects and create what I considered complex tasks in Photoshop was an absolute doddle in Paintshop Pro. Adding a drop shadow effect is just a few clicks as is creating a reflection.
For the price this is a superb application and should form part of any developer's toolbox.
Pro Digital Editing at a realistic price November 4, 2007
Bullfrog (Scotland)
62 out of 71 found this review helpful
Most reviews of this software that I have seen have read in the photography magazines have been very favourable - especially as it is easier to use and has more features than are in Photoshop Elements. I think that this package is wrongly compared to Photoshop Elements, and it should be more direcly compared to Photoshop proper. This software offers some fantastic features, and as far as I am concerned is only a few versions away from being able to take on Adobe (which I think is vastly overpriced and overrated).
This version does not seem to suffer from the hard disk thrashing that version X1 suffered from, and runs like a dream on my machine. I have been very impressed so far, and has really improved my digital image work flow and much improved many of my images. You can download a 30 day fully functional trial of this software from the Corel website, which I would recommend so that you see for yourself how powerful this package is.
I have had no trouble at all in using the software to edit my RAW files, and it works just fine and dandy.
 Good but flawed October 25, 2007
P. W. Bentley
43 out of 53 found this review helpful
I tested the Beta version of this and have to say that I am impressed with the improvements over the earlier versions of PSP.
The Graphite theme is good (Adobe Light-room uses a similar theme), and the HDR feature is excellent. Compared to PSP 10, this is much faster when generating previews.
Faults are few. The main one being Lens blur requiring a selection created in the plug-in, not one already created. This means you cannot use selections created via a mask or alpha channel. It also has problems with some RAW files*.
Some of the new features are a bit gimmicky - Thinify and Suntan being a couple.
If you can afford it, Photoshop CS3 (or CS2 if you have vista - it works more reliably) is better, but at 1/10th the price Photo X2 is superb value for money and has more features than Photoshop Elements.
I highly recommend it.
*If it won't open your RAW files, download Camera-raw from Adobe (free), and convert them to DNF format (Uncompressed). It has no problem with DNF files.
Unusable with large image collections February 16, 2008
Bob T (UK)
26 out of 30 found this review helpful
Once again a major upgrade to PSP has been issued without user testing (despite the disaster of ver 8.0 - you'd think Corel would learn... ).
This time it's the previously-good browser that has been converted into unusable bloatwware. As the browser is key to accessing images, this undermines using X2.
If you only have a few thousand images (and lots of RAM) then you won't see the problem. I have about 90,000 and even deleting or moving a single image locks the PC into 60 to 120 secs of hard-drive thrashing (despite 1G of RAM). This makes X2 a major waste of time.
Other annoyances with the browser are no longer being able to right-click to copy or move images; no counter for number of images in a folder; and no progress indicator when rotating batches of images.
Other functions have also been knobbled. The worst is no 'Command History' for multiple undoing. In Preview effects the 'toggle' to turn off previewing has been reduced to a miniscule tick box when earlier versions had a much bigger button to aim for. As this is the control used most often this is both annoying and likely to result in RSI. Equally stupid and annoying is clicking 'OK' in the preview pop up does not automatically cancel the preparation of a preview as with earlier versions.
All in all evidence that (a)the code-monkeys behind the software have no idea how users actually use PSP; (b)once again Corel has spent not a single cent on user-testing before releasing upgrades.
I'm not aware of any version of PSP that does not have significant bugs somewhere. I now have three versions of PSP installed and use the version where the bugs are least likely to trip up the job I'm doing. What this means is that the browser problems with X2 means this is the version I'm least likely to use. For me ver 8.1 remains the most useable (so long as I don't want to edit text after closing a file... )
 Product may be good but support is not November 21, 2007
D. J. Staughton (UK)
24 out of 37 found this review helpful
If you buy this product just hope you do not need any technical support. Contacting Corel is almost impossible. They are always "sorry, we are experiencing unexpectedly high call volumes, please continue to hold..."
Also, their web site has technical errors that make getting online support very challenging. A shame really as the product is good.
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