{"id":1883,"date":"2014-11-14T11:47:33","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T19:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.digitalphotos101.com\/blog\/?p=1883"},"modified":"2023-03-30T12:24:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T19:24:13","slug":"corel-paintshop-pro-x7-debuts-with-new-tools-and-fresh-interface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.digitalphotos101.com\/blog\/corel-paintshop-pro-x7-debuts-with-new-tools-and-fresh-interface\/","title":{"rendered":"Corel PaintShop Pro X7 Debuts with New Tools and Fresh Interface"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/a>\"photo<\/a>I realized it had been quite some time since I posted a software review. In fact, over the past year, I’ve been rather lax in posting on my blog, period! It’s because I’ve been working on a big new project that’s consumed much of my time: creating a family portrait\u00a0 photography course<\/a> plus a series of free videos<\/a> with Lightroom tutorials.<\/p>\n

Readers of my newsletter will know that Lightroom is my photo software of choice, but over the years I’ve also used and liked Corel’s Paint Shop Pro <\/strong>because of its Photoshop-like tools,\u00a0 shorter (much shorter!) learning curve, and lower price tag (just $79.99).<\/p>\n

Pixel-based vs Catalog-based Software…huh?<\/h2>\n

Paintshop Pro (and Photoshop and PS Elements) are quite different “animals” from Lightroom. The important thing to know is that they don’t cancel each other out. That’s because Paintshop Pro is pixel-based software that allows you to edit down to the pixel level and you use layers. Editing is destructive, meaning edits you make actually change the pixels. You can also use it to create complex designs, image composites, graphics, and more. On the other hand, Lightroom is catalog based; any adjustments you make to an image are written to a text file in the Lightroom catalog, which is a database (see this video<\/a> for more about the catalog). Your original image is never touched and you can undo every edit you ever made at any time.<\/p>\n

Both types of software have their strengths. Many photographers find they can do most of their editing in Lightroom, but for really tough things like removing a large unwanted object like that person who ran into your otherwise perfectly composed shot, it’s easier, and results are usually better, to do it in pixel-based software. Paintshop Pro has a new content-aware fill tool called Magic Fill that does a really good job with this. The nice thing is that from within Lightroom, you can open a copy of your image and edit it in Paintshop then move it back into Lightroom.<\/p>\n

Back to the Review<\/h2>\n

Okay, so getting back to my Paintshop Pro review. Kind of got side-tracked, didn’t I?\u00a0 The new version is X7, which was released in October 2014. You get a revamped user interface and new tools such as the aforementioned Magic Fill for removing unwanted objects, similar to the very popular Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop, and improved brush speed performance.<\/p>\n

You also get:<\/strong><\/p>\n