Paint Shop Pro

[EdBoy]

I'm new to DSLR but not to digital photography and i'm keen to start editing my photographs. I guess from reading these discussion groups that Nikon Capture 4 is probably the best editing tool on the market at the moment.

I've used Paint Shop Pro evaluation version for a while now but only for file conversion. I have recently acquired a fully licensed version of Paint Shop Pro 8 for free through my work.

Can I ask the question: "is this any good for image editing and how does it compare to other editing programs such as Nikon Capture 4 or would I be simply better off biting the bullet and in investing in Nikon Capture"?

[erichlund]

I'm new to DSLR but not to digital photography and i'm keen to start editing my photographs. I guess from reading these discussion groups that Nikon Capture 4 is probably the best editing tool on the market at the moment.

I've used Paint Shop Pro evaluation version for a while now but only for file conversion. I have recently acquired a fully licensed version of Paint Shop Pro 8 for free through my work.

Can I ask the question: "is this any good for image editing and how does it compare to other editing programs such as Nikon Capture 4 or would I be simply better off biting the bullet and in investing in Nikon Capture"?
The first thing you have to understand is that Paint Shop Pro is not similar to Nikon Capture. Nikon Capture is, IMO, the best combination of performance and capability in a raw .nef file editor. However, by and large, it is a tool for working on modifications to the whole image. There is some indication that this may change with the update coming in the next month or so, but the current version doesn't do partial image work.

Photoshop is the editor that can do it all, from raw workflow to working at the individual pixel level. It's also more than $600. GIMP it the free editor that tries to be the cheap man's version of Photoshop. Paint Shop Pro is the relatively inexpensive editor ($120) that used to be freeware, was highly successful, and became a commercial product. It does most of what Photoshop does, and can run many Photoshop plugins. OTOH, it does things in a different way, so it's not likely to draw away the pro Photoshop users. Pros use Photoshop for a number of reasons: familiarity, power, expectation, and flexibility among them. People like myself use Paint Shop Pro because we don't do this stuff for a living and can't justify spending 5 times the money on a product that really only does a little bit more.