Corel PaintShop Pro X4 Review: Adobe-Like Photo Editing for Under $80 Discussion

[DavidEnglish]

Can a software program sell for less than $80 and still be all things to all people? That’s the challenge for Corel PaintShop Pro X4, as it tries to straddle the fence between offering much of the power of the high-end photo editing applications, while still being easy enough for novices to use without any training. PaintShop Pro X4 doesn’t include as many professional-level features as Adobe Photoshop CS5 or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3, but given the much lower purchase price, you wouldn’t expect that. Yet, what's compelling about X4 is how much it does offer. It provides just about everything you need for high quality photo editing through an impressive collection of creative tools and filters.

This latest version has a restructured user interface (UI) that more closely resembles the workflow structure in Lightroom. Corel has also added some highly useful editing features. These include Fill Light and Clarity (for bringing out the darker portions of a photo), HDR Tools (for combining multiple photos to achieve a higher dynamic range), Photo Blend (for swapping out sections of similar photos), Selective Focus (for creating narrowly focused photos), and Vignette (for darkening the edges of a photo).

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[HLdan]

Corel is dead, IMO. They've gone almost completely Windows-only which makes no sense for a creative-type suite and they always overcharged for something you can get equally as good or better from 3rd party developers. They don't have the Adobe name and IMO they just downgrade themselves having Paintshop Pro as one of the pre-installed trial bloatware on PC's.