Anybody else using Paint Shop Pro Photo X3?

[Darvidanoar]

I've just downloaded the X3 trial version and was very pleased to see RAW file support for the Canon 7D. This is something X2 was sadly lacking and Corel don't seem keen to add.

However, I was gobsmacked to see the sub-par quality of the raw conversion.

On the right: DPP's RAW conversion (looking quite close to the quality of the original)
On the left: X3's RAW conversion (looking quite ... erm ... shyte)

I'm hoping Corel will fix this soon, until then I'm holding on to my money.


Is anyone else using this version? What has been your experience?

[jev]

I do not have X3, but still am at X1. However, the "RAW conversion" from PSP never has been of any real use. I always use another RAW converter (if I'm on wintendo usually DPP) - you can't take PSP's RAW converter seriously.

[Darvidanoar]

I found X2 quite ok when I had the 400D, so I'm notr sure what's going on.

We'll see what comes back from the Corel support guys. Hopefully they'll answer my query based on me being an existing Corel user and not on me being a trial X3 user

I spent so much time scratching my head over RAW conversion last night, I havent had a chance to look at anything else.

[ndarby1]

I've just downloaded the X3 trial version and was very pleased to see RAW file support for the Canon 7D. This is something X2 was sadly lacking and Corel don't seem keen to add.

However, I was gobsmacked to see the sub-par quality of the raw conversion.

On the right: DPP's RAW conversion (looking quite close to the quality of the original)
On the left: X3's RAW conversion (looking quite ... erm ... shyte)

I'm hoping Corel will fix this soon, until then I'm holding on to my money.


Is anyone else using this version? What has been your experience?

I recently downloaded same and use it for my raw files and quite impressed, I dont seem to have the problem you are having with the colours

[Darvidanoar]

I recently downloaded same and use it for my raw files and quite impressed, I dont seem to have the problem you are having with the colours

Aha, you had no trouble with it read Canon 7D RAW files? Perhaps they've fixed that? (and maybe they corrected the stripping all EXIF data bug at the same time)


In the end I didn't bother paying for the upgrade because as far as I could tell, the only improvements were:

1. the 'Vibrancy' control (which is more of a 'Nice to have' feature);
2. they renamed the 'Clarify' tool to 'Local tone mapping' (not really an improvement); and
3. having more of the dialogs remember their last used settings.

Personally, I didn't think it waranted a whole new version number, I think PSP X2.1 would have been more appropriate. But then they'd be in trouble again trying to make people pay for it (hands up who remembers the WordPerfect 5.0 to 5.1 fiasco lol)

I think I'll wait for PSP X4

[Phil777]

I have PSP X3 as my first purchase of this type of software and am still learning.

[peterb666]

I have X1 at home and X2 at work. The work one is not used for photo editing but for graphics. Been using PSP that way since Windows 3 days.

I don't use RAW converion in anything other than the Olympus software as that will automatically apply lens distortion correction to the images shot with my Olympus and Panasonic lenses.

I do most of my quite limited post-processing in Picasa and mainly use PSP for noise reduction and converting RAW images to TIFF when I want to do something a bit more interesting.

I don't think PSP is as easy to use as Photoshop but have extremely limited exposure to Photoshop. BTW, I hate Lightroom which I downloaded some time ago.

[leterpee]

I found the same problem using RAW in X3- the quality was not much better than a box brownie.I mainly shoot B & W images but due to the poor quality of RAW shoot in PSP have to shoot TIFF and manipulate the image in PSP.The results are far better than RAW but I'm lucky my old Kodak P880 can shoot TIFF.I am going to upgrade this camera in the next month or so to a quality mirrorless camera but the trouble is many new cameras don't shoot TIFF.I don't require long telephoto lenses but sharp images so am looking at Leica /Panasonic Lumix L5.Neither of these cameras shoot TIFF so I may have to ditch PSP and shell out for Adobe Lightroom (it comes with the Leica).Anyone got any ideas about cameras shooting TIFF ?

[peterb666]

Just an update, more than a year since I have posted. I have since gone over to Photoshop CS5 and now use Camera RAR extensively. I only shoot in RAW. The other thing to note is that I now mainly shoot Nikon rather than Olympus. I went to CS5 as learnt to live with it due to the better handling of RAW and CS5 gives much greater detail in the initial editing.

Occassionally I go back to X1 to fix colours which is the one thing much easer to do than CS5 (in fact Camera RAW creams CS5 in that respect too).

X3 has some nice photo fixing tool which may be useful on nearly finished images but as I want this for mainly portraits, I have since got the CS5 plug-in version of Portrait Professional. While it has some limitations, I do find PSP much easier to use and I am thinking of upgrading my X1 to X3 Ultimate which I can get from the US for less than $50 delivered (you can get the standard version upgrade in Australia for around $40).

I tried Lightroom when it was in its beta 3 release and hated it with a passion. Camera RAW is a dream and after almost 12 months, I am getting great results out of CS5. In a nutshell, if you want the software to do most of the smarts for you, I think PSP X3 will be the better solution. If you are willing to do more of the hard work, ultimately CS5 will win hands-down.