One area that usually requires substantial computing horsepower is , which is a prominent new feature of PaintShop Pro X4 (though some competing applications offer it, too). With HDR editing, you can combine multiple exposure-bracketed images to produce a final image that incorporates the best-exposed elements of each image. So, instead of showing a landscape with an overexposed sky and underexposed shadows, the final image can display a nice blue sky and easily visible areas instead of shadows.
There's no practical limit on the number of shots you can use for an HDR image, but the more you add, the longer PaintShop Pro X4 (or any other application) takes to process the content. I tried using 26 shots for one HDR image, just to see if the application would choke; it was certainly slow, but it did finally complete the job. Corel says that the normal number of shots is 3, 5, 7, 9, or 11 shots; and in my projects, using 3 to 5 shots worked well. The tool allows you to mask out certain elements of your composition while marking other areas as ones to include, but this feature it didn't always work: I tried several times to mask out a lamppost, and it always appeared in the final shot. Otherwise, though, I was pleased with the results.
Another new feature lets you merge a few photos into one, so that you can include some elements and remove others. Your success with this tool will depend on the source images, of course--the less complicated the background, the better. When I tried using it on a few shots from a soccer game, a woman in the background, though mostly removed, remained easy to discern as a ghosted image. Other elements of the shots would have required extensive cloning to remove.
Like many other image- and video-editing applications, PaintShop Pro X4 supports direct uploads to your Facebook account; you can upload directly to Flickr, too. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Facebook feature to work, because I have Facebook's login approval feature turned on. If someone tries to log in to my account from an unrecognized device, Facebook sends a text message to me with an approval code that I must enter in order for the device or application to work. I managed to get a text message sent and to set up PaintShop Pro X4 as an approved device; but after giving me a "Success" message, PaintShop would go no further, even after I disabled the login approval feature and retried authorizing the application. Corel acknowledges the glitch and says that it is working on a fix. If you don't have this Facebook feature turned on, PaintShop Pro X4 probably wouldn't have any problems, since many apps offer a Facebook tie-in, and PaintShop Pro's implementation is fairly straightforward.
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