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Corel PaintShop Pro X4: Capable But Overcrowded Image Editor

02.11.2011
Is your workshop like mine? 37 screwdrivers, 16 of which are nearly identical; a saw over here, a saw over there--wait, where did I leave that saw? Corel's PaintShop Pro X4 ($100, as of October 17, 2011) is like my workshop, too--enough tools to serve the needs of almost anyone, assuming that they can find the right one for the job at hand. Though PaintShop Pro X4 is a powerful, extremely capable image-editing application, it would benefit greatly from having a ruthless cleanup crew step in and throw some stuff away.

The Commercial Kitchen Sink

That's not to say that Corel hasn't tried to put things into some semblance of order. PaintShop Pro X4 has a revised interface, with three large workspace tabs across the top of the screen: Manage, for photo organization; Adjust, a lead-me-by-the-nose editing mode; and Edit, which provides a vast array of manual image-editing tools. Changing from one mode to another isn't like starting up a new application, as it is with , but you still have to wait while PaintShop Pro X4 shifts things around, and the application makes you save your image between mode changes. The Adjust mode doesn't allow you to toggle before-and-after views of your edited image, but the Edit mode usually does.

Sometimes, similar tools appear in the Adjust and Edit modes, or even within the same mode. For example, in the Edit mode, the One-Step Purple Fringe Fix and the Chromatic Aberration Removal are located next to each other. But since purple fringing is usually due to chromatic aberration--though it may be the result of other factors--I'd say that Corel could safely have combined these tools. PaintShop Pro is littered with other "one-step fixes" that are obviously aimed at novices; but it also has many more-complicated tools that come with gazillions of settings. Often these tools have overlapping capabilities.

The Adjust mode includes a new Fill Light tool, which is supposed to brighten only the primary subject in your image, rather than the entire image. In my tests, it worked about as well as the Shadows command elsewhere in the Adjust mode--which, by the way, is paired with a useful Highlights command (for toning down blown-out areas of your image).

The Edit mode houses a few interesting new features. Vignette allows you to select the primary subject of your image, then blur and darken the areas around it. With it, you can create a neat "Hound of the Baskervilles" look. It worked best for me when I drew a selection around my primary subject and then opened the Vignette tool, because trying to draw a selection in the tiny dialog box was difficult.