Although price isn't usually an issue in Thailand, outside Photo Shop is significantly more expensive than Paint Shop Pro. Most reviews say Paint Shop Pro will do 98% of what Photo Shop will do. Any opinions?

PSP much better imho, simplely because its far easier to use than adobe. BTW picked it for 150bht.

I'm a total amateur but i use photoshop. I had no idea what to do with it at first but i now regularly download free podcast tutorials. It's not so difficult after a short while.

Photoshop is more expensive though, i think i paid 200Bht

We cannot discuss the use of pirated software in this forum.

ive been using psp XI for a while now....its user friendly and does most of what i want. im currently trialing adobe elements 6 ...looks interesting as well.

No pirate software - I paid good dosh for mine.

PSP - very easy to use, more so than Adobe. If you dont have the patience I suggest PSP for you rather than adobe. However experts do use Adobe, so thats worth mentioning.

Experts also use PSP. My first experience with PSP was in the US when I paid a moonlighting graphic artist who worked for a major telecom to design a corporate logo for a business in the US. He delivered it on disc. The files were in PSP. I assume his employer also used the software. I bought PSP 7 then recently upgraded to X2. PSP 7 had an animation shop package included which X2 doesn't so that is still used. I have never used Photoshop but I am curious about user experience with both.

ChiangMaiAmerica wrote....

Most reviews say Paint Shop Pro will do 98% of what Photo Shop will do. Any opinions?

May I suggest you start reading more reputable reviews about Photoshop. For photo editing Photoshop Elements will do about 90 % of Photoshop for a small fraction of the price. However, I once used PSP and found it to be great and fun to use.

I now use Mac and PSP is not available unless I load Windows on my machine - not going to contaminate my iMac with windows.. I also miss the free program irfanview. But now my heart belong to Adobe's Photoshop. I've been using it for several years and still have so much to learn ...the free podcasts on itunes are incredible and I have downloaded more than a thousand tutorial clips for free.

Every year I try to take a computer course at our community college and by doing so qualify for tremendous student discounts for Adobe products. Last fall I purchased a suite of Adobe programs for about 25% of selling price and saved almost $1,400.

By the way, in the beginner classes for Photoshop the instructor will remind students that for photo editing they should save their money and use Photoshop Elements. Photoshop is meant as a graphics editing program and is overkill for just editing.

Adobe has come out with another higher priced program called Light Box. It lists for $300 and is also available for students at $ 98. It is intended for managing large amounts of photos, editing photos, slide shows, a really super program for printing, and finally a great program for making instant web pages. Unfortunately, it too has a tremendous learning curve ....

Light Box is very handy for keeping track of the thousands of very old photos, negatives and slides that I'm scanning, but these new digital cameras just dare me to take hundreds of pictures in one afternoon (last sun day i shot 624 pictures just wandering down town). This seems to be the way to use these new cameras - set for multiple exposures and fire like a machine at everything!!! I then sort out the photos in light room and wind up with 8 or 9 really great pictures, these I share with friends. I delete the other 615 shots and keep it a secret. It's almost like cheating but more fun.

This is an exciting age for photography - seems like it can't get better that it is. Wonderful digital cameras to choose from, both point and shoot and DSLR - and great editing programs.

FYI I use academicsuperstore.com for my software purchases. there are other similar sites available too. All demand simple proof of being a student - maybe you could buy the program for your stundent children .

Well summarised jukapot. I too believe Photoshop is OTT for those of us that merely require to edit our shots. In fact, apart from re-sizing and sorting a few mis-aligned perspectives I NEVER USE IT. Lightroom does everything I need and is a lot less intimidating than Photoshop. And as for as workflow is concerned Lightroom stands superior to everything I've seen to date.

I use Photoshop CS2, with Adobe Camera Raw for the raw conversion.

To my knowledge, Paintshop Pro doesn't have 16-bit support. I use this when working on HDR images.

Photoshop Elements doesn't have Curves - which I use quite frequently, though a similar result can often be obtained with Levels.

It doesn't have 16-bit support either.

Perhaps the most important shortage in Elements is the lack of layer masks. I use this all the time.

It also doesn't have Channel Mixer, Color Balance, CMYK, channels, calculations and running actions -which I don't use anyway.

Paint Shop Pro X2 does have 16 bit support but it is more limited than what is in Photoshop. As to layer masks etc. It does offer those features at a price similar to Elements.