PSP X8

[Dianne]

They are doing a pre-sale of the newest version of Paint Shop Pro. I have no doubt there will be more deals to come since PSP seems to go on sale rather regularly.  I just wondered if anyone has the new version and what they think about it....is it worth the upgrade?

[Cassel]

Obviously, i have it (i have had a beta version since May). It has one feature that i LOVE and have asked for several years: text wrapping INSIDE a shape (no more need for the script i coded a while ago). You can put text inside a vector shape or a selection!

 

The official release date is Aug 19, so i am planning a blog post on the 20th with a list of the features they added that i found very useful for me (not be a photo editor fan).

 

I think it is like any other version: some great new features, but also some bugs (based on their user forum, some people have some issues). But i know they are already working on a first patch for outstanding bugs and issues.

 

I think it is worth it and for work in tagging, card making and scrapbooking, i think the new features would make it worth it.

[Dianne]

It sounds good. I'm a little worried because I can't use all the features of the newer versions of Photoshop (apparently because of my graphics card) and I don't want to buy a new version of PSP and find the same thing happens (though I will say I've been using PSP X7 recently and had no particular problems with it.  Card making is my thing so anything that makes that easier is good for me.  I was afraid they would became a photography only software...while I know there are people who want to do photographs and nothing else (and more power to them), that's not my thing.  Thanks!  D.

[Cassel]

I know, for a fact, that they are trying to move away from an only photography program and widen their target audience. They have removed the word "photo" from the name, from one thing. They are also trying to use a different vocabulary in the marketing of the program.

 

For the graphic card you have, did you ever check the minimum requirement for X8? Maybe it would not be a problem. Unfortunately, there is no trial version until the official release. And at that point, i have no clue what the price will be, if there will be a special release price, etc.

[Dianne]

Wow, that's  a turnaround from the direction they were going in.

 

Check my graphics card?  Well, of course I didn't, because that would be the logical thing to do.  ;-)  Thank you for the good advice. I will do that.

[Dianne]

Well, fiddle.  I bumbled on ahead and found out one part of the download packet is strictly 64-bit while my computer is 32 bit (Perfect_Effects_9.5.0_Basic_PSPX8) so what ever cool effects Perfect Effects offers, I can't use it.  I don't think that's obvious from the materials in the advertising packet.  The other little problem is that I got a message from my virus checker that a Trojan had been downloaded from the Corel site while I was opening AfterShot2_32bit.  All this may have made my upgrade to 8 less productive than it would be if I had a better computer.  On the other hand, very few things go completely smoothly for me so I'm not really surprised by any of it.  D.

[Cassel]

Well, i downloaded all the material for X8 and had no problem. I installed the last version of X8 and i am in the process of recording a video, again, without any problem.

 

Yes, it has both options, for 32 and 64 bits for PSP, but for the add-ons, i have not installed them yet. Older plugins and softwares only work on 32 bits, while some newer ones are only running on 64 bits. Since i didn't try them yet, i could not tell you which ones would work on your machine. But you always have a 30 days money back guarantee if you really don't think it is worth the upgrade (although i usually don't care for the add-ons... just the program itself).

[Dianne]

I sent a message to Corel. I know sometimes virus checkers give a false positive for Trojans, but I thought they should know just to make sure something hadn't crept in.  Only AfterShot2_32bit caused the Trojan alert.  I draw no conclusions from that, but I figure better safe than sorry.

[eileen deliot]

Just started working with PSP X8 and I'm very happy with it. It looks very different as the X2 version I used before, but I'll get used to it.

 

One thing I'm missing though, is having several images open and visible in the workspace, like it was possible to do in X2. Now I have to change tabs to see the different images and can not see them all in once.

 

Is there a way to change this?

 

 

 

And another one is the little chain to attache some layers together so that I can move them together. I still see the chain, but in X2 I could click right and I had numbers to group them, now I can not do that anymore and it's not possible anymore to do that. So the other way is to make groups I think, but it was a lot easier with the chain, I could attach together the elements I wanted to move together and easily change and add or remove one or detache them again.

[Cassel]

For the multiple images it is still there. In fact, it is the same as X2 but you probably had changed it a long time ago:

 

Windows > Tabbed Documents (Uncheck it)

 

For linking layers, I agree that it was more intuitive before. Now, you have to select all the layers you want to link (holding the Ctrl/Shift key), and then clicking the chain link icon.

[eileen deliot]

Thank you, that's great. I have no idea if I ever changed that, I think it was like this by defaut when I installed pspX2 because I never changed it, also not after changing computers last november.

 

I'll try that for the linked layers.