Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Marched Bravely Into a New Decade Tonight

Purchased myself PSP X5 as a belated birthday present for myself. (There's a Black Friday sale, good buy.) I really disliked the earlier Corel versions and I'm not retiring my old PSP 8 yet.  Reviews I've read of this version seem solid and I checked out a trial before I purchased it.

I'll be posting more about my impressions in the upcoming weeks, but for now:



The good:

Most of the menu options haven't moved around too much

PSP 8 content and files will still open, including the Virtual Painter filters that you can't get anymore because they were Jasc products.  (I'll post a filter guide for anyone who needs it.) Edit: As an FYI, some of them will show up grayed out in their submenus until you're in the Edit pane with an image  (not a color fil) open on a raster layer.

A few neat new features and it seems like text functions work a lot better.


The Bad

Slow load times.

Somewhat bloated

I can't find an interactive script toggle.

Too much internet-based help content.  (This seems to be standard nowadays, but I think help files and  documentation should be available easily without an internet connection when you're talking about a commercial product.  It's not always possible for freeware and open source software, but when I pay for something this complex it ought to come with accessible instructions.)

The Stupid

Integration with Facebook.  I know, I know.  Everything is about Facebook these days.  I would still rather have a smaller program that runs faster.  If I want to upload content to the web, I don't need PSP to help me.  There's a whole feature set designed around content sharing and social media.  While some users may appreciate the convenience, I find it to be useless clutter.

The "Manage" pane.  Waste of time.  I can find what I need much faster by opening the folder in Windows Explorer.  So far I haven't seen any reason to use that feature, but I may discover something as time goes on.

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