PS and PSP Comparison Post 3

Stripes seem to be a pretty popular effect right now.  In my opinion, they work best as an accent, but I know a lot of folks use full striped backgrounds in their designs, so I made some in both Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.  Here's how things turned out.

I tried a lot of variations, so I put them under a jump break.



For simple two toned stripe patterns like the ones below, Paint Shop Pro wins out.  There are a couple of ways to make these in both programs.  They're all pretty easy.  In Paint Shop Pro, it takes a minimum of one step:

Effects>Artistic Effects>Halftone

Choose "Line" from the dropdown and set any parameters you like.  For these, I used a 45 degree screen angle and a transparent background.  (Just add a background layer.)

You can also change the blend mode of the lines for different effects.







These two were made in Photoshop using this video tutorial on Youtube.  I found a couple of other ways to do it while I was working, and I can't really say yet whether one method works better than the other.  It is a little more work than PSP, and there's no discernible difference.






For more complex and/or multi-colored stripe patterns like these, Photoshop is the clear winner.
Arranging the stripes evenly on the canvas and making small adjustments is much easier in PS.  The layers palette is easier to organize as well, so you can work with a lot of layers and move things around.








It's entirely possible to do all of these in Paint Shop Pro.  It just takes more time and planning.  I normally use guides or a grid to do these in PSP, and I frequently have a problem with the move tool selecting the wrong layer.  In Photoshop, I never had the problem with the move tool, and the stripes stayed even.  The arrow keys make it very easy to make small adjustments.

Now, is the ability to arrange layers more easily and keep them even a huge deal? Maybe, or maybe not.  I think it's like that huge abstract background I made last week.  It was awesome to be able to use the brushes at full resolution, but I don't know how often anyone else would need to make something that large.  In this case, it'll depend on how often you're going to work with a lot of layers or how much trouble you have lining things up in PSP.

I have trouble with my eyes (yes, you read that right) so I can't judge how helpful Photoshop's features would be for the average user.  For me, it was great and I'll be sorry to see it go once my trial ends.