Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2

Enhanced Crop Tool

A crop tool is nothing to get excited about, unless it’s had some useful features added. PSPX2 now offers the facility to crop to new image. This means the crop you make will be automatically opened as a new file, leaving the master copy in its original state. This is particularly useful if you are scanning several images in one scan. Now you can easily separate each image or create multiple crops from one image.

Layer Styles

Besides adjustment layers, you can now add several layer styles to an image. Styles include; Reflection, Outer Glow, Bevel, Emboss, Inner Glow and Drop Shadow. This new feature is not easy to find, the most logical place would be as Layer Styles under the Layers menu. Not with this version, you can find it by selecting Layers > Properties and then selecting the last tab called Layer Styles. The drop shadow options are far too basic for accurate work, you just move the sluggish pointer until the shadow looks about right.  I would have preferred to enter numeric values for easy repetition.

Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 retains many of the features seen in previous versions, such as the Time machine, although I would have liked an update and seen some inclusion of modern techniques such as cross film processing effect (there is one included but it isn’t that good), or Polaroid transfer print. One effect which I haven’t seen convincingly implemented by anyone is a true B/W film grain simulator. I loved making grainy prints with pushed Tri-X film, now everyone just seems to want to get rid of grain (noise). The noise filter just doesn’t look like film grain. Talking of filters, each filter dialogue box has a before and after preview, you can also preview the effect on the actual image. My own preferred way of working is to maximise the dialogue box to full screen.

The Organiser has been enhanced, as before it could be docked or used as a floating palette. Images are displayed very quickly, although when you zoom into an image and then scroll around, the image momentarily breaks up into large blocks. Images which were shot in a portrait orientation annoyingly appear as horizontal thumbnails, although when you open them they appear in the correct orientation.  I like the Photo Tray, this is an extra palette that you can drag and drop pictures into, the palette stores links to the original files which saves you having to browse each time you want to work with selected images. You can create several Photo Trays and give each a unique name, these appear as a tab on the top strip. The Photo Tray can be quickly switched ON or OFF by pressing Ctrl+W. Even though all the trays are opened when you use the shortcut, I would have liked an option to save the Photo Trays as a separate file.