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Vincent Oliver
Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 review
Smart Carver.
Despite the odd sounding name this is actually one of the main highlights in this version of PaintShop Photo Pro. You can select an object using the Red brush and then remove it, or you can select and protect an object using the Green brush and then rescale the canvas, leaving the objects proportions unaffected. The video above shows this filter in use. My overall impression is that this filter performs very well on most subjects, although with some pictures you may have to resort to using the clone brush to tidy up small areas that may be left behind. You can of course include objects to be preserved (with Green brush) and objects to be deleted, at the same time. This filter gets a massive thumbs up from me.
Object Extractor
If you’re into cut outs and are frustrated by the lack of fine control offered by the magic wand or edge selection tools, then the Object Extractor may be just the tool you are looking for. Simply paint over the edges of your object (or person) with the green brush, making sure there are no gaps in the selection, then use the fill bucket to mark the area that is to be extracted and press the Process button. Result, an excellent cut out. If it is not right then you can re-edit the mask using a different brush size until it looks satisfactory. I would have liked an option to save the mask and an option to apply a background colour or image of my choice for previewing how the cut out will look, before clicking the OK button. The cut out can be dragged or copy pasted on top of another image or background. An excellent filter that will get used often.
Text tool
This tool has been enhanced so now you can type directly on to a picture and re-edit or re-size the text at any stage. Text can also be applied to a path. Although not an earth shattering improvement, it is never the less a lot more user friendly than the previous text tool.
Conclusion
PaintShop Photo Pro follows a long line of versions, each time getting better and better. Many of the filters that were included with previous versions are still available in this latest edition, some of my favourites include; Time Machine, Infrared filter, BW filter, Picture Frame, Picture Tube etc. Looking beyond the filters, PaintShop Pro is an accomplished software application that should satisfy most users. PaintShop Photo Pro X3 is perhaps not outwardly that different from previous versions, but under the bonnet are many performance improvements to help speed up any digital workflow.
Pros
Great value for money
Excellent set of tools and filters
Learning centre
Interface and layout can be customised
Graphite interface
Cons
Tool Options bar can look overwhelming
RAW Lab far too basic
Auto Preserve does not work when Applying Edit to several pictures
Windows within Graphite interface do not appear with Graphite colours
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8 Responses to “Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 review”
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Paint Shop Pro X3 hs a problem with the latest update. Their response is this>
“Thank you for your e-mail. We have received a report that Service Pack 3 of PaintShop Pro X3 is causing this issue. The workaround here is to uninstall the program and update up to Service Pack 2 only. Do not apply Service Pack 3 yet.”
The program is up and running properly without service pack 3 installed. Corel is working on a fix.
Long time Paint Shop Pro user but stalled on V8 for many years.
Recently bought X3 but it is a bucket of problems. The re-write to suit Win7 and to introduce new features left it to be a very troublesome piece of software indeed. I’m running it on both Win7 and XP and same problems appear.
Many crashes and hangs and features misbehaving plus some serious problems with memory not being released under certain conditions (mostly found with Save-As).
A great program with great features but needs some response from Corel about fixing it so it can be used reliably for everyday image processing.
Don’t get me wrong, I do like the program and will persevere with it until they get it right, but be warned that it is a troublesome beast. Stick with X2 or earlier versions until it’s known that they have fixed it.
Regards…………. Guy
PaintShop Photo Pro X3 does have some very nice features as shown in our videos. Is it worth upgrading? Well, I would say yes it is for the extra features, it is not a major upgrade, but given the low price, it is a good value product.
Is there enough in it to make it worth upgrading to from X2 ultimate?
Just post features that people want to read and hopefully gain a better understanding of the topic you are covering. Good luck
Random question: I am just starting my blog, but how did you start gaining readership? was it just natural? I mean how did people start finding you?
Thank you for another good article about photo-i – digital photography: Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 review. Where else can people get this kind of information in such a concise way of writing? I have a talk next week, and I am searching for such information.
Awesome post, hey I stumbled on to this story while googling the web for free downloads. Thanks for sharing I’ll tell my friends about this too.