Adobe and Corel have just announced major updates to their line-up of image software with Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 and Paint Shop Pro Photo XI respectively. Both programs aren't each companies leading image program, more amateur than professional, but at the same time they are more than just toned down versions of their bigger brothers.
Both Adobe and Corel are moving their programs towards being workflow software covering computer based side of the photography process - organising, editing and sharing. Both new upgrades come closer to this aim and since both were announced so close together it sets them up for a nice head-to-head comparison of new features.
Organising
Beginning at the start of the workflow process is organising. Elements already has Adobe Bridge to do all its organising needs, although this is repackaged inside Elements as the Photo Browser. This handles the importing of photos and allows you to tag and rate photos and move them easily to other Adobe programs. The Organiser already has a very good “Date View” for searching but it now adds “Map View”. Users drag photos to an online map to “Geotag” them (a rather self-explanatory Web 2.0 term for once) to create a new way of searching, and tags from GPS products like the Sony GPS-CS1 are supported too.
Paint Shop Pro didn't have such a base to build on and Corel had to design a new Photo Organiser for it. Images can be searched by keywords, filename, folder location and other Meta tags. The Organiser can handle other media too, such as video files (single frames can be extracted from video too). There is a calendar view but no map view, but this is made up for with the “Photo Tray” which is batches of photos for easy grouping.
Organising isn't the most interesting feature but it is a very important one, especially as you get more and more photos. It is good to see both companies tackle this area and it is very close, with Corel just edging out Adobe with the Photo Trays feature.
Editing
This is the BIG feature as both programs won't just be used for photo editing but for web-use and illustration too. As you'd expect this is where the biggest improvements lie. Elements has long been wrongly seen as Photoshop-lite, a poor relation to proper Photoshop. This is an unfair attitude as Elements is just as powerful but designed more for photographic needs. Understandable some features are less prominent and others have been left out, such as Bezier Pen. All of Photoshop's more photography based tools are in Elements, Colour Curves, Levels and Saturation filters for example. Being originally based around Photoshop it's not that easy for Adobe to put a lot of big new features in because they are already there, but they have added a few more tools to cover common photo editing functions. A black and white conversion tool for example helps create rich photos with the deep contrast, rather than the often washed out black and white photos done by hand.
Similarly Paint Shop Pro has over 14 years of program history since its first release in 1992, and it has been under Corel's wing for the last two of these, so the program is quite advanced in its editing functions. Even so, Corel has managed to fit a lot of new features in. The Colour Changer tool can be used to change areas of colour quickly, cleanly and realistically (in a manner similar to Nikon's U-Point technology). Another feature is the “Time Machine”. This can't teleport you back in time but it can take your photos instead by replicating the photographic process of the time - so if you want your photo to look like a Calotype of the 1840s you can. Other improvements include Skin Smoothing (part of the Makeover photo-correction tools), Depth of Field tool, RAW support and enhanced curves and levels tools.
Again it is very close. Paint Shop Pro adds a lot of new functionality to the program but a lot of it (like RAW support) has been around in Elements for ages. But if you look at things purely from a photo editing point of view then Paint Shop Pro's Makeover Tools and the Time Machine but it just in front.
Sharing
Sharing is becoming a big thing in photography, just look at the growth of Flickr for proof of this. Understandably both companies have included new features in their updates. Whereas the new release of Elements doesn't bring that many new editing features to the table it does bring a lot of sharing options. Customisable, themed layouts are available for printing, as are album and scrapbook options and these work on a really simple drag and drop principle. The biggest new feature is Adobe Photoshop Showcase, a Flash based photo gallery that can display photos online for free in either static or animated settings - such as a scrapbook with flipping pages. There are a lot of templates available, with varying levels of cheesiness (inevitably) but more will be made available. The program will make it simple for uploading photos and if you are in the US there are Kodak One Click printing and PhotoStamps.com options available.
Paint Shop Pro on the other hand doesn't address sharing directly, having a sister program to handle it called Snapfire Plus SE. This handles creating calendars and album pages but nothing on the scale of Elements and it is only a cut-down version of the retail Snapfire Plus products.
Elements is the clear winner here both for print and web sharing although it remains to be seen (it isn't out yet) if Adobe Photoshop Showcase is good competition to Flickr and other image galleries. In Paint Shop Pro's corner the decision to take sharing features out of the program isn't a good one, as many users don't want to move to another program to do something that should be done in the main one.
Price
Price is always a big issue in deciding whether to buy anything and it was price that encouraged Adobe to create Elements as a cut-down version of Photoshop in 2002. Now Elements 5 is available at the very wallet friendly price of £47.19 as an upgrade or for £52.29 for the full version (these prices include VAT). It is also available with Premiere Elements for £105, the latter being its video-based counterpart.
Paint Shop Pro costs slightly more, £59.98 for an upgrade and £89.99 for the full version. You could take this as an obvious disadvantage but there are two more factors - there is a free trial available and it comes with a two hour teaching video from Lynda.com
Judging which is better on price isn't a very useful test, especially with prices as low as these. At a push, Paint Shop Pro comes out on top. It may cost more but there is a big advantage in the form of its free trial. It is a big consideration for new buyers as you don't have to spend all that money to find out if you like it or not. Elements will get a trial version too, but not until it comes out in November - giving Paint Shop Pro a big head start.
Outcome
It's very hard to choose a clear winner between these two very promising programs. Tallying up the outcomes of each category may suggest Paint Shop Pro XI is better but it has to come down to personal preference too. Existing users of Adobe or Paint Shop Pro will be very unlikely to change sides. This is understandable; you stick with what you know. On a business scale however, where these products will end up as cheap alternatives to Photoshop and Corel Draw there are more factors, like price and need.
Need is very important as the differences between the two are more obvious. If you want a lot of different sharing options then users will find Paint Shop Pro very unrewarding, but if they want a program for frequent photo edits then it will come out on top. Adobe Photoshop Elements, with its Photoshop-based heritage, is still the best for general image editing at this price-level.
Adobe Elements 5 is out in November while Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo IX is out now. A free trail is downloadable here.
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