Rating: 
Summary: The image quality is the main problem
Review: A dedicated PSP7 user, I recently downloaded the trial version of PSP8 to check it out. Unlike others who've posted comments, the new symbols and the placement of the toolbars caused absolutely no problem for me. The one really awesome feature is the One Step Photo Fix which really does make the majority of images look much better. However, one can achieve the same results in PSP7 by utilizing the Enhance options. I didn't find that any of the other new features were noteworthy.The real problem with PSP8 lies in the one thing that defines a graphics package -- image quality. Go ahead and refine any image in PSP8, then close the image window after saving it. I'll guarantee that when you re-open that image it will have any number of small blemishes (artifacts) on it. This happened each and every time I modified an image. It does not happen in PSP7. As others have suggested, it seems like this software is still in a beta stage. What good is a graphics package if you can't trust it to protect the integrity of your images? I think JASC needs to address this problem right away. There's no way they'll get my money for an upgrade. My recommendation is to stick with PSP7.
Rating:
Summary: slow and buggy
Review: Periodically hangs (with very simply graphics and ordinary operations), and even when it doesn't hang, you'll wonder if it had. Takes several seconds (on 900MHz P3) between selecting an item and being able to actually drag it across the screen or resize it. The screen doesn't redraw correctly, so sometimes your image is overlaid with other parts of the image, leftover fragments of dialog boxes, or nothing... requiring you to resize a few times to see what your image really looks like. Text editing is buggy, and characters inseerted into the image don't always align with the baseline. Even with the 8.01 bug fixes, it still sometimes loses characters or keeps characters you edited out. Many tools are harder to find than in previous versions. That said, this version does have some powerful features. If they can get the bugs worked out, it could become a good product again. However, it has a lot of them, so I'd not be in any hurry.
Rating: 
Summary: Ugh, God its horrible.....
Review: For those who still have psp 7, don't even bother upgrading to this. The interface is horrible, and the only thing it does is enhance pictures a lot better than 7. So if thats all your interested in doing, then waste all your money.
Rating: 
Summary: Improvement over last version.
Review: I am pleased with most of the improvements over Version 7, but a little miffed at the sudden difficulty of locating some of the basic tools that were obvious in 7.
Rating:
Summary: Great improvements and functionality, but . . .
Review: The new PSP 8 is a fantastic improvement over PSP 7, but it still seems to be a little buggy and has crashed several times on me. First the good news. I thought the main improvements for PSP 8 were the scripting capabilities and the background eraser. But in my opinion, the best improvement is the reorganized menu and toolbar options! Things are laid out much better now, and with the help of the fantastic learning center, it is pretty easy to figure out where things are. I was skeptical of the background eraser at first, but it does work. Of course, if there is little difference in color or edging between the foreground object and the background it doesn't work too well, but if there is a clear difference it will quickly wipe out the background. JASC really seems to be putting out a professional tool at a consumer pricing level. I have a professional photography business in my spare time, doing mostly sports-action photography and family and senior portraits. I had been thinking about upgrading to Photoshop, but now that I have tried PSP 8 I won't be making the change. Everything I need in a photo editor is done by PSP 8. Now for the bad news. There are still bugs in PSP 8 that will cause it to freeze up and not respond. I have a Windows XP computer and used PSP 8 to design a 300 dpi, 8.5 x 11 ad for a high school football program. It had between 25-30 layers (no vectors). In the 8 hours it took to design, PSP 8 froze up four times. If it wasn't for this, I would be giving PSP 8 five stars. Hopefully JASC will get this fixed.
Rating: 
Summary: Not that exciting
Review: Of course I ad to upgrade to PS 8.0 with 7 AE (Anversary Edition) who wouldn't? I liked the re-aranged menues and buttons, that leads to a more streamlined layout. The zoom (excecuted with the + and - keys on your number pad) is great, but the dodge tool now looks like a magnifiying glass, which will lead to initial confusion. With the new tools that allow correction of perspectives, removal of backgrounds and the like, PS 8 provides more professional tools, but is of course not (yet) up to par with Photoshop. All over all I like the impromvements, but don't believe it's truly necessarry, as the AE edition provides a lot as well, especially filters.
Rating: 
Summary: Paint Shop Pro - real image tool for everyone
Review: I am not an artist but I have used both Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. PSP is by far the easier, more intuitive and far cheaper product. I have used version 5, 6, 7 and they all are great. (MS photo editor and other tools are useless compared with this tool.)
I have yet to find something I couldn't do. Certainly, some of the editting I have done took a while to figure out. But that was more a matter of figuring out what the operation was called to find it in help. If I was an artist I probably would know the right words. Once I find it in Help, the answer is clear with step-by-step guides.
If you want to edit images, this is the tool. Note: If you are going to do a lot of editting, it is faster if your PC has a fair amount of RAM (no matter what product).
Rating:
Summary: Paint shop Pro version 8.0
Review: I have been using PSP-7 (anniversary addition) for some time and decided to pony up the $... for Version 8. Various incentives dropped the actual price to around $... (Maybe- I havent received the rebate from JASC yet). I was a bit chapped to find from JASC tech support that PSP-8 (release as version 8.00)was essentially the same as their Beta test version released months earlier. PSP-8 out of the box frequently caused my reasonably cool featured PC to choke and crash - particularly when using the selection tool. The free tech support informed me that the version 8.01 update was available for free download. The update seemed to help with some of the problems, but version 8.01 is still rather bug infested and not fully ready for prime time in my opinion. Thank goodness I still have the older PSP-7 that I can revert to when version 8.01 chokes my machine.
Rating:
Summary: Most Excelent Software Around
Review: This is definitely the best software around. Of course, it depends what you're looking for.
If you make graphics and animations for personal use, like me, this is great. I usually get pictures from websites, or products such as The Big Box of Art 350,000 or Art Explosion 200,000.
You may want to use Paint Shop Pro 8 for various reasons. You are able to improve your photos in any way you can think of (i.e., remove red eye, scratches, add bubbles, improve perspective. distort, etc.)
Or, you can create/edit clipart in ANY FORMAT, and save it in ANY FORMAT (i.e., GIF, JPEG, BMP, CUR, etc.) My favorite feature in this product is the ability to put different parts of a picture on different layers.
I hope this review helps!
Rating:
Summary: Big Bang for the Buck
Review: Photoshop on a budget! I love it, easy to use, quick and versatile. It is also surprisingly complete.
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