Corel has announced PaintShop Pro X8, which is the latest iteration of its professional grade photo editing software. Adobe recently announced Photoshop’s 25 year anniversary and, although they’ve taken different paths along the way, this is also the 25th anniversary of Corel’s PaintShop.
Highlighted by a one-time $80 price tag, PaintShop Pro X8 offers a plethora of new features as it takes aim at competing for Photoshop customers. Several of the new features include:
- New! Text Wrapping – Designers and scrapbookers can effortlessly add text within shapes or selections, something you won’t find in Photoshop.
- New! Magic Move – Use this content-aware tool to automatically replace the background when moving objects or people in a photo.
- Enhanced! Batch Mode – This step-by-step process accelerates common photo tasks like resizing and watermarking. Output thousands images in just seconds.
- New! Lens Corrections – Fix common lens performance issues, such as barrel distortion, vignetting and more.
- Enhanced! Camera RAW Lab – Updated layout with new before/after views & large preview window. Quickly add more RAW images and apply new lens corrections.
- Enhanced! Selection Tools Options – Make selections more quickly and accurately with:
- New! Smart Selection Brush Tolerance – Adjustable tolerance setting to make more precise selections across areas close in tone or hue.
- New! Selection Style Options – Define a selection size by typing height and width values or fixed aspect ratio, either custom or from a built-in database.
- Enhanced! Power and Speed – Performance gains keep you in the creative groove with faster paint, air, retouch and art media brushes (now 40-120% faster), increased maximum brush size (up to 3,000 pixels), enhanced Smart Edge to help you stay “inside the lines” (up to 50% faster), and accelerated save times (*.pspimage files save up to 50% faster).
- New! 4K Monitor Support – Beautiful workspace and all-new icons ensure your software and photos look incredible.
- Enhanced! Layer Workflow – Manage, control and find layers better than ever before with:
- New! Quick Search – Search by name to find the right layer in seconds.
- Enhanced! Layer Control – Individual layers can now be merged and layer groups expanded or collapsed.
- Plus! New additions boost productivity – PaintShop Pro X8 includes numerous new features based on user suggestions including the Before/After button in the Adjust workspace, updated save behavior and ‘Save As’ dialog, new swatches in the Materials Palette, Text & Shape Cutter preview, Gradient preview and more!
PaintShop Pro X8 Ultimate includes the new version of PaintShop Pro, as well as Corel AfterShot 2, on1 Perfect Effects 9.5 and Athentech’s Perfectly Clear 2 SE, for only $100.
Unfortunately, PaintShop Pro X8 is only available for Windows users with no plans to release it on Mac OS X. If you’re a Windows user, then this could be an attractive and affordable alternative to the Adobe subscription model. More details here on Corel’s website. You can also order PaintShop Pro X8 and PaintShop Pro X8 Ultimate here at B&H Photo.
AL says
NO dehaze option like Adobe. Disappointed.