Corel Editing Software

[rpcrowe]

As part of a recent purchase at Adorama, I am have available free downloads of a number of Corel Editing Software Programs: PhotoMirage, PaintShop Pro 2019, Video Studio SE (2019), Painter Essentials 7 and Aftershot Pro 3...

I work with Photoshop CC 2020 including Bridge and Camera RAW plus NIK Software. I also have several video editing programs, so most of the above programs don't really interest me all that much...

However I am slightly interested in the conversion of some images to artwork (mostly just for fun), so I plan on downloading Painter Essentials 7.

My wife is interested in adding some very simple animations to the early pictures of our daughter for the presentation my wife is doing for our daughter's 50th Birthday celebration; so she is contemplating a download of PhotoMirage...

Would there be any advantages to downloading any of the other programs available???

[Abitconfused]

I find Topaz Adjust AI (part of Topaz Studio I think) to be a leap better than Lightroom clarity as far as the clarity function is concerned. But perhaps I am just not tweaking the available Lightroom sliders quite right.

[rpcrowe]

I downloaded Painter Essentials and remembered that I tried a free copy of that program a few months ago and didn't like it enough to buy it.

I did like the oil paint filter in earlier editions of Photoshop but, for some reason I cannot access it with my present up-to-date copy of Photoshop CC2020.

Supposedly you access the oil paint filter by selecting:

FILTER > STYLIZE > OIL PAINT

However, for some reason, the OIL PAINT is grayed out in my copy???

[Abitconfused]

I have it in my copy of Photoshop CC 2020 and it works in 16-bit mode, Tiff, ProPhoto color space. Anyway, I just tinkered in Topaz AI (artificial intelligence...reminds me of myself!) and got quite good results in clarity and sharpening. My workflow is to start in DXO for lens, perspective adjustments, color adjustments, and contrast go to Lightroom for dehaze and additional color adjustment, go to Topaz AI for sharpening & clarity, then go to Photoshop for any remaining color correction, white point, crop, and output to a specific file type and size. But these things must be done delicately to avoid a photo that does not look like it was dipped in a vat of tiny rhinestones.

[Manfred M]

As you have already figured out, Photomirage is an animation tool. Paintshop Pro is an image editing tool. I owned a version a number of years back when I was trying to figure out which tool I would learn and at the time had a lot of functionality that Photoshop covered, plus some fairly advanced painting features that went beyond what Photoshop did.

Video Studio SE is the "light" version of Pinnacle Studio, which is the first video editing software package I bought back around 20 years ago. It is the reason I moved to Adobe as the Pinnacle version that I owned was rather unstable and crashed frequently. I started with Adobe Premiere 5 (in the late 1990s, if I remember correctly) and have used that line as my primary video editing tool ever since. That lead me to Photoshop and a number of other Adobe tools. Premiere was more stable than Pinnacle, but after version 6.5, Adobe came out with Premiere Pro CS with a completely re-written code base that fixed the stability issues.

Painter Essentials is a "light" version of Paintshop Pro. Aftershot Pro is Corel's parametric editor / raw converter that started off as the highly regarded Bibble that Corel bought.

[DanK]

I find Topaz Adjust AI (part of Topaz Studio I think) to be a leap better than Lightroom clarity as far as the clarity function is concerned. But perhaps I am just not tweaking the available Lightroom sliders quite right.

I haven't tried Topaz. However, if what are looking for is local contrast--which is primarily what I have used LR's clarity slider for--clarity isn't a pure form of that. It mixes local contrast and midtone contrast. The new texture slider is more of a pure local contrast adjustment, but it also affects a higher frequency range than clarity. Personally, I would love it if the software vendors simply separated all of these functions and let users apply what they want.

[katto]

Corel software still working in market ? I think its too old now.

[DanK]

Corel software still working in market ? I think its too old now.

yes, it is still on the market, and apparently, they are still updating it. The current version of Painbrush Pro is "2020".

I used it many years ago. When Photoshop was quite new, a company called Jasc Software produced Painbrush Pro as a direct competitor. It was purchased by Corel in 2004. I had the last Jasc version, and I used the first Corel version. I switched to Photoshop not because I ran into problems with Paintshop Pro but because I was teaching myself, and the online resources were much richer for Photoshop. However, I haven't used it for many years, so I don't know how powerful the current version is.

At the time, Paintshop Pro had a very nice feature for beginners. It had an option that called "Enchance Image." When I was first starting postprocessing, I would let the software enchance a photo and then look to see what it had done. That helped me learn what different types of edits look like.

[Manfred M]

Corel definitely still exists and have a diverse line of products. I drive past their head office every time I head into the central Ottawa. I regularly get offers from them as I do use one of their offerings regularly (WinZip). They still sell a complete graphics suite and office suite (Wordperfect, etc.)

At one time I knew a number of people that worked there, but they moved to other companies many years ago.

[rpcrowe]

Wordperfect was the original word processing program that I learned to use. I then switched over to a program called AmiPro which was (IMO) the best word processing program available at the time (late 1990's). The program was purchased by Lotus and the name changed to IBM Lotus Word Pro.

I ended up using Word because I was working for a rehabilitation company and I had to submit my reports in Word... Word, somewhat like Photoshop, has become the standard of the industry...

[DanK]

Not to hijack this thread, but I had no idea that they still sell WordPerfect. I started word processing even before that; my office bought a bunch of Micom dedicated word processors for secretaries, but a few of us on the analytical staff realized how much easier and faster it is to write on a word processor. WordPerfect was my first PC-based word processor, and I still think it is better than Word--in particular, because you could see and directly edit formatting code, even though it was hidden unless you asked for it. I changed to Word because it became the standard. It's much more a standard than Photoshop. I don't think I deal with a single organization in any country that doesn't use Word as at least one of its word processors. (E.g., some also use Google Docs for informal purposes, and some use Libre Office on their Linux machines.)

My recollection is that every person I knew who had to drop WordPerfect for Word was unhappy with the change.

[MrB]

Corel PaintShop Pro is upgraded every year. I started with Version 4 SE, given free on a magazine cover disk many many years ago. I have moved up through the versions and now have the 2020 version, which does everything I want it to do plus much much more. However, I'm not a power user, I don't use Photoshop, and I don't know how it compares with other software. The Ultimate version comes with several other useful bits of software - e.g.Corel Aftershot (a raw converter) and Corel Painter Essentials, and I also have the old Google Nik Collection working as Plug-ins. It usually costs about £30 for the annual upgrade - a user's special offer notified via email.

Philip

[proseak]

I downloaded Painter Essentials and remembered that I tried a free copy of that program a few months ago and didn't like it enough to buy it.

I did like the oil paint filter in earlier editions of Photoshop but, for some reason I cannot access it with my present up-to-date copy of Photoshop CC2020.

Supposedly you access the oil paint filter by selecting:

FILTER > STYLIZE > OIL PAINT

However, for some reason, the OIL PAINT is grayed out in my copy???

which colour space are you using, Richard? I've a suspicion it only works in 8-bit RGB