In September 2004, JASC launched version 9 of Paint Shop Pro. The following month Corel bought the company. The next September came along and PSP 10 (or Corel Paint Shop Pro X) surfaced. It's a new September, and version XI (that's 11) is here.
Corel doesn't seem to have made a press release yet, but its website is now populated with product pages on the new software, which comes with added "Photo" branding. So that's Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI... quite a mouthful.
Mulling over the name and version number no longer, what's new? The new PSP has photo organising features, grabbing snaps off digital cameras as they're plugged into the system. In a very web photo gallery-esque move, comments and tagging of photos is possible. The editing features look pretty powerful, ranging from changing particular colours in a picture in "just a few seconds, no selection tools required" to making ugly people look beautiful with "professional-strength tools that are easy to use". Professional strength, eh? Well if it's good enough for models...
For the photographer who likes to fool around with things like focal length, lens aperture, and so on, PSPP XI has an array of filters to change the appearance of photographs, from funky stylised work, to depth of field fiddling.
Of course, the big question is whether PSPP XI has enough features over PSP X to make it worth the £70 upgrade (or £117 for a full version... excluding VAT)? We'll see what the HEXUS.creative folks have to say about it...
HEXUS.links
PSPP XI on the Corel website.
