Corel PaintShop Pro - X4 Reviewer's Guide

Contents

1 | Introducing Corel PaintShop Pro X4 ............................. 1

2 | What’s included? ..............................................................3

3 | Key features .....................................................................4

4 | Favorite features.................................................................9

Introducing Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4

For people who have a passion for photography,

®

PaintShop™ Pro X4 is a no-compromise

Corel
solution for managing, adjusting, editing, and
sharing photos. Offering DSLR power at a point­and-shoot price, it provides an end-to-end photo­editing workflow for both the aspiring and expert
photographer.

PaintShop Pro X4 has a range of powerful new
tools, features, effects, and under-the-hood
enhancements based on feedback from our
community of passionate users and the latest
advancements in digital photography.

The development of this version focused on
delivering more of the kind of high-level editing
power that longtime PaintShop Pro enthusiasts
have come to expect, increasing application
speed and performance, optimizing usability for a
more intuitive workflow, and simplifying photo
sharing.

Whether you’re exploring the creative possibilities
of your DSLR camera or quickly fixing and sharing
images from your mobile phone or pocket
camera, PaintShop Pro X4 helps you maximize the
creative potential of your photos.

Professional editing power

support for dozens of tools, PaintShop Pro X4
ensures that digital photographers are never held
back by stripped-down software so they can fully
explore their creativity.

Performance

An unwavering commitment to improving every
aspect of application performance drove the
creation of PaintShop Pro X4, and it shows. A
range of upgrades, such as GPU optimizations
and a smaller footprint size, deliver a faster, more
stable photo-editing experience. In fact, you'll
notice the performance upgrades in PaintShop
Pro X4 immediately — a faster installation means
you can get right to work.

Usability

Knowing that you want to spend more time
creating and less time sorting and managing
photos, PaintShop Pro X4 provides a wide variety
of interface improvements to enhance and
streamline your digital photography workflow. A
totally redesigned workspace delivers a more
intuitive approach to image-editing, and new full­screen preview and dual-monitor support help
you get most out of your pictures.

Photo enthusiasts are often faced with a tough
choice. They can either settle for the limited
toolset of a “lite edition” or pay a hefty price for
full-featured software. PaintShop Pro X4 offers an
affordable solution that doesn’t cut corners. With
redesigned HDR photo-merging features, a
variety of new effects and filters, and 16-bit

Sharing

After you’ve fine-tuned your photos, PaintShop
Pro X4 makes it easy to show them off. From
uploading to Flickr, posting to Facebook, or
emailing images directly from the application,
you can give your work the audience it deserves.

Reviewer’s Guide [ 1 ]

Customer profiles

Photo enthusiasts: A photo enthusiast is

anyone who has embraced photography as a
passion. Working primarily with a DSLR, they
want to get the most out of their camera’s
capabilities, such as shooting in a RAW format or
using auto-bracketing features. Thanks to the
wide array of high-quality camera equipment
available today, photo enthusiasts can generate
professional-looking results, even if they’re just
starting out. They seek software that gives them
hands-on, deep-editing features along with one­click fixes for the most common problems. Their

®

output may be to Flickr

or Facebook®, a photo

frame, or even a traditional print.

Graphic designers: Many graphic designers use

PaintShop Pro as their primary medium. They’re
more likely to create a graphic from scratch than
to base an artwork around a photo. Their work is
often used by enterprises to improve their web
presence or by social media users as avatars. For
some, the digital art they create using PaintShop
Pro is a passionate creative outlet, and for others
it’s a source of income.

Digital scrapbookers: As technology has made it

easier to research, gather and share information,
there’s been an explosion in hobbyists who
document their family and personal history in
digital scrapbooks. Working with images from a
variety of sources, digital scrapbookers need tools
to adjust recent shots they’ve taken as well as
features to restore and improve older family
pictures they’ve scanned. And, when they’ve
finished their project, they seek flexible ways to
share it.

Business users: Workers in a wide range of fields

use graphics in their day-to-day work. They work
with content from a variety of sources —
colleagues, clients, legacy files, even screen
captures — so the ability to open and save to a
wide variety of file formats is critical. The images
they create are often incorporated into business
presentations, marketing materials, or websites.
Working in busy environments with little time to
spare for training, they seek intuitive tools and
quick photo fixes to help maximize productivity.

[ 2 ] Reviewer’s Guide

What’s included?

Main application

• Corel

®

PaintShop™ Pro X4: Corel PaintShop

Pro X4 gives passionate photographers more
to love with hundreds of photo-editing
features, a streamlined workspace, new pro­level effects, and one-click sharing. Totally
revamped HDR tools help you create the
perfectly exposed image or achieve a surreal,
artistic effect. With the new Photo Blend
feature, you can remove distractions and
combine the best elements from a series of
shots. The new Selective Focus feature lets
you mimic expensive tilt-shift lenses to turn a
scene into a miniature world. Managing and
editing all your photos is easier with
redesigned workspaces and dual monitor
support. And thanks to dozens of
enhancements, application performance is
dramatically faster.

Minimum system requirements

•Microsoft® Windows® 7, Windows Vista® or
Windows
installed (32-bit or 64-bit editions)

• 1.5 GHz processor (2 GHz or faster
recommended)

•1 GB RAM

• 1 GB free hard drive space (2 GB or greater
recommended)

• 1024 x 768 resolution, 16-bit color display

• Windows-compatible CD-ROM drive for
installation

®

XP, with latest service packs

(2 GB RAM or higher recommended)

Format support

• Input: AI, BMP, CAL, CALS, CGM, CLP, CMX,

CT, CUR, CUT, DCX, DIB, DRW, EMF, EPS, FPX,
GIF, HDP, HGL, HPG, IFF, IMG, J2C, J2K, JIF,
JP2, JPC, JPE, JPEG, JPG, JPS, JPX, MAC, MPO,
MRW, MSP, PBM, PCD, PCT, PCX, PDF, PGL,
PGM, PIC, PICT, PNG, PNS, PPM, PS, PSD, PSP
(PSP image files), RAS, RAW, RIF, RLE, SCT,
SVG, SVGZ, TGA, TIF, UFO, WBM, WBMP,
WDP, WEBP, WMF, WPG
RAW file support from over 300 camera
models including 3FR, ARW, CR2, CRW, DCR,
D N G , E R F, K 2 5 , K D C , M E F, M O S , N E F, N R W,
O R F, P E F, R A F, R W 2 , S R 2 , S R F, X 3 F
Video input format support for MPEG1, WMV

®

(Windows Media Video), MOV (QuickTime
required) and AVI (motion JPEG)

•

Output: BMP, CAL, CALS, CLP, CUT, DCX, DIB,

EMF, EPS, AI, PS, FPX, GIF, HDP, WDP, IFF, IMG,
JP2, J2C, J2K, JPC, JPX, JPG, JIF, JPE, JPEG,
MAC, MSP, PBM, PCX, PGM, PIC, PPM, PNG,
PSD, PSP (PSP IMAGE FILES), RAS, RAW, RIF,
RIFF, RLE, SCT, CT, JPS, PNS, TGA, TIF, TIFF,
WBMP, WBM, WEBP, WMF

• Internet connection required to post photos
online and download program updates

Reviewer’s Guide [ 3 ]