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Paint Shop Pro X

I'm pretty excited after having worked on a moodle Quiz UI prototype with Paint Shop Pro X for a week or so now. I have been a user of the PSP for about a decade now. While the essentials really haven't changed that much since version 4 where I started, the program has gained stability, plus two really major features: layers, and vector graphics editing mixed with bitmaps. My prototype has five screens, but they're all included in the same image file and by switching the visibility of different layer groups I can choose which screen to show, while keeping common elements (across the application) always visible.

Everything I want to do with the flexibility of vectors I can, everything I want to do with the simplicity of pixels, I can. In the final result, you don't notice the difference, except when printing: vectors actually go to the printer as vectors, too and look a lot sharper on a good printer than on the screen! :) I only wish something like this was available for Linux, for now I'm restricted to the lab at the university. GIMP doesn't come close in terms of usability and doesn't do vectors. Pure vector-based apps aren't really a choice for this kind of work.

PSP crashed on me only once during these days. Sometimes it seemed to become a bit unstable so I  thought best to restart it. There are some minor bugs, too. The biggest problem is that while trying to select multiple vector objects, it sometimes selects objects from layers which are set invisible, and you can't tell easily if it has done this. This has led to small disasters at times.

I'm sad they market it as a cheap Photoshop, when it can really do more than Photoshop and excels at different kinds of tasks. 

Wed 2007-05-30 15:56 in tech 2 comments #link

Finding my keys

Spent another weekend at Ystävyyden majatalo. Fantastic. Deep discussions, singing, dancing.

Jonain päivänä

Mon 2007-05-28 13:23 in diary No comments #link