Editing Power
Editing your images is still important, of course, and both apps are very capable editors. But whereas Adobe tries to maintain some distinction between Photoshop Elements and its high-end Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro is a Photoshop wannabe, packing in tons of tools--many more than Elements has--and this version adds even more, making the interface increasingly busy. For example, Paint Shop Pro offers a One-Step Photo Fix and a Smart Photo Fix; they do different things, but why not combine them into one tool? Elements presents a much more elegant interface, made the more so thanks to a minor makeover in this version.
Elements 5 adds a couple of new tools to its inventory. One is Curves, an editing tool that has long been a mainstay of Photoshop. Curves gives you a graphical way of adjusting an image's color and contrast at the same time. The version found in Elements is weak, however: You can't adjust a curve directly, and you don't get a histogram, which would allow you to adjust settings more accurately. The results were adequate, but inferior to what you could accomplish with Photoshop.
Paint Shop Pro has offered Curves in previous versions, but this latest release enhances the feature. It includes a histogram, and it allows you to manipulate a curve directly. But you can't click directly on your image with eyedroppers to set dark and light points (thereby setting the parameters by which the tool makes adjustments). Also, as with many Paint Shop Pro functions, you're working in a dialog box with minuscule "before" and "after" pictures.
Paint Shop Pro has a new Depth of Field command that allows you to emphasize an object in the foreground--say, someone's face--by blurring the background of the shot. Pulling this effect off, however, requires a careful selection of the foreground object, and the only tool for doing so is a freehand lasso--a poor choice when you have to work in one of the application's tiny dialog boxes; in addition, you can't modify your selection in this box, so if you make a mistake, you must start over.
Paint Shop Pro's new Color Changer feature, which changes the color in a high-contrast area, works very well. A new Skin Smoothing tool, though, is extremely slow. I tried it on two different PCs, and making an adjustment required 30 seconds to show results--per adjustment.
Elements has a nice new tool that corrects camera-lens distortion, eliminating image bulges and other problems. The application also adds an Adjust Sharpness tool. Adobe says this new tool works better than the old Unsharp Mask, and I believe it does in many instances. But I'm still more comfortable using Unsharp Mask--which is one reason Adobe left it in. Nevertheless, I don't like having to worry about which sharpening tool is going to work best.
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