Decisions, decisions

[dicreasy2]

As some of you know, I use PSP for all my photoediting.  I love the programme to bits.  I started off with PSPX2, but when I upgraded to a Win7 machine, I had to upgrade to PSPPX3 since X2 isn't Win7 compatible.   I've been using X3 for nearly a year now, and I have to say, I don't like it as much as I liked X2, plus I have some stability issues with it.  Basically it has a habit of freezing on me, and crashing completely when I try to use grid lines for any length of time.

I headed over to the Corel website to see if there were any new updates that might fix the problems I'm having, and discovered that there is a new version out, PSPX4.  Reading the bumf and finding out that it's a standalone version, I downloaded the free trial to see what's what.  Having had a poke around, it does seem lik they've improved quite a few features from X3, and also, there was no crashing when I messed about with gridlines.

This is all to the good, but I'm not sure if I'm going to upgrade.  There are several issues that arise with X4, which I don't have with X3.

• Qunitica's scripts for Pooklet's colour actions, don't work.  Depth charge ends up bright orange, so Corel have obviously changed the way some of the tools Quintica used to get the same results as Pooklet work.
• The scripts I wrote to resize my pictures for use in ppt for my chapters, don't give the same results as in X3.  They end up being HUGE.  Take up the entire slide HUGE.
• It'll cost £59.99 to upgrade.  That's a hell of a lot for a programme which doesn't do everything I want it to.

On the plus side though, if it is more stable, that's good.  Also, unlike with previous upgrades, it can be used side by side with X3, so I could conceivebly still use X3 for the things X4 doesn't do.  However, that's a bit of a faff, and like I say, 60 quid is a lot of money to spend on something I can't use fully.

So I'm currently undecided on what to do.  I'm leaning towards not getting it and carrying on with being annoyed by the instability of X3.  But it's not as if I need to decide right this minute as I had to when getting X3.  I'll think on it some more.

Comments

[silverbelle1220.livejournal.com]

I'm a Photoshop girl myself, so I'm not at all familiar with PSP in any version. I would probably hold off myself, as that is rather a lot of money to pay for something that doesn't completly meet your needs, even if you're not 100% happy with the current program.

[fuzzy-spork.livejournal.com]

OHAI fellow PSP user. :D Hmm, I've been using X2 with Win7 all along. o_O It's not supposed to work?! I think only twice has it locked up on me (it usually happens when I'm manipulating vector layers - but it did that way more often with Vista and XP). It's a downloaded version and I regularly check for updates, so I have no idea if that's kept it working for me with Win7 all this time.

Of course it probably won't work at all now that I think it shouldn't. LOL

I hate it when they change crap. -__- Especially when they take away stuff I used all the time then add stuff I think is a waste of space. I'd give anything to have the old school version of Corel Paint back. BUT, life (and stupid technology) moves on, so we adapt. Personally, I'm saving my pennies (and multiple hundreds of dollars, oy) to get Painter 12. Which is more of an all-out MAKE ART DAMMIT kind of program. But I waanntt eet so bad! Since X2 still does the simple photo editing I need for sim related stuff. *fingers crossed*

ANYWAY, I can't imagine why the scripts got all wonky between versions. That gets into conversion'ing-of-files crap I've never bothered to try to understand anyway. ;D
[/fever typing *cough*]