Content including photographs are Copyright © 2010 - Don & Linda Gilmore
Review written by Larry Schaibley & Don Gilmore
From the perspective of a neophyte (novice) to image adjustment, I found this new piece of software from Corel a bit daunting at first, but that impression didn't last long. Upon opening the program and reading through the Users Manual that came with it, I was immediately excited as to what this piece of software was supposedly capable of doing. Of course the very first thing that caught my attention was the Express Lab function. What an amazing piece of software writing that is. Takes all the guesswork out of fixing a questionable image. All you have to do is click on "Suggest Settings" and voilá, your image is fixed, and in most cases, to perfection. And if it's not to your liking, you can still change it to get it to exactly what you want your image to look like. Here's the first example I worked on. Pretty dull, isn't it? Well, take a look at what happened to that image with just one click:
Pretty amazing isn't it? And the results are that good on almost every image I played with. Of course there are going to be some that will need more "tweaking". No software is that perfect, but this certainly comes about as close as possible. And all this can be batch processed on other images.
Next thing I tried was what's called the Smart Carver tool. Another fantastic piece of software that was written for this program. Smart Carver is available from the Full Editor and simply put, allows you to remove distracting objects from the image. Here's the before and after images:
Pretty nifty, isn't it? All I had to do was paint over the offending object and contract the image and it's gone. Just like magic. I tried using the Smart Carver tool on another image with some telephone lines and poles that were both vertical and horizontal but found the tool just a bit too hard to work with on those types of objects, so I used another tool, the Blemish Remover Tool that is included as part of the "Makeover Tool." Here's the before and after of that project:
Did an excellent job, didn't it? The Smart Carver Tool may work, but one would need to work with it a little more to get it perfected. I was just so anxious to play with everything else I didn't dedicate enough time to it, but will, I guarantee you.
These are just a few of the new, exciting tools that are available in this version of PaintShop Photo Pro X3. Those of you who are familiar with other imaging software will undoubtedly recognize all of the other tools available to you here, but for a beginner, this program can't be beat. One doesn't need to spend hours reading over tutorials in order to fix their photos. The fix, in most cases is only a couple of clicks away. And if you don't want to take the easy way out to fix your images, you still have all of the other tools available to make those finite adjustments to achieve your perfect picture.
Larry's beginning aproach to this was completely different than mine. However in the end I now use the Express Lab for almost all the images I work on. Automatic fixes have never appealed to me, I was always under the assumption that you had to go in and make adjustments to the Levels, Curves, and use tools like the Dodge, Burn, and saturation brushes. You can still use all those tools plus more with this program, so that's what I started off with. After seeing what Larry was accomplishing with the Express Lab -- I had to try it myself. What a surprise, it accomodates all those fixes and more easily with just a few clicks. Like Larry said usually just one click on Suggested Settings - why -- because the program finds the darkest and lightest part of the image for you instead of spending time doing this on your own. It corrects the levels, saturation, brightness, shadows with one click and it is almost always right, and if not, it's an easy adjustment to get it to your lliking without having to open a bunch of different tools to accomplish the same thing. Just short of amazing.
There are a few tools in this software that are new. The Virbrancy tool, High Pass Sharpening tool, and the best one is the Tone Mapping tool. We can't say enough for the results from these tools. Vibrancy gives you a great way to enhance the colors, the high pass sharpening tool works better than the Unsharp Mask (which is available) and Tone Mapping is -- well, judge for yourself..
Image to the right -- Original image
Mouse over -- Fixed in Express Lab
Click on image -- Tone Map Adjustment
Larger Example ----- HERE
Okay so your the kind of person that likes to play with images, not just make them great or make them pop, you want a lot of graphics tools too? They put all that in the software also. In the full editor. There are too many options to show them here. You won't be disappointed. And don't miss the Project Creator - we did a collage that was so easy to implement and printed out great.
We should mention this here, Raw images, your covered if you take all your photos in Raw mode. Exposure, saturation, and a lot of other options are available. Temperature settings by degree, you name it, it's there. Then when your done you click Edit and use the Full Editor to further enhance you images. These are all options in the software that we have used -- with great success. Are we keeping the software, you bet! I won't be needing my other software anymore, extremely fast and stable program. We highly recommend it!
Not only do the Corel People back up their product but they are one of the very few (if any) software companies that puts so much time and effort into maintaining and upgrading their software. They have put on Webinar's to show people some of the new features of the software -- this is where I got the idea to try the Tone Mapping option. They also have a lot of tutorials on the software in video format that are really helpful. One of the people involved in the design of this software is Craig Copley who is a professional photographer and knows what we're looking for in a software like this. Kudos to Corel for a great job.
Program Overview
The Project Creator
The Photo Organizer
The Express Lab
The Smart Carver
New Extraction Tool
Camera Raw Lab
Tone Mapping
Advance Color Balancing
& much, much more ---
NOTICE: There is a special discount available to all our visitors, and forum members. This discount coupon is only good till April 9th.
Don't miss out on this offer!
See instructions at the bottom --------
We didn't even scratch the surface with all the features available in this software. We've used a lot of different softwares -- this is the best and easiest one out there to learn, with options an amateur or professional will find user friendly.
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