To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more

Corel PaintShop Pro X5 Ultimate review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £73
inc VAT

Lots of great features and just as many irritating niggles – ultimately, the cons outweigh the pros

[/vc_column_text]

The Manage and Adjust tabs gain a new panel called Instant Effects. These are applied with a double click and, true to their name, there are no settings to concern yourself with.

Quality is a little patchy but there’s no shortage of templates, and they’re well organised to guide you to your favourites. However, we don’t like how the original files are overwritten without warning in Manage mode. The original file is stowed in a hidden folder and retrieved via a Revert button, but after closing and restarting the software, it appeared to have lost track of the original.

The Edit tab’s new Retro Lab effect requires a bit of effort to get the most out of, but we appreciate the advanced level of control that it offers.

Corel PaintShop Pro X5 Ultimate Retrolab
Retro Lab takes vintage photo effects back to first principles

Meanwhile, the Graduated Filter effect emulates the role of a graduated neutral-density filter for darkening skies in landscape photos. It’s a shame it can’t be used directly on raw image data to recover clipped highlights. The Ultimate version also includes Nik Color Efex Pro 3, a superb effects plug-in from the maker of Snapseed that’s packed with stylish presets and a decent amount of control.

Corel PaintShop Pro X5 Ultimate Efex
Color Efex Pro 3 ups the ante for stylish, sophisticated photo filters

HDR processing can now work with multiple or single raw files. However, this feature reminded us of the things we don’t like about PaintShop Pro. It’s broken down into three discrete stages for no obvious benefit to the user. Processing was painfully slow, with preview updates taking up to ten seconds to appear. For some reason we weren’t allowed to view the image parameters and use the Pan Tool (for inspecting different parts of the image) at the same time – selecting one made the other disappear.

Pages: 1 2 3

Details

Price £73
Details www.corel.co.uk
Rating ***

Read more

Reviews