Ok, So You're Just Starting Out in Digital Photography, What's Better - Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro

Digital photography is such a promising hobby. You have the beautiful people and places to photograph already. You've found a digital camera that fits your lifestyle and budget. All is good.

But sometimes, the pictures aren't quite perfect. Someone blinked, a random crow flew into your shot, your darling little one twitched at the last second and caused red eyes. The list of what can go wrong with your pictures is seemingly endless.

The key to all of these nagging little details is a piece of digital photography processing software that you understand and can use. As you probably already know, the two most popular pieces of software on the market today are Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. Depending on what you are wanting to do and how much you're wanting to spend, there are pro's and con's for each piece of software.

What Makes Paint Shop Pro Perfect for Beginners?

If you're just starting out with digital photography and editing your own pictures, Paint Shop Pro may just be for you. The choice of many beginning photographers, Corel Paint Shop Pro is a great piece of software on which to learn the basics of digital image processing.

The number one reason most people choose Paint Shop Pro is cost. People who want to use the software of their choice for their personal photographs can find the cost of Adobe Photoshop much too high. Paint Shop Pro can be purchased for much less than Adobe Photoshop, which can be almost 5 times as expensive.

Paint Shop Pro is also an easier piece of software to learn than Photoshop. Using some of the tutorials available online or in books, you can learn the basics of Paint Shop Pro in just a few days and get much more in-depth within a few weeks. Photoshop, on the other hand, can take years to completely master.

Advantages of Photoshop

If, on the other hand, you want to delve further into digital image editing and actually possibly do work professionally, you need to purchase Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop is considered the gold standard in the digital photography processing industry. Most if not all professional photographers and photography editors use Photoshop.

Without a question, Photoshop is a much more powerful piece of software than Paint Shop Pro. Straight out of the box, Photoshop has many more bells and whistles than Paint Shop Pro. But on top of its basic strength, you can also purchase add-on's from both Adobe and other companies. This can include filters, lightboxes, digital elements, and much more. These additions make your Photoshop suite even better for the professional-quality digital photography processor.

So if you're in the market for a new piece of digital image editing software for your digital photography, be sure to choose the one that both suits your needs and budget. And don't forget, your needs may change as you learn more about digital photography and become more skilled.