Paint Shop Pro

Its official. I am an addict! For the past few days I have been using Paint Ship Pro 8 to edit photos, and it is just amazing. I am still learning how to do most of the really fun stuff, but what I can do is pretty spiffy.

One great aspect of PSP is that you can get plug-ins!! I have two I am using at the moment. One is free. It is called almathera. It has some pretty spiffy effects it can do. You can check it out and download it here.

The best one, which seems to offer limited use demos, is Eye Candy. This thing is SICK! The demos are pretty limited in functionality, though you can preview all the possible effects. To find out more about it, click here.

Another cool feature of PSP is the picture tubes. I am still wrapping my head around the concept, but- in essence- you click to drop a fully colored picture from a preformatted tube…… I have a bunch of sites I’ve randomly checked out and gotten a few tubes from. Some have monthly, yearly or even life time fees to get member’s only graphics. All of them have at least a few free ones. (I will have a bunch of links at the end of this post to some of the sites!)

Custom brushes are pretty sweet too. For example you can have a brush that, instead of making just a regular line or circle, puts down a cloud or a flower. These are a bit cooler than tubes in that you can select your color. Though I tend to use layering and such to recolor anything that does not fit into my idea of the image I am trying to make!

So, that’s my newest addiction! One can get a trial download of PSP from the makers website by clicking the try it free button on this page. It is a newer version than the one I am using, however I hear from most PSP enthusiasts that PSP 8 is the best. Could just be a whole liking what you are used to thing though!

Some Links

Butterfly Web Graphics

Luxury's

Lories Web Graphics – tubes and such are under goodies

Gail's Brushes

Michelle's Paint Shop- this one seems to have some interesting tutorials and TONS of free graphics for PSP newbies!