Performance

We processed 10Gb of images from raw to JPEG. We used a computer with an AMD64 Quad Core 3.7GHz processor and 8Gb RAM and the whole process took around seven and a half minutes. Even with the higher powered computer, we still got slight lag when processing effects however, it's fair to say that our expectations have also risen and compared to previous versions, there's a vast improvement. We can't say much about the performance as a comparison to the previous versions we've reviewed, though, because they were 32bit on an older, lower specification machine.

The Magic Move program isn't perfect. Now it could be argued that nothing is and Corel never said it was, it's just that giving it a name with “Magic” in the title suggests something special. It does work and does exactly what it sets out to, but not without its faults. It works like the Patch tool by using various areas of the frame that have a similar colour to what you're wanting to cover and pasting them there. We were covering sand in our test image – a relatively simple colour to emulate and plenty on the picture to copy and paste. It ended up being 90% perfect with 10% using a part of the image a completely different colour so we ended up with a dark patch of someone's arm in the top corner of the patching area. We could easily clone over it, so it's not a big deal, we just expected perfection.

Conclusion

What we noticed from the outset was that editing, loading and processing was faster and smoother than what we're used to from PaintShop Pro. In fact, the whole program ran a lot faster than the previous versions that we've seen here before. That may be, in part, down to the fact that we had a brand new computer and that we were running on a 64bit system. However, we only saw slight updating while making changes to pictures, which has plagued PSP in the past. What hasn't changed is the yellow pop up boxes that get in the way of other text you may be trying to read or tools you want to select.

We've compared PSP to Photoshop in the past and that has received some criticism as the price point is so different. However, with the Adobe Creative Cloud, you can pay for Photoshop monthly and it works out at  £8.57 a month That's a little over £100 a year and if you just have it for one year as the minimum subscription then it's not much more expensive than Corel PaintShop Pro X8. You also get Bridge and Lightroom. With the Ultimate edition of X8, you get the Corel Creative collection, AfterShot 2, OnOne Perfect Effects and Athentech Perfectly Clear for around $99.99 (around £64). That's still a £40 difference, but not as big as when Photoshop was £600. If you think that over a number of years Photoshop will work out more, well at the rate that Corel are upgrading they have a new version out every year as well, so they're not that far behind Adobe.

With this aggressive price adjustment from Adobe, it will need some serious consideration as to whether you go for the smaller fish or pay a little more over a year in easier-to-digest monthly payments for Photoshop. It's not so black and white anymore. In order to help with the decision making process, Corel PaintShop Pro X8 is a very worthy program. It's fast, easy to use, is packed with features and is positioned at a good price. We tested the Ultimate version which comes with AfterShot 2, the Lightroom styled program that we have tested previously. It also comes with the aforementioned programs which are worth around $300 (£190) collectively. We like the text wrap feature and despite it's faults, we can see how the Magic Move tool can come in useful. The enhancements have also helped with the overall performance and end user friendliness. As for the performance, there's a definite improvement, but we can't say if that's down to program enhancement or the upgrade to 64bit on a new machine.

If you're currently a Corel user on X6 or X5, then you won't be disappointed by this version. Have a think about whether you really will use the new features. If you've upgraded to 4K monitors, need a batch process wizard or will use the new features then you could get your money's worth, but there's not a massive amount of improvement from X7 other than those.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4
Ease-of-use	4
Value for money	4.5

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