Malik wrote:

GIMP is good and powerful. It does much,much more than my simple, occassional editing/resizing needs. But my only gripe with it is that it takes so long to load initially. Opening images also takes some time. It's noticable even in my corei7 systems. Either that, or I didn't configure something properly.

I also don't like the floating toolbox layout - can't close the box.

But it's free.

GIMP 2.8 Has a single window mode.
😀

^ is 9.0 similar to 7.0 ? I am under the impression that after 7 they went a different route... or am I completelly wrong? 🤣

PSP8 was a lot different, but PSP9 went back to being more like PSP7. I used PSP7 for a few years and upgraded to 9 and I definitely like 9 better. (I picked up a copy of PSPX recently, though, and it's almost identical to PSP9 but doesn't make Windows 7 fall back to Windows 7 Basic every time I run it)

ah, thanks for the info... psp7 does not make win7 to fall back to basic theme btw

keropi wrote:

^ is 9.0 similar to 7.0 ? I am under the impression that after 7 they went a different route... or am I completelly wrong? 🤣

From what I recalled with 9 its docked palettes then 7 with them floating which helps greatly when creating. 9 also has the Art Media tools which 7 doesnt. No real advantage to having them both unless you are helping someone with that version on how to use it.
It also didn't include Animation Shop with 9 which as you know Animation Shop become free to download any way.
Before that had 2 then 5 and didn't see any reason upgarde to 6, 7 or 8 (I didn't like 8 at all) so I keep 5 in tell 9 come out only find out that they sold out on us.

PSP5 works fine in 7.

If you want to use the PSP Corel branch on 7 you better get version X or newer.

I usually use PSP7 for pixel editing stuff so I don't need too many bells and whistles. PhotoShop 7 I use for the heavy more "pro" manipulation. I don't really feel a need to upgrade beyond PSP7 for that reason.

I run PSP X and for me it was quite unstable on Win 7 x64. So much so that I got fed up and ran it under Virtual PC instead. Got fed up with VPC under 7 so have now migrated to VirtualBox 😀

leileilol wrote:

Ultimate Paint doesn't have palette support AFAIk

No, not that I know of. There's a similar program called Saint Paint Studio, which does support palettes, and has some nice features like a tint mode and layers, but it also has several disadvantages as well. Scrolling or changing the zoom level breaks the current operation. No screen crosshairs for drawing boxes or circles. Cutting out a brush doesn't include the 1-pixel border around the clipped area (cut a brush, then paste it in the original position and you end up with a 1-pixel blank border around the pasted image).

Malik wrote:

GIMP is good and powerful. It does much,much more than my simple, occassional editing/resizing needs. But my only gripe with it is that it takes so long to load initially. Opening images also takes some time. It's noticable even in my corei7 systems. Either that, or I didn't configure something properly.

For what it's worth, I have GIMP 2.2.17 installed on my system and running the program takes about 10-15 seconds. Opening a 4MB jpeg image of 1885x2819 took about 5 seconds.

keropi wrote:

yep, I still use PSP7 too! LUCKILY it runs fine under win7/x64 😀
Jasc should be ashamed they butchered PainShop and Corel for making it a lame photo-retouching prog.

I tried one of the previous versions of PSP and it seemed needlessly complex. For example, I wanted to just cut out part of the image and draw with it, but it wouldn't let me do that. I could COPY part of the image and then paste it down. I could cut out a brush and then use the shape to paint with in the current color, but no easy way to just clip a colored brush and paint with it. I contacted Jasc and asked them and they told me that to do what I wanted, I'd have to create an image tube, which takes about ten steps and even then, you can't see exactly where it's positioned before you click the button to actually start drawing with it.

Admittedly, I'm not an artist, but when I use a paint program I like to be able to make pixel-perfect edits. Most professional art programs seem more suited to making approximations.