Hello there, welcome to this videoguide! Let's quickly see all you need to
know to start using Corel PaintShop Pro X9!
Leave us comments below to improve your future guides for PaintShop Pro!
When you open this software for the first time, a dialog box opens,
showing a list with useful tutorial videos about the main important
features under the Learn tab. Check it out, to get help on what you need
most!
Let's get to know the main important features to start with PaintShop.
This software has all you need to manage and edit your photos completely,
by using three main workspaces as you can see at the top. You first use
the Manage workspace, to collect and organize all your photos; then you
move to the Adjust workspace to quickly fix the photos appearance or apply
ready-made effects; if this is not sufficient, you can go to the Edit
workspace, in order to edit your photo pixel per pixel with professional
tools. Let's see each of them.
The Manage workspace is used to import, collect and organize your photos.
On top of the Navigation palette on the left, you have two tabs.
Collections lists all the different collections suggested by PaintShop.
A collection is a group of photos that have a property in common, such as
the people appearing inside, the exact date or the location the photo was
taken, or its star rating. Whereas, under the Computer tab, you can browse
your own photos through your computer folders, your external hard drives,
or any Disc.
All the photos inside a specific folder or a collection appear on the
centre. You can click on a photo to select it and preview it in the bottom
left corner, and check or edit all its related metadata through the Info
palette on the right, such as the Device that took the photo, date, rating,
tags, people and places.
If any of these palettes are missed because they are closed, you can open
them again by going to View and then to Palettes.
More at the bottom, you can fast rotate a selected picture by 90 degrees
by using the Rotate Left and the Rotate Right buttons, or enlarge the
picture thumbnails by using the Zoom bar. To rename or delete a photo
instead, just right-click on it.
If you double-click on a picture, you will check it in Full Screen Mode.
Below, a small interface lets you fix any rating, rotate the photo, or
delete it by using the Bin button. Use the two arrows to shuffle, the zoom
bar to zoom in and out, and click and drag on the picture to pan. Use the
Escape key to exit from the Full Screen Mode.
In the top right corner you can edit the way to preview your photos. This
is the Thumbnail Mode, but you can choose also the Preview Mode or the
Map Mode. The Preview Mode opens the Organizer palette below, used to
directly choose the photo you want to preview and to adjust. The Map Mode
is used to check where the photo has been taken on the world map.
Once you have organized your photos, you may need to adjust them to
improve their colors and appearance. When you switch to the Adjust
workspace, the whole interface changes. On the centre, the selected photo
is open, by using the Preview Mode interface as seen before. Use the
Organizer palette below to choose the right photo. To check your photo
carefully, you can zoom in and out by using your mouse wheel, and pan by
holding the Space bar key and clicking and dragging.
On the left, you have the Adjust palette, that lists all of the most quick
and professional adjustments for your selected photo. On top, you have the
Color Histogram, that describes the intensity and distribution of the main
colors on the selected photo, this is very useful to correct the photo
appearance.
Check out the video description for more information about the Histogram!
More below, the list of all the adjustment tools available. For example,
choose Smart Photo Fix to adjust the main important properties of the
photo appearance, such as Brightness to add or remove brightness; Shadows
to add or remove brightness on the darkest sides of the photo; Highlights
to regulate the brighter sides, and Saturation to regulate the color
strength, or even reduce the photo to black and white. Each of these
properties can be regulated in different ways. You can click and drag the
marker on the bar, use your mouse wheel, click on the up and the down
arrows, or type directly the value you need inside the box.
You can click on Suggest Settings to set all these options automatically.
More below, you have other advanced tools to improve your photo. Use
White Balance you can regulate the overall color of the photo by adding
Temperature and Tint. Use Brightness/Contrast to adjust Brightness and
Contrast on the overall photo as you like. Use Fill Light/Clarity to
adjust light and details. Use Vibrancy to enhance the color appearance and
strength.
You can also apply other advanced settings, like Local Tone Mapping,
High Pass Sharpen and Digital Noise Removal.
You can undo any adjustment or effect applied by using CTRL+Z from your
keyboard. You can also use the undo and the redo buttons on top of the
Preview to undo and redo all your actions done.
The Adjust palette also has five useful tools. The first one is the Crop
Tool, used to remove parts of the photo. When you enable it, a crop
area appears on the photo. This represent the part of the picture you
want to keep. Click and drag the area to move it, click and drag from its
corner nodes to scale it, or click and drag from outside to rotate it. You
can also click and drag on the overall photo to define your own
personalized crop area. Click on Apply to crop.
The Straighten Tool is used to align your photo correctly according to
the angle you give to a segment. Click and drag to move either of its two
endpoints, in order to define an angle. When you click on Apply on the
left, the photo will be rotated in order to make the segment straight.
The remaining three tools are used to adjust people's faces. Use the Red
Eye Tool to remove red eyes. Just make sure that the radius of the tool
is sufficiently higher than the pupils by checking the settings on the
left. Then just click on the eyes to correct them.
The Makeover Tool is used to adjust people's appearance, by using several
tools collected below. Blemish Fixer removes the imperfections of the skin;
Toothbrush whitens teeth; Eye Drop whitens eyes; and Suntan darkens skin,
just click and brush on it. Thinify is used to make shapes thinner by
clicking on the photo. Make sure not to use this tool too much, or you
will risk deforming the shapes.
The last tool is called Clone Brush. This is used to copy parts of a
photo to paste them on other parts, and is very useful to hide sections or
details. First of all, right-click on the photo to fix a circle with a
cross on it. This indicates the point where you start copying. Then, if
you click and drag, you will start pasting on the photo exactly what is
under the circle. This brush follows the settings adjusted on the left,
such as brush size and opacity. Use CTRL+Z to undo if you make a mistake.
You can also apply ready-made effects through the Instant Effects palette
on the right. Choose the effect category, and then browse the list! Click
on an effect to check on top what your photo looks like. Then,
double-click on the effect to apply it definitely. If you want to remove
the effect, just use CTRL+Z to undo.
At the very bottom of the Adjust palette, you have two very useful buttons:
click on Revert to come back to the latest saved version of the photo,
discarding all the adjustments and effects applied. Click on Show Original
to see the original photo on the preview. In this way, you can check your
photo comparing the original one and the one with all the applied
modifications.
To apply more advanced modifications on the photos, you need to switch to
the Edit workspace.
From the Organizer palette, choose the photo by double-clicking on it.
On the left, you have the Tools toolbar, that collects all the tools
available inside PaintShop, including the ones seen in the Adjust
workspace, such as the Crop Tool, the Straighten Tool and the Red Eye
Tool. There are lots of other useful and powerful tools to edit your
photos.
For example, the Paint Brush tool brushes over your photo, by using the
the colors specified on the Materials palette. If you click and drag, you
will use the Foreground color, if you right-click and drag, you will use
the Background color instead. On top, you can change all the settings
related to such tool, such as the brush size, feather and opacity.
Other tools, right below the Paint Brush, are used to apply adjustments
in a more precise way respect to the Adjust workspace. In fact, all the
tools inside the Adjust workspace are always applied on the whole photo.
In the Edit workspace, the adjustment tools can be applied locally,
without affecting the entire photo.
You also have the Text tool, which adds text on your photos. Click on your
photo and start typing in. Use the options above to adjust the text font,
style and size. If you switch to the Pick Tool, you can regulate the text
box to move, scale and rotate the text.
You also have the Selection tools. These are used to select a part of
your photo, so that, if you apply any tool on it, just the selected area
will be affected.
There many other tools inside the Edit workspace. Check the Learning
Center on the far right, to get help at using a tool!
Once you have finished your adjustments, save the photo by going to File
and then to Save As.... Choose the destination folder, the file format to
use, and also the image quality. Consider that, the higher the quality,
the larger the file size, which you can check at the bottom.
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