It should probably be unfair to compare PS CS5 to PSP X3 as they are meant to be on different levels, and CS5 does have tons of features that PSP does not. However, everything you routinely do in photo editing is available in paint shop pro, in many cases exactly in capability of CS5. CS5 has tons of extra brushes, filters, path tools, and textures. It will even make a 3D mesh out of your image that you can paint on. I don't need any of that though. I want to go in straighten my image, crop it, tweak the color correction, manipulate the contrast curves, apply a local contrast enhancement, use the sharpen or clone brushes, and apply a variety of noise removal filters. I can create vector graphics on their own layers, and edit their control points later. I can create a feathered selection and create a transparent mask layer out of it. Of course you can do all of this in CS5, but the 5% you can't do in PSP is stuff that is not needed the vast majority of the time. Its stuff you would need 5% of the time, even if there is so much more of it.
There are a few things I can't do in PSP. I like to take a series of screen caps from my video and merge them all into one image applying the median to each pixel. I do this in CS5, but as soon as I have the result, I save it and do the rest of my editing in PSP because it so much easier to use. The menus and controls are laid out how you would expect from a designer who is familiar with Windows applications conventions. Adobe has come up with their own software design, and it works for those who have spent years learning how to negotiate it, but for those trying to jump right in, it becomes a frustrating process. A prime example is the Undo. Every Windows app I use lets you Undo multiple times by pressing Ctrl-Z repeatedly. In Adobe you get to Undo once, and then if you do it again you are undoing your undo. Instead you have to use the Step Backwards feature to undo multiple times, an Adobe feature that clashes with convention. Photoshop isn't as bad as some Adobe applications like Illustrator or Dreamweaver, but its still enough to drive me batty. Maybe I'm being unfair because Adobe were mainly designed for Macs? I don't know.
For the "Dissecting the Bowdle Mesocyclone" thread I went through PSP, Photoshop, and Illustrator seeing which program would allow me to create vector arrow objects with curving control point tails the easiest. I figured PSP wouldn't compare to something like Illustrator which is specifically made for drawing vector graphics. In the end I wound up doing it all in PSP. It gave me the least amount hassle, was the fastest, and had all the features I needed like being able to edit the curves, arrowhead style, size, and smoothness of the paths.
CS5 should be out of PSP's league, but when you actually look at the features and then look at the price it really puts it into perspective. For $70 you are getting one hell of a deal and can do most of the photo editing you'll ever need to.... or you could spend $600 for some extra features and the joy of learning Adobe's complexities.
