Others say...

"You get more than what you pay for."
The best way to describe this program is to say it's Photoshop 7.0's rival that is cheaper, can do everything photoshop can, the only tricky part is that some of the tools don't handle aswell and some handle better, like the brushes look all sketchy like Microsoft Paint but that can be easilly fixed with some knowhow.

This program is great for newbies and children/teens to express themselfs with, please buy.

"each version is lower quality than previous"
They have no idea about software design.It is jam packed with features few will ever need and fewer still will get to work. Example you could associate PSP with a file extension Ex jpg and click on the file and have it show up in psp. The newer less useful version pops you into a browser with a window full of files almost no one would use, you then have to select the file you clicked on all over again. It had to be designed by a marketing pea brain looking for a big list of features and no concept of usefulness. Features are preventing usability and reliability. Look for earlier versions and buy them instead

"I love it!"
I have both PSP7 and PSP8 and I love them both. You don't need to be computer literate... if you play around with the stuff, you'll eventually get the hang of it. I also have PS but this is much easier to use for certain things. Keep playing around with the features before you start complaining on how 'hard' it is to use.

"Installation Problems"
Installion problems --- I tried installing Paint Shop Pro 8.1 on my two networked home computers. It installed fine on one (a new Compaq running Windows XP Media center. Service Pack 2), but would not install on the other (an older Compaq running Windows XP Home, Service Pack 1).

On the old machine the installation stopped almost immediately on an error telling me to contact Microsoft. I tried deleting all file and registry references to a demo version of Paint Shop I had been running. Same problem. I tried installing from anther networked computer CD drive. Same problem. I copied the CD to the hard drive and tried installing from there. Same problem.

It's possible my installation problems are related to my specific machine because it is a little unstable. However, never before has a program failed to install. The CD I received was intended for the European market. Don't know if this matters.

I eventually did find a work around. It turns out you don't really need to install this program. If you can get it installed on any machine, you can just copy the Paint Shop directory to another machine and it will run there fine.


"The Last Good Version of Paint Shop Pro"
If you're seeking an outstanding and economically priced graphics editor that competes on many levels for Adobe's hugely more expensive Photoshop, V8 of Jasc Paint Shop Pro is a great buy! Whatever you do, avoid the later Corel versions of this masterful product. I purchased the post-acquisition version, Corel Paint Shop Pro X -- as a long time user of Jasc's excellent software, I was disappointed and felt betrayed by the horrendous modifications made to the product by Corel. Corel has managed to morph Jasc's sleek, effective, intelligently implemented, high productivity tool into yet another of the many bloated, unreliable "all in one" software products on the market that do nothing well and lock up your computer in the process. On my dual-processor high performance P4 system, Corel's X version takes 30 secons just to load!!! Bottom line? Get this version .. Jasc's PSP 8 is and will always be a terrific graphics editor that you will be happy with.