Are you still trying to find that perfect photo editor that offers plenty of features at an affordable price? In this comparison, we take a look at Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate, Photoshop Elements 7, and PhotoPlus X2 to see how they stack up against one another.
While there’s really no argument that Photoshop CS4 is the staple of the professional digital photo editing world, its $700 price tag puts it out of the running for a lot of users. In addition to the financial investment, users who want to get the most out of that product need to be willing to put in a fairly substantial time investment to learn all the ins and outs of the software.
On the other end of the cost spectrum, there are a number of free photo editors available. Although these programs vary quite a bit in terms of their offerings, they all seem to suffer in one category or another. Either they don’t contain the powerful features found in commercial products or they’re just too hard to use (or both, in some cases).
In this comparison, we’re going to take a look at three applications that fall somewhere between CS4 and the freebies. That is, we’ll examine photo editing software that is feature rich, relatively easy to learn and use, and affordable for the average home user. All of these products have already been reviewed individually here in the Digital Photography Channel. If you’d like additional details, you can find these reviews at the following links.
Now, let’s see how these applications compare with one another.
Normally when evaluating software, I wait and look at the price of the product last. After all, it’s hard to say whether an application is worth the price until you know its full capabilities. In this case, however, since we’re looking at a comparison of three photo editors, I think price is the best place to start just to make sure all of the products begin on relatively even ground.
Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate, Photoshop Elements 7, and PhotoPlus X2 all come in under $100. The official list price for both Paint Shop Pro and PhotoPlus is $79.99 while Photoshop Elements retails for $99.99. Don’t let this minor difference in price fool you, though. The developers of all of these products host sales on a fairly regular basis, and these events offer considerable savings. For instance, at the time of this writing, Adobe is having a 40% off sale which would allow you to pick up a copy of Photoshop Elements 7 for just $59.99.
If you’re a bargain hunter and you’ve decided which application you want to buy, I recommend going to the product web site and signing up for their newsletter or mailing list. That way, if you have a little time to spare before making your purchase, you can try waiting a bit and see if a sale pops up. These are always advertised heavily through the mailing lists so you won’t miss out.
Ranking for the Price Category:
- Tied for first place: Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate and PhotoPlus X2
- Photoshop Elements 7
Continue on to page 2 of this photo editor comparison to find out how easy each application is to learn and use. We'll also look at how close each of these programs is to one another in terms of available features.