Adobe Elements or PaintShop Pro or ???

[suziew]

I have used Photoshop Elements 3 for years and have loved it (especially once I discovered where the File Browser was and periodically deleted the contents).
I purchased an Epson Stylus Photo 1400 printer. Epson included Elements 6 with the printer, which is the software it says is required to use the printer. I installed Elements 6. I like a lot of the features in the upgrade from Elements 3 but it crashed a lot. I used Elements 3 for most of my projects and then used Elements 6 to refine shadows, bevels, etc., and to print. Elements 6 still crashed but I could get through it.

Recently Elements 3 began having lots of problems so I uninstalled Elements 3. 6 kept crashing so I uninstalled and reinstalled 6; still crashed so uninstalled 6 as well as the printer and reinstalled both. 6 still crashed so uninstalled using instructions from John Ellis and Adobe Tech Notes to uninstall registers, etc. Reinstalled 6 and it is still crashing. I'm about out of my wits and ready to quit Adobe.

My husband hates Adobe programs because they don't "clean up" after themselves and files are left all over the place. I loved Elements 3 but would like to have the tools and refinements of programs developed more recently. We've searched sites and many say that Elements 6,7 and 8 have big crash problems. Did any of you have continual Editor crash problems with later Elements programs?

I'd like to know more about Paint Shop Pro --- does it have the crash problems of Adobe Elements; does it have the tools of Elements for editing photos and creating scrapbook pages?

Is there another program I should consider?

Any thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated!

Suzie

[kimlizzy]

Hi Suzie,

I have PS, not PSE but I've not heard of it having so many crash problems so can't help with that but I will say that you don't need PSE to make the printer work. The cd that came with your printer would have the drivers which are needed though. Can you install the printer and just install the drivers and then install PSE after?

[Sunni Rafuse]

Paint Shop Pro works well for digital scrapping as well. It doesn't have as many little goodies like brushes and styles, etc that are are available for the Photoshop or Photoshop Elements versions though. I am not sure what is causing your crashing problems as I really haven't heard much in the way of complaints about that type of issue. It very much sounds like some sort of conflict within your own computer. The best I can suggest is removing any Photoshop programs from your hard drive and then install the latest version and see how it goes from there. As for the printer requiring PSE to work properly, a printer only requires the printer drivers that come with it for it to function properly. No other program is required.

[KatieNK]

Well I use My Memories Suite and I *love* it! I also have Photoshop but I only use it for photo editing or doing things such as clipping masks. You can actually do a lot with MMS!

[Bon]

I have used PSP for years and now have vs. X. I feel confident that I can do pretty much everything that PS can do, I just have to modify the instructions if they are for PS to work with PSPX. I have noticed over the years that ppl use a LOT of different programs, and they all LOVE their own programs! LOL!
Not so surprising; we love what we are comfortable with. That being said, I am thinking if you have already invested time and money into PSE you might want to stick with it; something else is messing up your computer. Once you get that figured out, you can relax and get back to some serious scrapping!

[staffosa]

Like KatieNK, I have My Memories Suite and I love it - you can do loads with it considering it's only a scrapping program.

For more advanced stuff I use Pixelmator, which is along the same lines as PS and PSP, but it's a program specifically for macs.

[ILovePics]

I would definitely go with PS Elements. It is a lot more professional. It is probably a little harder to work with however the possibilities are endless. If you're not doing anything fancy at all and want ease of use I would probably got paint shop pro though. Just my opinion.

[funwithpics]

Suzie, I've used PSE for years and I really love it. I'm using version 9 now and it's awesome.
I'm concerned that your program is crashing and I suspect you may not have enough memory available for the program to use. Please let me know what kind of operating system you're using. I dont believe that versions 3, 4, 5 and possibly 6 will work any longer with Windows 7. Also, find out how much memory you have available on your computer. It may be we can tweak the program's scratch pad settings to make your program more stable. Most important, save your work frequently. This really works for me: I've set up a folder called WIP (work in progress). As soon as I put down my first background page, I save the file to the WIP folder as a .psd file.
(click `file/save as`). Then as I'm working, I click `save` every few minutes. I believe crashes are a common problem with many photo editing programs, so when our layouts start to become large files it`s a good idea to get in the habit of backing up work in progress.

[dpenguin]

I use Paint Shop Pro. I currently have x2 and x3 both installed, and use them both - mainly because I am comfortable with x2 but x3 is "newer and better" so I installed it. LOL!

I have never used PS or PSE, so I can't really compare them, but I have not had any problems doing what I want to do in PSP.