Imaging Programs Assessment

My knowledge of scanning, photography and image editing is rather pedestrian because up to now my amateur interests were in other fields so I haven’t used it much. Another reason is it seems the theory of image editing in all its guises entails much studying and coupled with the chore of learning the keyboard and mouse selections on a computer, I find the bewildering number of programs available is unhelpful in deciding which is the best, most practical, cost effective and least time wasting bearing in mind the siren call of all the other computer activities one has to sqeeze into a lifetime. Also to the uninitiated and inartistic is the difficulty to know which is considered to be an imaging program from its title alone and to comprehend the subtleties of what constitutes a good imaging program. To help me decide I would like to give a list of the programs I have access to and perhaps others more familiar could advise.what they consider best fits the bill.

Caere Omnipage Pro for OCR
Recognita Standard 3.2 for OCR
Photoshop Pro 5 for Image editing
Photoshop Pro 6
Paintshop Pro 5
Quark Express Passport 4.0
Micrografx Photo Magic

Serif Photoplus 5.0 through to 8.0
Serif Digital Photography Power
Serif Draw plus 3.0
Serif Page plus 4.0
Serif Graphics Plus
Serif Media Plus

Ulead Video Studio
Ulead Cool 360
Ulead Photo Explorer
Ulead Photo Express

Now I know the Photoshop and Paintshop programs mentioned above cost hundreds of dollars when new but are now dated; not that it matters since it would still be new to me. However, and my intention is not to be cynical but merely logical; it occurs to me that although the Serif programs tend to be sold at very low cost will it not be the case that the programmers of one company will dissect every element of its competitors and then modify the program to defeat copyright and add a few more elements so as to be considered better. If so this leads one to the conclusion that the best program will be the one with the latest date.

Regards,
Pat

 

I agree with TonyT that Paint Shop Pro is probably the best of the bunch -
although expensive.
The programs you list are very complicated to learn in detail, so I do not
recommend you have more than one to get to know.
If you want a good one for free, I recommend PhotoFiltre
regards

 

Thankyou Tony and Merlin for your observations and replies.

Kind regards,
Pat

 

Might be of interest

You can get Serif PhotoPlus 5.5 Here for free it may be worth a look.

TonyT tried to follow your link for $55.00 to upgrade from PSP5 to PSP9 but it does not seem to be valid.

 

The link doesn't works for me

Sorry TonyT i have tried the link several times and it just will not work for me

 

Works for me. DSL.

 

This is the link i get

THIS is the link i am connected to, what could stop me getting the correct page as i have cleared all the caches before trying it but i still get a File not Found 414 Error, i seem to be routed to the UK site and the link appears not to be valid there even if i paste the link direct into the address bar in Internet Explorer it routes me back to the Error page.

 

alboy - try http://82.3.48.40/

 

alboy - try http://82.3.48.40/

Newt this link takes me to the Serif free Download site, what i am trying to do is get info on upgrading Paint Shop Pro 5 to version 9. I have found the uk site but it does not appear to offer this upgrade, I will phone them and get more info,many thanks for all replies.