Adobe PhotoShop vs. Corel PaintShop Pro

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe PhotoShop
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Photoshop is the best known graphics product on the market.
$20
per month
Corel PaintShop Pro
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
PaintShop Pro is an all-in-one photo editor with advanced photo management, editing & creative tools that deliver everything a photo & design enthusiast needs, from Corel Corporation.N/A
Pricing
Adobe PhotoShopCorel PaintShop Pro
Editions & Modules
Single App
$20.00
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe PhotoShopCorel PaintShop Pro
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe PhotoShopCorel PaintShop Pro
Considered Both Products
Adobe PhotoShop
Chose Adobe PhotoShop
Adobe PhotoShop stacks up well against most other products such as Corel PaintShop Pro. Adobe PhotoShop's licensing can get annoying and tricky, but in the long run, based on Adobe PhotoShop's extensive history, it's the go to product for editing. You can save money with …
Chose Adobe PhotoShop
[Adobe] Photoshop has much more features and abilities compared to its competitors, and often is the first to create a new feature. There is a large learning curve for Photoshop, but for folks that spend years learning Adobe products, it ends up being the most intuitive …
Chose Adobe PhotoShop
Many, many years ago we were using Corel Paint Shop. It's UI is friendly, but once we were trained on PhotoShop and it's robust tools and easy UI, we fell in love and never looked back. There wasn't really anything wrong with Corel, it was more that PhotoShop just offered more.
Chose Adobe PhotoShop
Photoshop is the benchmark for manipulation of graphics — other software always tries to mimic what PS can do, but can not produce it entirely. Although good alternatives do not give Photoshop the rich properties and seamless functionality of applications, such as GIMP, Corel …
Corel PaintShop Pro
Chose Corel PaintShop Pro
From an ROI perspective, we moved entirely away from PhotoShop because we could not justify the cost vs performance. Corel PaintShop Pro is simply more cost-effective and offers the same performance and tools.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Adobe PhotoShopCorel PaintShop Pro
Small Businesses
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 9.5 out of 10
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Canva
Canva
Score 9.2 out of 10
Canva
Canva
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
GIMP
GIMP
Score 9.1 out of 10
GIMP
GIMP
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe PhotoShopCorel PaintShop Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(189 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(30 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.8
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(54 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
4.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe PhotoShopCorel PaintShop Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
I use Adobe PhotoShop to do practically all of my business from my home in Turkey. Many customers find the cost of Adobe PhotoShop to be prohibitive, thus they turn to substitute alternatives and illegally downloaded pirated software. Regulations like torrents, sales, and price increases lead to a number of financial issues. Change can be advantageous.
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Alludo
Corel PaintShop Pro is well suited for photographers wanting to adjust photos and also for designers who want to create designs from scratch, working in layers and merging various elements. Due to slow load times, Corel PaintShop Pro is not well suited when you only have a few small tasks to do and when a lightweight alternative will do the job just as well (e.g. cropping and red-eye removal).
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Pros
Adobe
  • Brush customization. There are many available brushes for illustration, and each can be customized to fit the needs of your specific style.
  • Integration with other Adobe products. It is essential that the images I create be accessible in Adobe Indesign and Illustrator, and [Adobe] Photoshop can be placed and edited easily within those programs.
  • Advanced editing. The possibilities for editing photos [are] endless, with new features being added constantly.
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Alludo
  • AI photo correction is an excellent new addition
  • The before an after side by side feature we use everyday
  • The undo feature is one I particularly like
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Cons
Adobe
  • Expensive - It is too expensive to buy Photoshop alone, and hence leading the user to purchase the entire Creative Cloud Package though he/she is not even aware of half of those apps.
  • High System Spec - Requires high system specifications to run the application smoothly, and to use it at its best.
  • Process lag - When it comes to large-sized files, the application becomes laggy taking much time even to render a single layer.
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Alludo
  • I have the 2018 version and every now and again upgrade ads will pop up in the bottom right of my screen which I find rather annoying
  • How to save your work and where it gets saved is confusing. It took me a while to realize that projects were saved in "pspimage" files. The knowledge base article “The Basics Of Saving Files In PaintShop Pro” did not mention pspfiles. They also have the concept of workspaces, but I eventually realized that this is not where your work is saved.
  • I find that a tool called paint.net is massively easier to use, but, then again, paint.net has far fewer features. I think an option in PaintShop Pro for temporarily switching down the functionality and interface to resemble paint.net would be a useful feature, so users do not get blinded by the extensive interface.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
We get a lot of use out of this software. It's vital for work with production in our industry and has a lot of cross-functionality - creating social media images, retouching photos, editing photos, creating gradients, and more. It's pretty fuss-free in that we haven't had to reach out to support and the program hasn't crashed on us. We are trained on the software (so again, this isn't for beginners), but for detail-oriented designers and creatives like ourselves - it's a no-brainer.
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Alludo
No answers on this topic
Usability
Adobe
I've used it for a long time and would consider myself a Pro user at this point. I know where everything I need is, have custom actions set up to make common actions faster, and have my workflows automated so much that everything is easy. Occasionally, a new version of Photoshop will change a common usability feature which will slow things down for a short time before I'm able to adjust, but generally I really like my setup. However, if you're new to Photoshop, it is likely going to take you a while to figure out how you can best use the features.
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Alludo
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Adobe
Adobe Photoshop is very reliable, but is never 100%. There have been times when Adobe Photoshop has had trouble opening, but nothing a little computer restart couldn't fix. I use Adobe Photoshop on a Mac for both work and at home on a daily basis, and I would be lost without it.
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Alludo
No answers on this topic
Performance
Adobe
Speed can be an issue when you are dealing with large files for large format printing or billboards. When working on web images, speed is not an issue.
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Alludo
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Adobe
While I never contacted Adobe directly, there is so much content out there in the form of YouTube videos, Lynda/LinkedIn learning that almost any issue, including bugs, can be worked around (and this method is generally faster as there's no turnaround time involved).
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Alludo
No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
Adobe
So, I received the training at the HQ and it was train the trainer training. A good time, I spent a week at their campus
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Alludo
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Adobe
I took a course so it really helped. I didn’t take the course until much later after beginning to use it, so I wish work would have sent me right off the bat. It would have alleviated a lot of frustratinon
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Alludo
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Adobe
Canva is a great tool for creating infographics and it's free with limited options. Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe InDesign are much more suited for creating infographics, however, I still selected Adobe PhotoShop primarily because of my familiarity with all of the tools and hotkeys. There are always workarounds from with Adobe PhotoShop, and I just haven't taken the time to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator CC as effectively.
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Alludo
From an ROI perspective, we moved entirely away from PhotoShop because we could not justify the cost vs performance. Corel PaintShop Pro is simply more cost-effective and offers the same performance and tools.
Read full review
Scalability
Adobe
It seems expensive compared to the free/cheap programs now available
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Alludo
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Adobe
  • Saved our company thousands of dollars by editing in house.
  • Has given us the ability to do things on the fly and get projects done faster.
  • Having the original .psd files saved has given us the ability to go back and reuse and update photos and graphics instead of starting all over again.
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Alludo
  • Our website is better because of Corel PaintShop Pro
  • Our brochures for tradeshows are much better due to PaintShop Pro
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ScreenShots