PaintShop Pro 2023 Standard is a powerful photo editor and graphic design software specifically designed for the Windows operating system. It offers a versatile set of tools for both professional image retouching and creative graphic design projects.
Below is a detailed description of the product and its key features.
What is PaintShop Pro 2023 Standard?
1. Photo Editing Capabilities
PaintShop Pro 2023 Standard excels in comprehensive photo editing, providing a robust toolkit for enhancing your images.
- Comprehensive Toolset: Professional tools for retouching, correction, and enhancing photo quality, including adjustments for brightness, contrast, white balance, noise reduction, and sharpening.
- AI-Powered Tools: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to simplify complex tasks, such as:
- AI Denoise and AI Artifact Removal for cleaning up images.
- AI Upsampling to enlarge photos without losing quality.
- AI Portrait Mode for automatic background blurring in portraits.
- RAW/HDR/360° Support: Extended support for editing RAW files with the new AfterShot Lab. The ability to merge multiple exposures for HDR (High Dynamic Range) images and edit 360-degree photos.
- One-Click Corrections: Features like One Step Photo Fix and Smart Photo Fix for automatic color and sharpness adjustments.
2. Creative Graphic Design Features
Beyond photo editing, PaintShop Pro 2023 Standard empowers your creative design endeavors.
- Layers and Masks: Essential tools for creating compositions and advanced image editing.
- Drawing and Brushes: Built-in brushes, plus the ability to import Adobe Photoshop brushes.
- Text Tools: A full suite of features for adding and formatting text.
- Templates: Access to built-in templates for quickly creating collages, greeting cards, social media banners, and other content.
3. New and Enhanced Functions in 2023
The latest version of PaintShop Pro 2023 Standard introduces exciting new features.
- Focus Stacking: A new tool that allows you to combine multiple images, taken at different focus distances, into one perfectly sharp photo with maximum depth of field (DOF).
- Enhanced Frame Tool: Enables you to create shapes (clipping masks) based on symmetrical forms, preset shapes, or vector text.
- AfterShot Lab: A new, integrated lab for comprehensive RAW file editing.
- Blend Mode Preview: Real-time preview of layer blending results.
4. Other Capabilities
- Efficiency: Scripting support and batch processing for automating repetitive tasks.
- Compatibility: Broad support for file formats, plugins (including Adobe plugins), styluses, and graphic tablets.
- Workspaces: Multiple customizable workspaces for maximum efficiency.
🆚 PaintShop Pro 2023 Standard vs. Alternatives
While PaintShop Pro 2023 Standard is a powerful solution, the market offers both free and paid alternatives from competitors, each with its own advantages.
💰 Competitor Alternatives (Paid)
| Program | Description | Key Advantages over PSP | Main Disadvantages vs. PSP |
| Adobe Photoshop | Industry leader for professional retouching, compositing, and graphic design. Available by subscription. | Industry standard (better workflow compatibility). More powerful compositing tools and Adobe (Creative Cloud) ecosystem. | Subscription-only (higher long-term cost). Steeper learning curve for beginners. |
| Affinity Photo | Fully-featured, one-time purchase. Often considered a main Photoshop competitor for its pricing model. | One-time purchase (lower overall cost). High performance, full layer and RAW support. | Fewer tutorials and less widespread in professional studios. Lacks some AI features found in PSP (e.g., AI Upsampling). |
| CorelDRAW Graphics Suite | Includes Corel PHOTO-PAINT (for raster graphics) and CorelDRAW (for vector graphics). | Complete solution for vector and raster graphics in one package. Ideal for print and layout design. | Primary raster editor (PHOTO-PAINT) is less known than PSP. Higher price for the entire suite. |
🆓 Free Alternatives (FOSS)
| Program | Description | Key Advantages over PSP | Main Disadvantages vs. PSP |
| GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) | Powerful, open-source. Designed for raster image editing, retouching, drawing, and format conversion. | Completely free. Large community and flexibility due to open-source nature. | Complex interface (especially for Photoshop/PSP users). Limited support for some features (e.g., non-destructive adjustment layers). |
| Krita | Primarily focused on digital painting and drawing, but includes image manipulation tools. | Best drawing tools among free software. Excellent support for graphic tablets. | Less suitable for professional photo retouching and compositing than GIMP or PSP. |
| Photopea | An online editor that mimics the Photoshop interface. Works in a browser, supports PSD files. | Browser-based (no installation required). Supports PSD/XCF/RAW formats. | Requires a stable internet connection. Performance depends on computer and browser power. |
🔍 Comparative Conclusion: Choosing Your Ideal Photo Editor
- Choosing PaintShop Pro (PSP): Ideal for Windows users looking for a one-time purchase (not a subscription) with powerful tools for photo retouching, graphic design, and modern AI features. It’s a great middle-ground between the expensive Photoshop and the complex GIMP.
- Choosing Adobe Photoshop: Best for professionals working in teams or needing the industry standard and top-tier compositing tools (subscription-only).
- Choosing Affinity Photo: An excellent alternative for those who desire a one-time purchase without compromising on quality, but without Corel’s AI features.
- Choosing GIMP/Krita/Photopea: Suitable for budget-conscious users, students, or those willing to sacrifice some convenience and AI functionality for free use.
🔬 The Theoretical Foundations of Image Processing
Regardless of whether it’s professional retouching in PaintShop Pro 2023 Standard or analyzing medical images, image processing is fundamentally built upon mathematics and algorithms. A digital image is not just a picture; it’s a two-dimensional matrix (table) of numbers. Here are the mathematical principles of images:
- Matrix Representation (Raster Graphics):
- A digital image I of size M × N can be represented as a matrix:
$$
I(x, y) = \begin{pmatrix}
i_{1,1} & \cdots & i_{1,N} \\
\vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\
i_{M,1} & \cdots & i_{M,N}
\end{pmatrix}
$$
Where x and y are the pixel coordinates, and ix,y is its intensity value (brightness for a grayscale image). - For color images, three (or more) matrices are used, corresponding to color channels, most commonly RGB (Red, Green, Blue). Each pixel has a vector of values P(x, y) = (R, G, B).
- A digital image I of size M × N can be represented as a matrix:
- Histogram:
- A graph showing the distribution of pixel intensities in an image. Used for “Brightness/Contrast” and “Levels” tools. The editor modifies the histogram’s shape by applying linear or non-linear transformations to pixel values.
- Convolution:
- A fundamental operation for most filters: blurring, sharpening, edge detection.
- The operation applies a small matrix, called a kernel K, to each pixel and its neighbors. Mathematically, it’s a convolution I * K.
- For example, sharpening in PaintShop Pro is achieved by a kernel that emphasizes the difference between a central pixel and its neighbors.
- Color Spaces:
- Color processing often occurs not in RGB, but in human-perception-oriented spaces like HSL/HSV (Hue, Saturation, Lightness/Value) or Lab. The “Hue and Saturation” tool manipulates these parameters directly.
🧠 Algorithms and AI in PaintShop Pro
The functions within PaintShop Pro are sophisticated algorithmic implementations.
| PSP Feature | Mathematical Basis / Algorithm | Description |
| Noise Reduction | Non-Local Means or Wavelet Denoising. | Complex filters that average pixels with similar properties across the entire image, not just in a localized neighborhood. |
| AI Upsampling | Deep Learning Neural Networks. | A model trained on millions of “low-quality-high-quality” pairs that “invents” missing details rather than simply interpolating pixels. |
| Focus Stacking | Image Fusion Algorithms and Edge Detection. | The program identifies the sharpest regions of images (by detecting local contrast) and combines them into a single, highly focused image. |
| Blend Modes | Matrix/Pixel Operations. | Each mode (e.g., Multiply, Screen, Overlay) is a mathematical formula that defines how the color value of an upper pixel (CA) interacts with the value of a lower pixel (CB) to produce a result (CR). |
📚 What’s Needed to Study Image Processing?
For a deep understanding of how software like PaintShop Pro works, knowledge from the following disciplines is essential:
- Linear Algebra: Necessary for understanding matrices, vectors (color channels), transformations, and geometric operations (rotation, scaling).
- Discrete Mathematics: Foundations for working with pixels as discrete elements.
- Probability Theory and Statistics: Key for understanding noise, histograms, and compression algorithms (like JPEG).
- Computational Geometry and Computer Graphics: Needed for vector graphics, 3D modeling (if applicable), and rendering.
- Algorithms and Data Structures: The basis for writing efficient image processing filters and functions.
- Machine Learning (for AI Tools): For understanding the architecture of neural networks that underpin features like AI Denoise or AI Upsampling.
Conclusion: PaintShop Pro and its competitors enable users to create masterpieces without delving into these mathematical intricacies. However, the efficiency and precision of these tools are a direct result of decades of research in mathematics, physics, and computer science.
PaintShop Pro 2023 – Photo editing software