Photoshop vs. Paint Shop Pro

No bones about it. I'm an amateur. New with a decent camera and new to higher end photo editing. So the question was which software to go with. After checking the internet narrowed it to two options - Paint Shop Pro by Corel or Photoshop Elements by Adobe.

Both can be downloaded for 30 day trials, free from their respective web sites.

Initially downloaded Paint Shop Pro. Frankly, liked it. Only thing that bothered me - every piece of 'how to' on the internet was aimed at Elements. So, 20 days into Paint Shop, downloaded Photopshop. Even at the intitial download, should have seen where things were headed. Download and set-up operations took at least an hour. Slow, slow, frigging slow.

Now decision is clear. Technically, they're probably both similar. Couldn't find an adjustment with one that can't be made with the other. The big difference is speed. Paint Shop Pro X loads faster and is more intuitive to use than Elements. Elements is a pig. It bogs everything down. Ultimately, just too slow, too frustrating.

And here's the ultimate frustration. I never anticipated when I dowloaded something from Adobe, that it would mess with my Adobe Reader. But that's exactly what it did. Likely, there's some setting somewhere to avoid Elements loading every time I want to read a PDF - but who needs it?

The winner HANDS DOWN is Paint Shop Pro. Less than $100 and downloaded/loaded in less than 20 minutes.