What's New in Photo-Paint 10 - Part 7: Conclusions

Part 7. Conclusions

1. Personal Recommendation.
For me, I really love Photo-Paint version 10. There are many new and very useful features, especially the web image optimizer and the new colour manager. Even the so called 'standard' image editor (PhotoShop (PS), now at version 6), the user has to run Image Ready (another application) in order to use their image optimizer.

Many of the new features in PS6 have already been in Photo-Paint for many generations while some of PS6's new features I would hardly use. I would love to write a complete comparison (others have done it for other versions of PS vs PP) but I probably won't have the time, sorry.

One of the best places to discuss ideas, problems and information relating to Photo-Paint 10 is the Corel Photo-Paint 10 newsgroup. There are also other newsgroups available for other versions, as well as for Draw and all other Corel products. Here are some links:

PP10 Specific Newsgroup:
news://cnews.corel.com/corel.graphic_apps.photo-paint10

Complete list of all Corel newsgroups:
http://www.corel.com/support/options/online_newsgroups.htm

2. Bugs and Services Packs:
A number of people have reported difficulties with the installation of the initial release of Photo-Paint 10. All sorts of different problems were reported, many appearing to be due to different computer setups and/or conflicts with hardware, particularly video card drivers. For installation problems, some experts have suggested to uninstall the entire suite and then install it under Windows 'Safe Mode'. This was usually seen to be successful. However I did not experience any such difficulties and my first install (and all subsequent installs on different setups) all went perfectly. Once again, the best place to discuss any such problems is on the Corel PP10 newsgroup (link above)

At the time of writing, Corel have released Service Pack 1 for the entire Draw 10 suite which DID fix quite a number of bugs/problems with the initial release. I strongly recommend downloading the 11MB SP1 file and installing this if needed.

How do you know if you need to install SP1?
By checking the BUILD number of your product!
In any of the Corel suite applications, open up the 'About Corel ...(application name)' menu item under Help. Just below the scrolling text you will find a version number such as 10.410. The latter part is the build number. The initial release of the Draw 10 suite was build number 410. After installing SP1 the build number should read: 427.

Complete details about the SP1 patch and where to download it can be found at:

Draw 10 suite SP1 info and installation instructions:
http://www.corel.com/support/ftpsite/pub/coreldraw/draw10suite/ and
http://www.corel.com/support/ftpsite/pub/coreldraw/draw10suite/sp1_notes.htm

Draw 10 suite SP1 download:
ftp://ftp.corel.com/pub/CorelDRAW/DRAW10Suite/English/d10sp1en.exe or
http://www.corel.com/support/downloads/index.htm

I read about quite a bit of dissatisfaction about the initial release of Photo-Paint 10 on the newsgroup but, as I mentioned earlier, I personally have not had very many problems with it. I think one should always keep in mind that it is always those with problems that yell the loudest while comfortably satisfied users often stay quietly in the background. Therefore, I do believe, after my own experiences, that there are many more satisfied users than dissatisfied.

My personal appraisal of Photo-Paint version 10?

- 4 out of 5 stars, with possibly the last one added after SP2.

Thanks again for your time to read all this. See you later.

- David Mutch 28 June, 2001.


What's New in Photo-Paint 10 - PART 7