Ck Platinum Vs. Pspx Vs. Pse4

[fullofsurprises]

Hi there! I started digital scrapbooking about 5 weeks ago (with no prior scrapbooking experience) and I absolutely love it! I'm thinking about upgrading my software and am hoping you ladies can help me figure a few things out.

First of all, I have been using Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook Designer Platinum. I know a lot of serious digi-scrappers say that it's a waste if you want to do any neat layouts, but I think it's pretty good. I know people occasionally ask questions about it, so I'll share a little bit of my experience with it. Even though I'm thinking of upgrading, I am so glad I started with it, because I never would have invested the time or money to buy and learn PSP or PSE back when I was just getting started and didn't even know if I would like the hobby. It's relatively easy to figure out on your own and I have been doing some really neat layouts with it. Now, I did realize immediately that the included graphics were not at all my style, which was a big dissapointment, so I just decided to only use stuff I get from quality sites like Scrap Girls. And I really think my layouts are very nice with this software, much nicer than most of the traditional scrapbooking layouts I've seen. So, I would definitely recommend this program to a casual scrapper, but now I am getting pretty seriously addicted and would really like to be able to do cool things like torn edges, recoloring to match other colors in my layout, and more advanced photo editing like using a clone tool.

So, I think I'd like to upgrade. I was thinking about buying Photoshop Elements 4 or 5, so I downloaded a free trial of PSE5. Well, it runs super slow on my computer (I have 188 MB of RAM and I don't really want to buy more RAM - but I did just buy a 120 GB external hard drive to have plenty of room for all my graphics ). So that may explain why it runs slow, but one of the reasons I wanted to upgrade was with the hopes I could work faster with a program that is designed to handle graphics of larger sizes, so I'm not sure if I'm Elements is worth slowing down for. I also find PSE to be really intimidating to use, even though I am actually pretty good at figuring stuff out on my own. I plan to buy Ro's tutorial for whatever program I decide to upgrade to, but it is very frustrating that I have pretty much no idea where to begin on my own. Digital Scrapbooking is so quick and easy, with such immediate gratification, that I hate to be stuck in a program that is so difficult to get started in. I want to be able to at least play around a little bit on my own before buying the tutorial program, and I can't really see myself wanting to do much in PSE5 on my own right now.

So I saw that I can get PSPX for a really great price, so I thought I would check that out too. I downloaded a free trial of PSPXI, and I think I like it a lot better. It seems to run faster, and I really like the learning center on the left that tells me how to use the different tools (that are all completely new to me!)

Can anyone tell me if PSP does indeed run faster than PSE on a system like mine, or does that difference equal out once you start putting together a layout? Also, is there anything significant for scrapbooking that PSE can do but PSP cannot? I also send out my layouts to Kinkos for the final printing so that I can get top quality without buying a new printer yet. I can do that in CK Platinum because it allows me to save the file as a PDF (another really useful feature of that program) and e-mail it to anyone easily. Can I do that in PSE or PSP? If not, is there another way I can have them professionally printed?

Thanks so much! I really hope I can figure this out!

[ScrapGirlsRo]

If you are having problems with PSE running slow on your system, you will really run into problems with PSP. That is one of the biggest drawbacks of PSP. It isn't as fast as the Adobe products. Corel has been trying to work on the "backend" to get it to process better, but they haven't been very successful yet. It is a resource hog.

Your problem is the amount of RAM you have. RAM is the thinking power your computer has and is very different than the storage. The new external hard drive is storage. Getting more storage doesn't change the thinking (brain) power. 188 is very, very, very little. 256 is very little. It is common for computers to have 1 G of RAM. My computer has 2 G of ram. So the 188 is kind of peddling along on a bicycle and you are wanting to drive a care while peddling that bike yourself. RAM isn't that expensive and if you are going to upgrade to any graphic software like PSE or PSP, you'll need more of it because your computer just doesn't have the thinking power it needs to run them. That's why PSE (which is fast if you have enough RAM) is going so slow for you.

Sorry if that is disappointing news to you.

[MovieStar]

I don't really have experience with other programs, but PSP X is what I use now and I LOVE it. It is a bit of a memory hog, I have 2G ram so I don't have any problems. Hopefully someone else will be along shortly and they can provide you a better comparison.

[MichaelsMomJo]

As Ro already said, the issue really is your RAM. Graphics programs are memory hogs -- all of them. If you look at system requirements for any of these programs, it will probably recommend 512Mb RAM at a MINIMUM. Even that will not be particularly fast. Most computers these days come with at least 1G of RAM. So, you really might want to upgrade your memory. It's really not that expensive to do anymore, and it will help tremendously.

[fullofsurprises]

Can anyone tell me how I can check to see if my computer has room to add more RAM? I have an older laptop (Compaq Presario 1200) and I know the RAM was already upgraded by my dad before he gave it to me. Might I be out of space for more RAM?

Thanks!

[fullofsurprises]

Hello again. Okay, let's assume for right now that I am not going to add more RAM anytime soon. The reality is, I AM currently scrapbooking on my computer and the slowness isn't bothering me enough to buy more RAM right now. As I said, my CK Platinum is a little slow for me, but I can handle that. I guess what I need to know now is whether working in PSP will be a lot slower than my current system. I know not many of you have experience with the CK program, but any guesses? I'm really leaning toward PSP right now, but I'm also still wondering about the printing question I asked earlier. Can I save my files as PDFs or some type of universally recognized file in PSP?

Thanks for all your help!

[Crueltyfre/Lori]

I use PSP X and love it. I also have CS2 and PSE 4, and I've played with them all and yet I go back to PSP all the time. Yes, it requires more ram but I think what you get for that is well worth it.

In PSP, unlike in PSE/CS2, you get to "see" all your "stuff" all the time. Not only does it have that built in browser which makes seeing and combining/coordinating all your scrap stuff incredibly easy, it also shows you all your brushes, all your fills, all your patterns, all your shapes, etc. all the time. In Adobe products, items like brushes and shapes and such are in groups and you have to "load" each group when you want to use something that's in it. This drives me nuts.

I also like that once you've "seen" something you want to use in PSP, you simply drag it to your image and it becomes a layer. In Adobe, you have to open it as a seperate image, then copy it, then paste it on your image, then go back and close that file. Way too many steps for me.

The next thing I really love about PSP is that everything takes less steps. If it takes two clicks in PSP, it will take 5 in Adobe. Plus in PSP you can make anything from any menu an icon. So once you figure out what you use the most, you put an icon for it on your button bar and from then on you can do it in one click.

You mentioned doing cool edge effects. PSE will not allow you to rotate brushes when used with the eraser tool, so many cool edge effects with brushes won't work easily in PSE. PSP has no issue with this, but they don't allow your brushes to enlarge as big.

And if there is any chance of you ever wanting to do more complicated advanced things, PSP will allow it. PSE won't.

And yes, PSP has many more formats it will save/print in. PSP allows you to even save in Adobe format, but Adobe won't let you save in PSP format. I'd save your finished layouts as jpg, which PSP can use.

I know you can get PSP X for about $20 bucks now as they came out with a new version, which I don't like as much, and I don't think you can get PSE for that ever. [url="http://store.purplus.net/copashprox.html"]PSP X $22[/url]
Lori

[DDecker]

PSPX user here too. I do have PSE3 but use PSP for most everything and for most of the reasons Lori has already stated. I just wanted to add that if you do go PSP we are here to help!

[ruralscrapper]

I run PSE 4.0 and I don't find it to be slow at all, although I do have 2 G of RAM which really speeds up the process. PSE is more expensive than PSP, but that is what I learned on and I really do like the program. Just my 2 cents