Jasc Software - Beta Program
Paint Shop Pro 9 and Studio (a new simpler version) are in Beta now. I also noticed that because I am a previous owner I can buy the upgrade for $49 for the boxed edition ($45 for just a download). Assuming that the boxed edition actually has a book of some kind, I might get it that way, otherwise, downloading seems like the way to go. It seems like over version 7 (I don’t have 8 so I can’t really compare) it has a bunch of advantages. Of note, I see that it can do Canon raw conversion (although it doesn’t have as many options as even the Canon software), it installs a thumbnail viewer into explorer, it has built in functions for handling perspective correction, barrel distortion, fish-eye distortion, chromatic abberation, ISO noise, etc.
Something I knew was in version 8 was the improved cropping functions which allow you to preselect a ratio (like 8×10 or 5×7) to crop to that size. It also seems to be a bit faster and obviously can do quite a few other things I don’t know about yet. It supports scripts (like Photoshop Actions), but I don’t know if it can do batch execution of scripts or really if it offers anything useful for batch processing other than file conversions.
Regardless of any shortcomings, it seems to have enough new tools and improvements to make it a very worthwhile upgrade. According the web-site, it will be out of beta and released in September. As it is, the Beta is supposed to work for the next 81 days and is free to anyone who wants to try it out.