PhotoImpact Versus Photoshop

Many people ask, "Should I use PhotoImpact (or another similar package) or spend the extra money on Photoshop?"

I would say that PhotoImpact (PI) can do quite a bit that Photoshop (PS) does. I would guess for beginners, PI can do 95% of what PS does, 95% of the time. So -- for the money -- PI is quite a bargain. For intermediate users, I would guess PI can do 90% of what Photoshop does, 90% of the time.

However, there is so much functionality in Photoshop that expert-level users would certainly use it on a regular basis.

Also, PI is well suited for the creation of web graphics.

So what to consider?

• Many PS functions have an equivalent in PI -- finding them can be quite difficult at first
• If the function from PS exists, it may have significantly more knobs and levers to adjust in PS
• Having fewer adjustments means that PI is often easier to use, especially for beginners
• To get some PS functionality in PI will require adding PS-compatible plugins to PI. However, this is not always possible
• Tutorials around the web are going to be developed for PS. Most of the PI tutorials I find are not for photography but for web graphics
• Very few resources are available for PI on the web -- tasks, brushes, etc.
  
• The large amount of PS resources available on the web -- brushes, actions, etc. -- cannot be used in PI. I will cover this in more depth in subsequent posts
• Almost all the PI tutorials that I have found on the Internet are for web graphics. Most of them are for much earlier versions of PI -- versions 4, 5, 6, and 7

As I think of more issues to consider, I will update this post.