Shel - I've been using Photoshop and Picture Window Pro for a while now. Both have their pros and cons, but I'm going to make my comments from the viewpoint of a Photoshop user wondering about Picture Window Pro. This is a little different perspective than the usual question of "I don't have either which should I buy."
I think the two nicely complement each other. For the person that already has Photoshop, Picture Window Pro is a lot less expensive and way more powerful than many of the plug-ins I've seen.
First of all, I believe the evaluation version is the Standard Picture Window, not the pro version. Full color management is only in the pro version.
The following are only in the pro version
Picture Window Pro supports 16 bit images throughout the entire product. This is an area where Photoshop CS is just beginning to catch up.
Picture Window Pro has an Advanced Sharpen transformation that is unlike anything I've seen in other products. Go to the the Digital Light & Color web site
<http:www.dl-c.com> and check out the white paper. I think you will find it very interesting.
The Color Correction transformation is different than that in Photoshop. Digital Light & Color sells a slightly modified version of this as the Color Mechanic plug-in for Photoshop. It sells for $49. For a few bucks more you can get Picture Window Pro. The white paper "color balancing techniques" describes this and other color correction tools very well.
Chromatic Aberration and Moire reduction are only available in the pro version.
Multipoint alignment is only available in the pro version. This is pretty powerful for registering multiple images. There is a similar function in Photoshop, but I'm more comfortable with Picture Window.
Some more general comments:
Picture Window Pro's method of transformations and image management will be foreign to the experienced Photoshop user. You'll really miss layers until you get a feel for the model on which Picture Window Pro is built. I think the trick to Picture Window Pro is understanding the masking function and how quickly it allows you to generate selective corrections.
There are a few places where you can get a lot of information.
The first is Digital Light and Color's own web site. Click on the "articles" link. There are many articles and white papers. Even if you don't use the program you'll probably find these very informative.
Also on DL-C's website is the message board. User's questions are quickly answered. Sach's participates almost daily. It's a small company, and you communicate directly with the key people.
The second web site is Norman Koren's excellent <http://www.normankoren.com/> There are a number of tutorials that should give you a feel for Picture Window Pro. The tutorial on Contrast Masking compares the same process done in Photoshop and PWpro.
I agree with your comment. Photoshop has some great tools for retouching. On the other hand, I think the curves feature in Picture Window Pro is better than that in Photoshop. Take a look at the tutorials on Norman Koren's web site.
Just a couple of other comments:
Most people will spend more money on two or three Photoshop books than they will spend on the Picture Window Pro program. There is more usable information on the two web sites I mentioned above, than in most of the Photoshop books in the stores today. (Don't get me wrong. There are some good Photoshop books. It's just that most of them are mediocre attempts to cash in on the "how to use Photoshop market".)
Photoshop is a semi-trailer truck, Picture Window Pro is a sports car. I ran the previous version of PWPro on a 200 MHz pc with only 128 Mbytes of memory and could do anything I wanted with only minimal waiting time. I could barely get Photoshop Elements to work on that machine. I didn't even try to load Photoshop. For someone on a machine with limited resources Picture Window Pro is the way to go.
If you're working with large numbers of files and doing things in batches, Photoshop wins. There just aren't any batch features in Picture Window Pro.
Sorry about the length of this message. Let's hope there's something you find useful within.
See you later, gs www.georgesphotos.net
