Paint Shop Pro 501 has many improvements from version 4. Layers, multiple undo, CMYK color separations and more file formats are the most significant ones.

The interface has had a face lift. It now uses flat "Windows 98/Microsoft Internet Explorer" style buttons. Another change is separate boxes for tool and layer controls.

Paint Shop Pro 501 feels good to work with. I've used it to create or manipulate many of the images on this Web site. It has many features, but is neither complicated nor difficult.

Features for painting (pen, pencil, crayon etc.), photo retouching (lighten, darken etc.), image enhancement and editing (filters), color enhancement (reducing, adjusting brightness, gamma contrast etc.) and special effects (buttonize, gradient fill etc.) are included. You'll most likely find the tools for your jobs.

Some customization is possible. Third party plug-ins like Kai's Powertools are supported.

Over 40 file formats are suppored, including BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, PSD, PCX, PICT LBM and TGA. Some formats such as Kodak Photo CD can only be loaded but not saved. You can save files as EPS, but not load them.

Converting images is a job Paint Shop Pro is good at. It can be done in two ways: Simply by opening an image and save it in the preferred format. Or by using the powerful batch conversation: Select the images you want to convert and how they should be converted, and Paint Shop Pro does the rest.

Although the amount of features is impressive, Paint Shop Pro doesn't have everything you'll find in more expensive editors. However, if you're only looking for a good, all around, low budget image editor, Paint Shop Pro might be the best alternative.

Recommended: Pentium(R) processor with MMX[tm] technology, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 or Windows NT 5 or higher, 32 MB RAM or more, 40 MB available hard disk space or more, 24-bit display adapter at 1024x768 resolution, pressure-sensitive tablet.

Shareware/demo