It supports TWAIN compliant input devices (e.g., scanners), pressure sensitive drawing tablets and digital cameras. For image file management, the PsP5 software has a Win95 Explorer-type Browser for quickly locating files and previewing images therein. Also included, are a number of images and graphic elements to start one off in compiling and designing an individually crafted graphic creation. In total, this graphic editor, touted to be " ... powerful enough for the professional and friendly enough for the beginner.", has enough bells and whistles for most any type of graphic frolic envisioned.

It comes with two hefty manuals, a User's Guide for overall general use, and an Animation Shop manual for creating animation images. The User's Guide contains chapters with tutorial-type text covering both general background information on computer graphics and specific information on all the various tools and manipulations available with PsP5. In addition, this manual contains a basic, eight-lesson, hands-on tutorial of several step-by-step lessons that show one how to use the fundamental software tools and features.

The Animation Shop Manual explains the animation aspect of PsP5: this aspect allows one to create animation's of one or more graphics images that will combine to form a series of images which can be used just like frames in a movie. The manual is a good introduction and tutorial on subject of graphic animation.

Both the Basic PsP5 and the Animation aspects support a wealth of raster and vector graphic file formats: 34 raster, and 12 meta and vector image formats. This is important so that one does not come up against some nifty graphic with a format that the graphics program cannot handle.

Installation of PsP5 from a CD was straightforward. It took 30.2M on my hard drive, not counting the fonts and other hidden odds and ends most programs inject into one's PC. It should be noted that the ease and functioning of a graphic editor such as PsP5 is highly dependent upon the capabilities of PC used. I have a 486, 100 MHz, 36M Ram, 10G hard drive PC. Although this PC worked tolerably well with medium-quality graphics, the size of a quarter 8.5 x 11 page, working with more extensive graphic material was not practical at all. All changes took intolerably long times; after an agonizingly long wait, I never finished acquiring a full page scan (at about 600 dpi) into PsP5.

Of course, this is not PsP5's fault. One must look to current computer technology in order to manipulate such software easily and acceptably. Just consider one of the Program Setup defaults which is to limit disk usage to undo undesirable changes to an image: 75M for 3 steps per open image.

The only calibration PsP5 has is that of the gamma for the monitor. Although I was able to adjust the Red and the Blue, the Green would not work. This presents a problem with WYSIWYG. Also, on importing both scanned and supplied images, the colors rendered by PsP5 were far from true. Attempts at adjusting the rendering were not successful, but this may be attributed to insufficient experience with the program.

Experience with and knowledge of PsP5 are the keys for making it an item of software that one will use rather than an item that just sits and takes up space in one's PC.