Jasc Paint Shop Pro Ver 7.04 (PSP7) and Jasc Animation Shop Ver 3.04 (AS3) are a set of powerful software products that can meet any -- any graphic editing requirement. They interface with and support all common graphic inputs (including graphic tablets), and they contain a wealth of editing tools -- each of which, when selected, provide numerous further options for expanding your editing capabilities. The software comes boxed with two hefty tutorial manuals that lead you through all the nuances of the vast range of functions and operations which graphic editing can get you into; to top these, the Jasc website offers additional user information, tutorials and downloads.

As stated in the PSP7 Reference Guide, "It is friendly enough for the casual user who wants to enhance family photographs, yet powerful enough for advanced users working professionally. Paint Shop Pro combines raster-based and vector-based graphics technology into one application, providing one with a wide range of painting, drawing and image editing capabilities." Together with AS3, " you can create graphics and animations for a Website, presentations for business meetings, or multimedia publications. "Jasc has just completed ten years of active growth and development of its software." I believe, PSP7/AS3 is not only on par with similar software selling at over ten-times its price (approximately $60), but it also exceeds its rivals in many aspects of graphic editing.

Installation from a single CD was straightforward, except that the CD contained PSP Ver 7.00 and AS Ver 3.00. The upgrade versions noted in the title of this review took an 11.84MB download and lots of puffing from a 56 KHz modem (a little over 30 min). Although minimum requirements are less, the box-recommended, system requirements are: any of the Win's, Pentium 500 MHz, 128 MB RAM, and a screen resolution of 1024x768. However, especially with graphics operations, the greater are the system specifications the easier and speedier are the graphics operations and the less are the system hang-ups. On my computer, the PSP folder took 209MB.

Earlier versions of this software were reviewed and then reported in March 2000. Most all of what was said at that time still applies. Consisting of an expansion of the earlier review, this review covers some further views of PSP7/AS3, which I think are interesting and expedite graphic editing and capabilities.

At this past August, BPCA, General Meeting, there was a presentation showing the use of PSP7 for materially enhancing a number of poor photo images. What was not evident though, was the ease with which keyboard and cursor/mouse manipulations made graphic outcomes simple and effective. As a start, any image opened in PSP7 is displayed on a spacious screen workplace surrounded by all the tools and functions, which PSP7 offers to make desired graphic image changes, and which are readily click-available and mouse-manipulated. Of course, in this short report, it's impossible to describe this humongous set of tools and graphic actions that can be carried out. But, by considering the Clone Tool (demonstrated in August Demo), you can get a sense of the scope of, and ease with which tools can be used.

The Clone Tool is activated by finding its icon (among all the tool icons arrayed along the left side of the workspace) and clicking on it. Clicking opens a small window that displays the variety of forms this tool can take on, to achieve desired cloning. There are five shapes, umpteen brush types, sizes, densities, steps, hardness's, and opacities - all available to refine the type of clone desired. Choosing a unique value for one of the tool's properties, is easily made step wise or more quickly by moving a corresponding slide. Cloning is done in two simple steps after the set of tool properties is selected: 1) with the mouse, the tool's shaped cursor is placed over source area to be cloned and the right mouse button is clicked; 2) the tool cursor is then moved to the place on the image receiving the clone and the left mouse button is clicked. Voila!! The clone is achieved. The left-right mouse button cloning transfers, coupled with the readily available window for changing tool properties, are tremendous conveniences, as compared to competing graphic editors which require two handed operations to clone.

Being the all-around graphic editor, PSP7 comes with an excellent Browser, Level and Mask manipulations, painting tools, and all kind of effect-tools for revising/remaking a graphic. The software, along with the common bitmap graphic formats, also seamlessly supports the vector graphic formats.

AS3 is activated from the PSP7 window and works separately and closely with it. It has a full set of tools for creating animations and web pages. I did not create an animation from start. But I did download a GIF animation from the Internet and use AS3 to manipulate and change it. Getting the GIF into AS3 is simply done by dragging it from the folder where it's stored into the minimized AS3 icon on the Task Bar. I was easily able to change the properties of GIF frames, graphics, and sequencing. The ease with which the size of images could be changed helped immeasurably. Use of AS3 for the Web needs much more work from me. Some of what I've described may seem formidable to a novice. But it's worth repeating that the manuals that come with this software are excellent tutorials, which step-walk a dedicated novice through all the graphic operations. Anyone choosing the PSP7/AS3 combo for graphics makes a wise choice -- in my estimation.