Hi gang!

So... as some of you know I love using Daz Studio to make all sorts of renders, including plenty of naughty stuff, but also sometimes plain out brutal ones. Thing is... there's only so much Daz Studio can do for you and sometimes.. things just don't work out. You set up this cool Iray render but 15 - 20 minutes in you notice that you overlooked some lighting issues. Not a problem: cancel render, apply changes, render again. 15 more minutes: Nope! Still white specks appearing. Once again you cancel the render, but this time bring in the "big guns": Irays denoise filters. And what do you know, it worked!

.... yet after 80 minutes (or so) of rendering, sure enough, there's this one weird looking speck that just doesn't want to go away. Now what?!

Well, that's when you likely want to fire up a graphics editor to help you fix all this.

Now... when I got started with all this I heavily relied on The Gimp, and I'd like to start by saying that I have nothing but the utmost respect for that project. It's most defnitely capable to do a lot of cool stuff. But at the same time.. I also think that the saying: "you get what you pay for" also holds true.

I'm pretty sure we all know Photoshop?  Heck: it's even a verb: "to Photoshop something", pretty impressive if you ask me; "Is this Photoshopped?". Because of that I got interested in Photoshop Elements: a trimmed down version of the full software, but something you could nab with a perpetual ("one lump sum payment") license. Good times.

But now Adobe is trying to squeeze even more money out of us by limiting the 'Elements' license validity to only 3 years. And of course: you still pay the same amount of cash for it.

Well... that's when I decided to dump Photoshop and my attention got drawn to....

PaintShop Pro (ultimate)

Just so you know: I only upgraded to 'Ultimate' only a few days ago so, I'm still pretty new to that part. But omg... this is amazing. As you can see above.. PaintShop ("PSP") isn't just about editing your images, it also provides you ways to manage your collection(s) and all in a non-destructive way. Truth be told: Photoshop (Elements) (ok, ok: "PE" from now on)... so 'PE' provides the same feature but they rely on a separate program ("Navigator") to make that work. Which means: extra loading times, and noticeable ones at that. Not here!

Now, the way this works is quite easy: if you look at the pane on the left you'll notice two "tabs" (or buttons): "Collections" and "Computer". Collections gives you a virtual overview of all your images which it can find in the folders you add to this section. Once added you can then sort out your stuff and either categorize them (notice the 'Tags' section?) or rate them with a 1 to 5 star option. 'Computer' is just that: giving your direct access to all the folders on your computer. So if you don't want to use this "fancy nonsense", you don't have to!  (some of my friends fully rely on the Windows "Images" collection).

So here we get to the first huge advantage of 'PSP' vs. 'PE': even those categories (or ratings) still sort out your images based on the folders they're in. This is purely optional (you can customize near to everything here) but it really helps me to keep track of my pictures and more so: duplicates (and where they're at). You see... sometimes I choose to keep some duplicates around (long story), and this system helps me much better to keep track of all that.

But of course... I also have to be honest here: 'PE' even provides features such as facial recognition (which is really impressive; it even recognized Sukai in my renders!) as well as GPS location data tracking (if you take a picture with your mobile then you can add optional GPS data to keep track of locations). So 'PSP' doesn't use any of this: you can sort your stuff by timestamps, tags or ratings. No more, no less (though you can set up some smart collections to intertwine between all that). To be honest? I don't feel to be missing out. Yes, facial recognition was impressive, but I also barelty used it.

Even so.. I often fire up 'PSP' just to sort out a some more of my stuff. No more, no less. And it can be as easy as selecting some of your images and dragging them onto the category ("Tag") you want to apply, or to select the right amount of stars. Oh, right: with all those tabs and stuff: you can customize exactly how 'PSP' should start up, on my system I get the Manage tab.

It's awesome, but not perfect!

So here I'm re-visiting one of my old renders featuring the in my not so humble opinion (!) iconic (!!) Sukai 8 💖.

Notice anything peculiar?  Like how the shown histogram goes all over the chart, indicating "not so feasible" graphics? Sukai looks dreamy, but the one step noise removal is sometimes way too much. Once again: this isn't Photoshop and you can't always fully rely on automation or "AI". Of course that comment works both ways: I mean... from my POV Sukai still looks mighty hot up there all things considered. I'm not claiming that this here is "bad" or anything, but there are some lost details nonetheless.

The #1 palette for adult content creators!

SO, trick question: what is the most important part you see in the above screenshot?  Sure, sure: bonus points for comments on b00bs, pussies and dicks (retracted points for stuff that ain't there (lol)) but then I have to ask: what do all those "naughty bits" have in common?  How about... the actual skin, and its color(s) and variation(s)?  Notice the Material palette on the upper right side of my screenshot, notice the selected 'skin' section?  There's a reason why you see a "dropper" in the my screenshot here: notice the similarities with the vanilla (!) skin material section?

Always keep in mind: there's a reason why images like these are often referred to as rasters: because the image itself is made out of individual pixels which all combined together.. form a raster, aka the image itself. 

Wondering why?  Well, how about a 2D b00b job?

So here I undid the noise removal, and we're looking at Sukai's b00b with a 2000 (!) percent magnification (ey, details matter! This is all for science!). Notice the brighter pixel though? Notice how it doesn't even show in the overview?

I can now either use the skin palette to make this go away, or ... as I demonstrated above: use the learning center palette (shown on the left?) to help me find ways to help me enhance the b00bs. Such as the above shown makeover tool.

In case you haven't noticed yet: I am in no way trying to make it sound as if I'm some kind of expert. Oh, I have years of experience with Daz Studio, but graphics editing? Uh oh, nope!

Oh, did I forget to mention that PSP also provides embedded (!) support for HDR effects?  Just wondering... ;)

Organizer pane is super useful:

When I work on something I usually don't confine myself to one single image. For example.. what if we want to add another birthmark to Sukai's skin, afterwards?  Well, here I found something, and the main reason I did: the Organizer tab. By default this shows you all 'related' images to the one(s) you opened for editing, and this can go as simple as only images within the same (physical) folder, or.. those within a specific similar rating and or category ("Tag"). Fun fact: "PE" never provided this kind of controlled access!  (disclaimer: only used 'PE' up to the 2022 release).

At the risk of sounding like an ad, but....  I'm not lying when I tell you guys that I'm getting much better results with 1 (+ a half) month of using 'PSP' vs. 3 years worth of using 'PE'. Now... do keep in mind: this isn't black and white. I sincerely doubt that if it wasn't for my "PE experiences" I would have caught on as quickly with "PSP" as I did (though don't cut the learning center pane short!).

I also never regretted my PE purchases, but then again... why would I purchase software that only lasts me 3 years, yet provides but an ounce (!) of the feature set shown here when I can get all this for a fraction (!!) of the total costs for PE?

Yes: some things take longer. Smart selection between PE and PSP?  Very much so noticeable; PE totally wins. Then again.... PSP allows me to store my selection and work on it some more "later", PE never did that for me. Probably because Adobe also realized it could expire at any given time? 😜

(new added section) =>

Batch processing is super useful!

So... I always re-read my posts, especially when it's about reviews or tutorials and such. Well, I quickly noticed an obvious problem here: the oversized images negatively impacted the readability of this post, not good.  The solution? Shown above... selected all the images I used here, then applied "batch processing" which allowed me to resize all my used images in one go. One upload & edit later and here we are.  Of course I'm not sure yet how well it worked, but it'll surely be better than before ;)

Anyway, thanks for reading y'all...  got it out of my system and yeah... any questions? Let's have 'm ;)

Edited by user Saturday, August 9, 2025 6:12:38 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Resized all images for better readability.