# ArcSoft Photostudio 5.5 for Canon vs Photoshop



## lostking (Mar 23, 2006)

I got ArcSoft Photostudio as a freeby when I bought my Canon EOS350D camera. Does anybody know if there are any comparisons between it and Photoshop? I'm new to digital imaging and have noticed that all the digital photography magazines seem to use Photoshop for tutorials etc, so I guess it's the industry standard / best(??). I'm not sure whether to get the hang of Photostudio or whether to go straight for Photoshop. Frankly at my level at the moment I wouldn't really know if Photostudio was any good or whether it was marvellous. Any comments/critiques would be welcome
Thanks


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## slipe (Jun 27, 2000)

The biggest advantage of Photoshop for a beginner is all the great tutorials and help available online. There are also many tutorials for the less expensive Elements and Paint Shop Pro. 

You can do a lot with Photostudio. It is a true image editor with layers and good capability. I don&#8217;t know how effective the help file is or how easy it is to learn &#8211; it is supposed to be fairly easy.

Paint Shop Pro has a nice learning center integrated with the program. It will lead you step by step through most things you have to learn. You can pick up a legal copy of PSP X over on Ebay for $20 delivered and it would probably be a better program to start with if Photostudio doesn&#8217;t have a similar utility. PSP is just a tad below Photoshop in capability and more complete than Photostudio. It is also more capable than Elements, but you would have to be pretty advanced to outgrow Elements.

My only knock on learning with Photostudio is that there isn&#8217;t a lot of help available &#8211; either from other users or tutorials. Photoshop is pricey. I think you would do better to start out with Elements or Paint Shop Pro since you have a decent camera and seem interested in learning about post processing.


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