Corel(R) PaintShop(TM) Pro X4 Delivers Professional Photo Editing Power, Dramatic Performance Improvements and New Creative Effects

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Sept. 7, 2011) -

Editors Note: There are three images and two videos associated with this press release.

Corel today announced the release of Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4, the latest version of its award-winning photo editing software. The trusted choice of millions of photographers worldwide, PaintShop™ Pro delivers 'DSLR' power at a 'point-and-shoot' price while offering an uncompromising depth and selection of pro-quality tools to expertly manage, adjust, edit and share your entire photo collection.

New Release Delivers Faster Performance, More Photo Editing Power and Exciting New Creative Effects

PaintShop ProX4 includes over 75 new and enhanced features designed explicitly to meet the needs of today's photographers. With new photo editing features, dramatic improvements in speed and performance, enhancements to the user interface and convenient ways to share through social media, PaintShop Pro X4 delivers the depth of professional features and range of creative possibilities that our community was asking for at a lower price point than other professional editing software.

"We worked closely with our user community throughout the development process for PaintShop Pro X4," said Craig Copley, Senior Product Manager for PaintShop Pro. "Our users are diverse, engaged and incredibly passionate about photography. While they use PaintShop Pro for a variety of creative purposes, all of them share a desire for artistic freedom and the ability to achieve their vision quickly, with tools that are intuitive, powerful and efficient. With the community's input and support, we believe we have a release that delivers the depth and range of features that makes this a fantastic upgrade for our users."

Corel PaintShop Pro X4 Includes Over 75 New and Enhanced Features:

Corel PaintShop Pro X4 offers major advancements in professional editing power, performance, usability and sharing. Feedback from the PaintShop Pro community helped isolate the development priorities for this release and directly influenced the impressive set of new features and enhancements within the following four categories:

Professional Editing Power –

• New! HDR Tools – Completely redesigned to bring you the latest technology in high dynamic range photo production, the new HDR module provides tools to merge photos and create picture-perfect exposures with stunning contrast. With built-in presets to get you started, images look their best in no time. This module also saves you time with the option to process large batches of HDR exposure brackets quickly.
• New! Photo Blend – Create the perfect composition by easily selecting people, objects or areas from a series of images. The Photo Blend tool is a new and powerful option for photographers who want to produce compelling group shots or creative scenes where one person appears in multiple poses.
• New! Fill Light and Clarity – The Fill Light tool lets you work quickly to bring out underexposed areas without affecting the overall brightness of your image, while the Clarity tool makes it easy to enhance subtle yet important details.
• New! Selective Focus – Enhance the depth of field in any image or easily create the look of miniatures and small-scale models with the new Selective Focus tool.
• New! Vignette Tools – Often used in wedding and portrait photography, the Vignette tool provides a classic portraiture style by applying a soft, faded border around the outer edge of photos.

Performance –

• Enhanced! Performance – With new performance updates and optimizations, Corel PaintShop Pro X4 is faster than ever before with speed increases of over 50% on launch and accelerated performance on popular effects such as Vibrancy, Noise Removal and Depth of Field compared to past versions.
• Enhanced! Full Screen Preview – Fast, full-screen preview allows you to efficiently review your photos and use the entire screen to quickly view, rate, and rotate your images and discard those that don't make the cut.

Usability –

• Enhanced! Workspace – A redesign featuring new tabbed workspaces allows you to move easily between photo workflows. The Manage workspace gives you all the power to review, tag, rate and organize your photos. The new Adjust workspace puts commonly-used editing tools at your fingertips, while the Edit workspace provides you with a full range of professional-level editing tools.
• Enhanced! User Interface Updates – Corel PaintShop Pro X4 offers numerous UI updates throughout the product designed to help photographers and graphic enthusiasts alike be as productive as possible. These include the Adjust workspace for quick and powerful edits; the ability to access the organizer in all workspaces; dual monitor support for enhanced efficiency; additional Adjustment layers; an updated Curves dialog; easy-to-read Histogram tools; and enhanced metadata support.

Sharing –

• Enhanced! Built-in social media sharing – For when your shots are picture-perfect, tools integrated into the organizer allow you to quickly share your images on Facebook, Flickr and resize "on the fly" for emailing.

"When inspiration hits, I won't waste time waiting for my software to catch up. The enhancements to the overall stability and speed of PaintShop Pro X4 are obvious from the moment I open and run the program. The updates to the user interface allow for a brighter, cleaner workspace, while the dual monitor support gives me the real estate I need when I am working on an image. PaintShop Pro X4 gives me more opportunities to be creative, while helping me accomplish what I want to do faster than before."

- Gene Salois, PaintShop Pro X4 Beta Tester (PaintShop Pro user since 1994)

Pricing and Availability

Corel PaintShop Pro X4 is available now in markets worldwide in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Traditional Chinese and Polish with additional languages to follow. North American pricing is $79 (US and CDN) for the full version and $59 (US and CDN) for upgrade customers. Commercial and education volume licenses are also available.

To download a free fully-functional trial version or for more information about Corel PaintShop Pro X4, please visit www.corel.com/paintshop.

Corel PaintShop Pro X4 Ultimate

Launching simultaneously with the latest release of PaintShop ProX4 is the Ultimate version of the product. Offering additional pro-level tools including Nik® Color Efex Pro™ 3.0 Filters, royalty-free images from Fotolia (7-day subscription period), a custom photo book from Blurb® and a premium collection of Picture Tubes™, Corel PaintShop Pro X4 Ultimate provides exceptional value and countless creative possibilities.

Corel PaintShop Pro X4 Ultimate is available now in English, German, French, Italian, Dutch and Traditional Chinese with additional languages to follow. North American pricing is $99 (US and CDN) for full and $79 (US and CDN) for upgrade customers.

Media & Blogger Resources

For additional Corel PaintShop Pro X4 or Corel PaintShop Pro X4 Ultimate resources including reviewer's materials and screen shots, please visit www.corel.com/newsroom.

Join the PaintShop Pro Community

• Connect with PaintShop Pro users on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/corelpaintshop
• Follow our Twitter updates at @CPaintShopPro

About Corel

Corel is one of the world's top software companies with more than 100 million active users in over 75 countries. We develop software that helps people express their ideas and share their stories in more exciting, creative and persuasive ways. Through the years, we've built a reputation for delivering innovative, trusted products that are easy to learn and use, helping people achieve new levels of productivity. The industry has responded with hundreds of awards for software innovation, design and value.

Our award winning product portfolio includes some of the world's most widely recognized and popular software brands, including CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite, Corel® Digital Studio™, Corel® Painter™, Corel DESIGNER® Technical Suite, Corel® PaintShop™ Pro, Corel® VideoStudio®, Corel® WinDVD®, Corel® WordPerfect® Office and WinZip®.

© 2011 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved. Corel, the Corel Balloon logo, the Corel logo, Corel DESIGNER, CorelDRAW, Digital Studio, PaintShop Pro, Painter, PictureTubes, VideoStudio, WordPerfect, WinDVD and WinZip are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation and/or its subsidiaries in Canada and the United States. All other product names and any registered and unregistered trademarks mentioned are used for identification purposes only and remain the exclusive property of their respective owners.

To view the image of the Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4 box, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20110902-1CorelPaintShopProX4BoxShot800.jpg

To view the image of the Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4 Adjust Workspace, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20110902-2CorelPaintShopProX4AdjustWorkspace800.jpg

To view the video of the Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4 HDR module, please visit the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nviMy3YrKCU

To view the video of Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4 Photo Blend, please visit the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxUn8J-ghH0

To view the image of the Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4 Full Screen Preview, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20110902-CorelPaintShopProX4FullPreview800.jpg