It is with more than a touch of sadness that I have to report that this review is based on the last version of Paint Shop Pro to appear from Jasc. Incidentally I am reliably informed that the company name of Jasc was formed from the initial letters of the founder's two main interests - those of Jet planes and Software Company. But back to this version of Jasc Paint Shop Pro and the reason why it will be the last of the line. Jasc has been bought by Corel (developers of CorelDRAW). Fortunately Corel has stated that it will continue to support and develop the software so pleasing the many fans of this product that started life as a Shareware utility for converting graphic files between various formats and has developed into a commercial offering that does not look totally out of place when compared to Adobe's PhotoShop title.

Users of the previous version of Paint Shop Pro should immediately notice that the program loads faster. Paint Shop Pro 8 took 13 seconds on the test machine and this time was reduced to just 7 seconds with version 9. While a saving of 6 seconds might not sound much, it can quickly add up to a reasonable chunk of time especially when you include the time saved by other aspects of the program which certainly appeared quicker.

Those new to the product will appreciate its Learning Centre. This contains step-by-step instructions for carrying out various tasks categorised as Art, Graphics, Photo and Productivity. Altogether there are 30 tasks covering subjects such as creating a custom toolbar; creating depth of field; placing text on top of a vector object; and tracing a photo with the oil brush.

Once you begin to look closely at the product, you come across numerous new features to sit alongside Paint Shop Pro's use of Adobe-style palettes for different activities. Joining these palettes is the History palette which adds increased functionality to the basic undo feature. This displays icons for each action so that you can step back to a previous state or remove a specific action without affecting other tasks completed afterwards. The History palette can also be used to create scripts that can be applied, macro-like, to other images.

Paint Shop Pro now has natural media tools. You have access to a selection of brushes that allow work to be carried out using oil, chalk, crayon, coloured pencil, pastel and a marker. There is also a mixer palette that can combine paints to product just the colour you want. While these features are hardly unique, Corel's Painter has had them for a while, they do add appeal to Paint Shop's feature set.

Those interested in digital photography will be pleased to note that Paint Shop Pro can now handle RAW files produced by a range of cameras including those from Canon, Fuji, Kodak, Olympus and Pentax. These images can be viewed as thumbnails and have white balance and sharpening level adjusted. Still on the topic of digital photos, Paint Shop Pro has some new enhancement filters. A noise filter can reduce speckling; a fill flash filter can correct unexposed shadows; and there is a Chromatic aberration filter for reducing colour fringing caused by lens and sensor imperfections.

Add in its ability to handle EXIF data, some new shape tools including one that can produce a star with 1000 points (not sure why you would want that many but it is nice to know you could), and the ability to display open images in a tabbed format, makes Paint Shop Pro 9 an impressive upgrade. Hopefully it will continue to progress within its new Corel family. Paint Shop Pro 9 may not have the beating of Adobe PhotoShop with regards to overall power, functionality and ease-of-use but at less than one sixth the price (£99.99), it is an economic alternative that deserves your attention.

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