It’s not immediately obvious, but rather than the regular brush tool, select the Art Media button at the bottom of the tool palette.

PaintShop Pro 2018 Ultimate's Art Media tools replicate traditional artistic materials, and can be applied over the top of photographs as an Art Media Layer There are options for both dry (pencils and pastels) and wet (paint) layers, and they can be applied to blank canvas (with a texture of your choice) or over the top of a photo as an Art Media Layer. These tools are labelled Art Media can be used on their own or over an existing image as an Art Media Layer. PaintShop Pro 2018 Ultimate incorporates Painter Essentials 5 – a comprehensive toolkit designed to mimic traditional materials. The tool lets you export the cropped area as a new image you specify a print size and it’s possible to adjust the angle while cropping. They're all relatively minor features, but they combine to make photo editing simpler and more accessible. It offers various options to help you improve your photos' composition, including golden ratio, golden spiral and rule of thirds overlays. It's essentially a simple tool, but has various thoughtful additions that really help make this everyday task easier and more effective. Of all the standard tools, crop is particularly impressive. This doesn’t just offer a selection of highly customizable vintage filters, it also tells you how the looks were original achieved using chemical film processing, and when they originated.

PaintShop Pro also provides a good selection of automatic photo effects and enhancements, plus some fun extras like the Time Machine. PaintShop Pro 2018 Ultimate's Time Machine tool not only applies a range of customizable vintage filters to your photos, it also tells you exactly how the various effects were originally achieved The Warp Brush is helpful for correcting lens distortions (or slimming body proportions, if used judiciously), and there are the usual clone, red-eye and eraser tools for making other adjustments on the canvas. Once you're in, you'll find all the usual photo-editing tools. We were particularly pleased to see profiles designed specifically for social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and even Google+. You can set a custom canvas size, or take your pick from a huge choice of paper sizes, cards and envelopes, plus sizes optimized for presentations and web use. PaintShop Pro’s selection of brushes and other creative tools make it a good choice for amateur artists (more on that later).

To get started, either open an existing image file or create document from scratch. If you're not sure how to achieve a particular task, assistance is only a couple of clicks away. There are also comprehensive help files to guide new users, including video tutorials, which are a welcome touch.

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