I’ve been looking into this recently. I have a dodgy copy of CS2 on my PC that i put on years ago, but have now decided that isn’t really the way forward.
I’ve just got a new laptop so want to put legit software on it.
I’ve been using a trial copy of Elements 10, which seems to do most of what I want it to do, but not all. Apparently there’s a plug-in for it that some bloke has developed that gives you almost CS5 levels of functionality. But, I haven’t tried this to see if it’s any good.
I have read various reviews of the latest Paintshop Pro. I think that most of them are positive, with the main problems being that it can be slow to process certain changes & deal with RAW files. But, it definitely seems to be more feature packed than Elements. I almost bought it just to see what it was like, as it can be had for <£50.
At the moment though, I think I am going to do a course at a local college & purchase the full version of CS5, from their educational store. You can get it for <£200 if you are in education. I need to check, but it is valid even if you are on a part-time course, but the education establishment has to provide full-time courses too…..you just have to send over a scanned copy of your student ID.
