I've used Paint Shop Pro 6, 7 and now 8 and I really like it. The interface is easy to learn, you can do a lot with it, it has a lot of it's own filters, plus you can use pretty much any other filters with it; even ones for Photoshop. You can do masks, different brushes, cloning, pictures tubes, etc. Now the Disclaimer...I've never used Photoshop, so I really can't compare the two as far as features, etc. But, being a user of Paint Shop Pro, I am really happy with it.