I believe on the Smith Micro website it tell us that Clip Studio Paint is just the name they give to the downloadable version of MS5. I'm not 100% sure on that, but from what I read it's not much different than MS5. Maybe the downloadable version just adds a few more reference files or something.

Gimp didn't work very well on Win 7, overall it wasn't bad, but there were a few glitches, and sometimes the program would just crash when I tried to do a simple thing, like increase or decrease brightness and contrast.

I know this is a newbie question, but I wish someone would explain exactly what the uses are for masks, and why. I can probably find the info on wiki or something, but like I said before, my use of Gimp was very basic. I'm much more of a musician than a 2D or 3D artist. Funny, because I know I'm using masks, just not sure I know enough of the "why" to take full advantage of them.

If that snapping procedure you're talking about Pumeco is so important, it is kinda strange they would leave it out.