I have and use both. I also have corel photopaint9 and painter6; I use them all for various reasons. I just got photoshop7.0 and it is wonderful, but it cannot do the same job as the others in terms of natural looking media for drawing and painting. Paintshop pro 7.0 allows you to do many of the things that can be done in photoshop but you have to do the steps yourself...I made a comparison between the two when I bought paintshop pro...the small brushes in photoshop are more easily controlled but the tubes and some of the other features offer more "artistic" control in photopaint. I really like virtual painter by jasc which is a plug in to ps...I got the spray feature for photoshop and it is ok but not as good as tubes and nozzles which keeps me coming back to the other programs....I got splat which is a new plug in from alienskin and it is a great addition ot photoshop...if you can afford photoshop you should get it...it is the industry standard and rock solid...paintshop is a great addition to your toolbox as well...the combination of these programs allows you to really come up with some cool stuff.....