Non-Destructive Editing in PaintShop Pro

Non-Destructive Editing in PaintShop Pro

View the youtube video here: Non-Desructive Editing

What is Non-Destructive Editing?

To explain the notion of destructive editing, let's consider the analogy of an image project as if it were a road trip.  You know you where you want to get to, and there will be a number of stops along the way (which would be like effects or steps in your approach).  A "destructive edit" would be any step that would analogously be like a one-way-street on your trip.  If you can't easily go back or modify your path from a previous step, that is a destructive edit.  So on larger projects (aka longer trips) and especially if you are trailblazing and figuring things out, you want to have as few one way streets as possible.

So let's cover some concepts and tips (at a high-level) on how to work around destructive editing in PaintShop Pro.

Start Strong

• Shoot in RAW:  For photographers, perform edits in your native RAW editor or something like Corel AfterShot.  From what I understand all RAW formats are setting modifiers, so you can always reset an image back to default at any point.
• Save in the PaintShop Pro format: When editing in PaintShop Pro, save the file in the PSP format which preserves the layers and effects details and many other features of your image project.
• Image Resize: As you would expect, once you shrink an image, that data is lost, and you can't get it back. I would always recommend keeping the original image size (presumed larger) unless you are running into performance issues.  If you want things to go faster, and you know this image is only going to end up online, it's not as much of a concern to shrink your image at the start.  

Image-Level Manipulations

These are effects that affect the entire image, and either flatten (merge all layers) to achieve it, or the effect modifies all the layers.

• Image > Decrease Color Depth: This effect will flatten your image, so either do this in a separate image, or only at a stage when you are OK with flattening the entire image.  If you are wondering to yourself why you would ever use this (watch this video).
• Image > Greyscale:  If you use this operation, it reduces your color palette to only greyscale colors.  I would recommend using alternative methods of greyscaling that only affect the specific layer (all of these methods are available as Adjustment Layers):
• Adjust > Hue Saturation > Hue Saturation Lightness (Saturation set to zero)
• Adjust > Hue Saturation > Vibrancy (-100)
• Adjust > Color > Channel Mixer (Check Monochrome)
• Image > Add Borders: This will have the effect of flattening the image to add margin on any given side of your image.  It is less destructive to change the Image > Canvas Size.

Mask Instead of Erasing

This tip only applies if you don't complete your project in one session of PaintShop Pro.  It is typical that if you use any of the eraser tools, you can left-click to erase, and right-click to un-erase, and this is non-destructive.  However, if you erase parts of a layer, and save the image (even in PSP format), when you open it again, the ability to un-erase will be lost.  

By contrast, if you use a mask to hide data, you will always be able to modify that mask no matter how many times you return to that PSP file.

Layers

There are a number of ways that we can be both destructive and non-destructive in our editing as it pertains to layers.

• Converting Vector to Raster: This is necessary at times because there is a significant limit of how vector objects can be used in PaintShop Pro.  
• Avoiding this as long as you can, or at least creating a save point whenever you have to do this so that if later you need to modify the vector shape, you still have the vector form.  
• You can also use Layer Properties to add some raster-like effects to your vector object.
• Adjustment Layers: These allow you to apply adjustments in a non-destructive manner which is an important feature for this topic.  
• Applies effect to all layers below it.  So you'll need to make use of Layer Groups to restrict its effect.
• There are a limited number of effects that are available (but its a good start).  
• Blend Layers:  There are many effects that can be achieved with blend layers that are non-destructive.  You can see how I used some of them in this video.  Here is a list of some of the capabilities:
• Contrast: Soft Light/Hard Light/Overlay on a duplicate image
• Dodge/Burning:  Use the Dodge/Burn layer type and paint black or white
• Removing Background: Multiply and Screen

Super Safety Net

There will be times when you have to make destructive or one-way changes, I do them all the time.  If you really want the maximum flexibility to return to an earlier stage of development you'll either want to save versions of your project, or employ some kind of configuration management software such as git or subversion.

As well, in your workflow, you can use the Copy Merged feature when you right-click an image and either create a new layer to work on or create a new image.  

Conclusion

So to conclude, this is just a summary.  The goal was to touch on a lot of things at a very superficial level.  There are endless numbers of videos and tutorials out there on how to use specific capabilities, so if something peaked your interest, seek out the expertise, and happy road-tripping!