Imagine my surprise when I noticed that Amazon listed the last third party book on Photo-Paint as published in 2001. Then I noticed that Corel's video tutorial coverage of Photo-Paint is sparse indeed. Then, I noticed that Corel Marketing people are all over Paintshop Pro, the puny little program that was shareware when it met Corel, and isn't fit to clean Photo-Paint's shoes. And of course there is Painter.
Things are looking dim for Photo-Paint. Is Corel Marketing walking on its grave? If Photo-Paint was discontinued, and if you didn't want to go blind using Photoshop, what tool would you choose?
Is this a troll post?
Stand down, son.
Some things you may have missed :
Neither of those could have happened by accident. In windows, there is a significant amount of work required just to stand still. Corel is still putting effort into photopaint, even if those changes are not obvious on the surface.
Expending the effort to make a 64 bit version of photopaint suggests to me that Corel expects photopaint to still be part of the CorelDraw suite for at least a couple more releases. Otherwise, they would surely have kept it at 32 bit, ready to drop it whenever windows stops supporting 32 bit programs.
There may be a reason why it hasn't changed much. Photopaint has always met my bitmap editing needs. Many others are perfectly happy with it. But if there are specific things you would like it to do, it would be more productive to post a suggestion in http://community.coreldraw.com/forums/28.aspx
Both the changes you mention were made necessary by MS. They don't demonstrate long-term commitment to Photo-Paint. If Photo-Paint was a stand-alone product, it may not have made the cut. Who can say what timetable Marketing is marching to, or if there is one at all.
Try this. Search on Photo-Paint Tutorials and print publications. See what you come up with. Look for publication dates, and note the target audience. Also note which of these were produced by Corel. Then perform the same search for Painter or even Draw tutorials, and compare the results. I think you'll get a pretty good idea of Photo-Paint's status in the company.
One reason for this is that Photo-Paint can do most of what Painter can do. Painter has become the Chosen Son.
I'll be using my copy of Photo-Paint for a long time. No black text on charcoal background for me (in fact, to the devil with W8 too). However, I believe company commitment to Photo-Paint has withered.
No Harry, I do not wish to take my discussion to the suggestion box. I think you know that too. Do you have no answer to my question, then?
Then I'll ask it again.
You're basing your question on the availability of a book on Amazon and not noting the increased functionality of PhotoPaint. You also seem unaware that the CorelDraw books continue to devote sections to PhotoPaint. From that you infer "walking on its grave." And we're supposed to take your question and speculation seriously?
If you have a serious point to make there are better ways to do it. Otherwise it really does read like a troll post in search of an argument.