Had some fun with Paintshop Pro 9 and installed U-Lead PhotoImpact 10 as well.
Both softs come closer in their functions to Photoshop and do allmost the same for a lot less money. Unfortunately, Photoshop can still do not as much as those 2 softwares and is too expensive compared to those.
I enjoy playing with tubes in PSP 9 since it allows to add a lot of funny artifacts in the picture like seen here.