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6 June 2015
Top Photo Editing Software
Photoshop is the go-to photo editor, of course – so much so that the word has become verbified, like 'Hoover' or 'Google'.
This might give the impression that Adobe's
photo editing software is the undisputed champion, but that all depends
on what you use it for – for your purposes it may be a case of using a
sledgehammer to crack a nut.
There are a wide range of very capable alternatives to Photoshop, as you will discover, but our list of the best photo editors is going to begin with with the ubiquitous Adobe application.
01. Photoshop CC
Photoshop is brilliant but not everyone is convinced by the subscription-only model
Platform: Windows/Mac
Price: From $29.99/£17.58 per month
The replacement for Photoshop CS6 surprised everyone by not being the expected Photoshop CS7 but 'Photoshop CC'.
Time has passed and anger has subsided - although a brief outage was
a reminder of one of the concerns regarding the subscription model.
Photoshop CC is head-bangingly brilliant, and has too many features to
summarise in this small space.
There's no doubt that the latest Photoshop is a hugely impressive
photo editing application; probably the best out there. But it comes at a
cost.
02. Pixlr
Pixlr's mobile photo editing software comes with more than 600 effects
Platform: iOS, Android, Web
Price: Free
Pixlr claims to be "the most popular online photo editor in the
world", which may have something to do with the fact that it's free. But
it also boasts more than 600 effects, overlays, and borders and lets
you do all the main things you'd expect from a photo editor, from
cropping and re-sizing to removing red-eye and whitening teeth.
And if you're used to using Photoshop, then you'll find Pixlr's user interface easy to pick up quickly, as it's very similar.
PhotoPlus X6 explicity sets out to recreate Photoshop's functionality
Platform: Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP
Price: $99.99/£79.99
Whilst Serif make inroads into the world of Mac photo editing with
its new Affinity Photo (more on that below), this is for all things PC.
Of all the tools featured in this list, PhotoPlus X7 is perhaps the
most direct competitor to Photoshop in terms of trying to replicate the
different tools in Adobe's software for the PC at a lower price.
It's definitely a case of getting what you pay for. To be frank, the
tool can be tricky for beginners to use, and lacks the slickness and
reliability of its big-bucks competitor. But in the right hands it's
possible to create quality work with PhotoPlus X7.
If you're a photographer, Aperture is a brilliant budget option
Platform: Mac
Price: $79.99/£54.99
If you're a photographer, Apple's Aperture is brilliant. While full
of familiar features to Adobe's image editing software, Aperture lacks
all the other features - animation, 3D, web, etc - the average
photographer never uses, making it much simpler to use.
It's packed with innovative adjustment and enhancement tools to
refine images, including Auto White Balance that uses skin tones to
correct color casts, and a professional Auto Enhance that applies
Exposure, Vibrancy, Curves, and more with a single click.
The software also includes a set of brushes for painting image
adjustments on to images and dozens of ready-to-use professional photo
fffects
Acorn's new update includes the addition of non-destructive filters
Platform: Mac
Price: $29.99/£19.99
Image editing software Acorn debuted back in 2007 and has provided
hobbyists and artists on a budget with a great, affordable piece of
photo editing software. Features include layer styles, non-destructive
filters, curves and levels, blending modes and much more.
The latest version, Acorn 4, added improved speed, an enhanced UI and
more. One of the most sought-after improvements was the addition of
non-destructive filters, which includes includes a great interface to
chain filters together to create unique effects. You can even save and
modify your filters after you've closed and re-opened your Acorn image.
Photoshop is a compelling option on mobile as well as desktop
Platform: iOS, Android
Price: $4.99/£3.99 (mobile); $9.99/£6.99 (tablet)
The Photoshop family continues to grow, with its latest addition
bringing the formerly tablet-only Photoshop Touch to Apple and Android
smartphones.
It's an effective re-imagining of Adobe's killer desktop app (see
number 01 on this list), carrying over many of its most compelling
features, including layers and adjustments.
The app is also bundled with 29 fonts for adding text to your photos,
including Adobe Garamond Pro, Cooper Std Black, and Myriad Pro.
GIMP is a popular open-source photo editing software
Platform: Linux/Windows/Mac
Price: Free
An open-source photo editor that debuted on Unix-based platforms,
GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Today it's available in
versions for Linux, Windows, and Mac. GIMP offers a wide toolset -
everything you're accustomed to is within easy reach, including painting
tools, colour correction, cloning, selection, and enhancement.
The team that oversees development has worked hard to ensure
compatibility too, so you'll be able to work with all the popular file
formats without any trouble at all. You'll also find a very capable file
manager built in, along similar lines to Adobe's Bridge.
Somewhere inbetween Photoshop and Touch, Elements is a powerful standalone app
Platform: Linux/Windows/Mac
Price: £52.99
This is the basic alternative to Photoshop Creative Cloud (or CS), as
reflected in its great Quick and Guided Edit modes, but don't think
that means it lacks power under the hood. Also, unlike Photoshop CC,
Elements doesn't require a subscription.
It's now in its thirteenth iteration, and new features include an
easier way to merge photos together, a new crop suggestion tool, extra
effects and a way to create a combined Facebook profile and cover photo.
As reported when it was first announced earlier this year, Serif
isn't aiming to simply replicate Photoshop with Affinity Photo - the
sibling to their vector, Illustrator-killer Affinity Designer.
This is not a bargain version either. The beta promises to be a high
end software that claims to be faster than Photoshop and just as
powerful.
Things get a bit specific with Optics Pro 10, but what it
does, it does very well. Its results are spectacular, but it's a
specialised and sometimes complex tool to use. It's arguably the best
raw converter of all, but that's just about all it does.
DxO Optics Pro automatically compensates for the different
degrees of distortion, chromatic aberration, edge softness and
vignetting common to practically all digital camera lenses.
It's also a raw converter, and DxO has applied just as much scientific rigour to this process as its lens corrections.
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You can browse the images on your computer, folder by
folder, then select an image and choose from the default
conversion/correction setting or a range of presets
The results are excellent. However, it would never be your one and only image-editing tool
PaintShop Pro benefits from a streamlined and slick interface
Platform: Windows
Price: £59.99
Brought to you by the same software house that produces
Painter, Paintshop Pro is a long-standing application that offers a huge
range of photo-editing and graphics creation tools.
Naturally
there's support for layers here, and a complete suite of tools for
editing, colour correcting, cloning and 'makeover' of photos, but you'll
also find sophisticated art media tools with realistic brush effects
and a range of vector options.
Additionally, Paintshop Pro supports Photoshop brushes,
allowing you to considerably extend the built-in library of tools.
There's also an Ultimate version which costs an extra few pounds, but
bundles in additional filters, brushes, and royalty-free images.
Camera+ is adored by iPad users and has subsequently arrived on iPhone - hooray!
Platform: iOS
Price: $1.99/£1.49 (iPhone); $4.99/£2.99 (iPad)
The Camera app that comes on the iPhone by default is not
brilliant: yes, you can use it to take some decent shots, but it doesn't
offer you much creative control.
This is where Camera+ excels. The app has two parts: a
camera and a photo editor, and it truly excels at the latter, with a
huge range of advanced features.Camera+ doesn't just
limit you to editing new pics - you can quickly import your existing
photos into the Lightbox so that you can breathe new life into them.
For photo editing, free Windows tool Paint.net is an excellent option
Platform: Windows
Price: Free
Paint.net is a
surprisingly capable and useful tool, available completely free of
charge. The focus is on ease of use, and there's a definite tendancy
towards photo editing rather than artistic creation.
That said, there are a range of special effects available,
allowing you to easily create fake perspective, blend and push pixels
around the canvas, tile and repeat selections, and so on.
A good range of selection tools, support for layers, and adjustments such as curves and brightness/contrast mean that Paint.net
is a great alternative to Photoshop for photo editing, especially if
you can do without some of the more recent additions to Photoshop's
toolset.
Sumopaint works in the browser, and requires Adobe Flash to use
Platform: Web browser (requires Adobe Flash Player)
Price: Free for basic online version, $19 for pro version with offline app
Sumopaint is a highly capable browser-based image editor.
All the standard features you'd expect from a desktop tool are present
and correct and by buying the Pro version for $19 you can install a
desktop version of the app if you prefer. You need the Adobe Flash
Player to use this tool, so you're not going be using Sumopaint on your
iPad.
The standard range of tools and adjustments you'd expect are
all included. Brushes, pencils, shapes, text, cloning, gradients, etc
are all quickly accessed from the Photoshop-esque floating toolbar. It
can also open saved documents from your hard drive, making Sumopaint a
perfectly viable option for editing and reediting.
There are, however, limitations that will put off some
users. The most important of these is that the editor appears to be RGB
only, limiting its use to screen-destined artwork only. No CMYK, Lab or
other colour models to be found here.
Workflow is often much quicker using Mac tool Pixelmator
Platform: Mac
Price: $14.99/£10.49
Pixelmator uses Mac OS X libraries to create fast, powerful
image editing tools, which allows the software to integrate seamlessly
with the likes of iPhoto and Aperture, as well as iCloud. There are also
built-in export tools for Facebook and Flickr.
Colour correction tools such as Hue/Saturation,
Shadows/Highlights and Contrast are all present and correct, and
Pixelmator supports filters and comes with a collection of 150 to play
with. You can also open and save images in many of the popular formats,
including PSD, TIFF, PDF, and PNG.
When saving or opening Photoshop documents, layers are
preserved allowing you to collaborate effectively with colleagues using
Adobe's software.
Photoristic sits midway between basic native apps and expensive pro applications
Platform: iPad
Price: $4.99/£2.99
Photoristic HD is an iPad image app that's just powerful
enough to be quite useful without overloading you with features that you
don't really want.
It's all about the photo editor - it features standard image
adjustment tools (white balance, exposure, contrast, highlights,
shadows, vibrance and saturation), with additional colour controls, a
black and white mode, split toning and a hefty collection of presets for
Instagram-style quick fixes.
It's fast and easy to use and can handle images up to 20
megapixels, and while they're not exactly giving it away it comes at a
fairly reasonable price for its no-nonsense set of genuinely useful
photo tools.
Handy Photo is all about the interface and photo editor tools
Platform: iOS/Android
Price: $1.99/£1.49 (iOS)
The selling point of photo editor Handy Photo is its
interface, which uses the corners of the screen to cater for rotating
menu options.
It's all designed to keep the central area of the screen
clear, allowing you to use swipe gestures to tone your effects up or
down.
It's a powerful photo editor; the UI isn't for everyone, but this is an amazing price for the effects you get.The 'Move Me' tool enables you to clip out objects and move, resize or flip them.
Aviary strikes a balance between serious photo editor and playful app
Platform: Windows 8/iOS/Android
Price: Free
Aviary is a very pleasantly designed app that strikes the
perfect balance between serious photo-editing and playful
photo-decoration functions without looking bland or childish.
Perhaps because it's quite new, the selection of filters and
stickers are fairly small, so any future updates would give this app
great room for play.
Do you use a piece of photo editing software that we haven't included? Tell us all about it in the comments below.
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