Photography News | Issue 48 | photographynews.co.uk
36 Accessories test
Package holiday We all have our go-to image editing packages, but sometimes it’s good to try something new. Here you’ll find 10 great photo-editing softwares, all of which can be tried for free – you never know, you might like them so much you move to them full time... Buyers’ guide
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Serif Labs Affinity Photo £48.99
Anthropics LandscapePro 2 £29.95
Adobe Creative Cloud Photography £9.98month
4 Corel AfterShot Pro 3 £43.99
Photolemur £23 If you’d rather spend time
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Affinity Photo is a professional level image editor with a Photoshop- rivalling range of features and performance. And it’s under £50. The software offers full support for layers, adjustment layers and masks; non- destructive editing; text and vector tools; up to 32-bit editing; focus- stacking; HDR; lighting and blurring effects; a lens correction filter; and all the selection and retouching tools you’d expect to find in Photoshop, including a built-in frequency separationmode for portraits. Handling is very smooth with a versatile workspace and smooth 60fps real-time editing previews and it’s compatible with all standard image files; there’s a Raw converter, too. Another nice touch is the ability to save your image’s ‘Undo History’ so you can make changes even after saving and closing. affinity.serif.com
Specifically engineered for editing your scenic shots, LandscapePro 2 uses a number of intelligent features to make the act of improving landscapes simpler. The automatic selection tools help you identify parts of a landscape image, such as the sky or trees, and they can then be edited individually. The range of retouching is varied from minor alterations in colour or exposure to replacing whole skies or adding textures. In this latest version, there are hundreds of new skies to add to pictures; a Sky Reflections feature for more realistic sky transplants when there’s a watery foreground; and improved selection tools. There’s also a new Studio Max edition of LandscapePro2withbatchprocessing and a histogrampanel. Order LandscapePro2 and youwill save 10%by entering the code PN48L landscapepro.pics
Since Adobe moved to a subscription platform photographers have been able to get Lightroom and Photoshop as a bundle for around £10 a month. You might not own the software, but for £120 a year it’ll never go out of date and be constantly improved. Lightroom is a superb package for photographers, offering a complete solution for image processing, cataloguing and publishing. Import images, keyword them to create and maintain a catalogue, then develop themmanually or use editing presets; finally export the new image to your catalogue, website, social media or printer. As for Photoshop, it’s long been the industry standard for photographers and artists, with a complete range of tools for creative editing. The CC Photography package also comeswithmobileversions of the Lightroomand Photoshop. adobe.com/uk
AfterShot Pro 3 is a comprehensive workflow and non-destructive image processing package in the vein of Lightroom, but perhaps its most eye- catching claim is that it’s up to 4x faster than Adobe’s software. This speed is found in its batch processing, but there’s loadsmoreonofferbesides. As a Raw converter, version three has a new dynamic camera profile updater which notifies youwhen new cameras are added. The software’s Highlight Recovery feature has been enhanced to bring back more natural detail and tone in overexposed photos; and the extensive range of Lens Correction options has been expanded to let you make and share your own settings. Similarly AfterShot Pro3 lets you browse, downloadmake a share effect plug-insacross thesoftware’sgrowing user community. aftershotpro.com
shooting than editing, Photolemur couldberight foryou; it’sanintelligent photo-editing app which analyses and improves photos, recognising anything from faces and colours, to skies and horizons then enhancing them. The SkyEnhancement function darkens and intensifies washed out skies, and similarly, Exposure Compensation identifies lighting problems and fixes them. Daylight correction adjusts tones, so they’re appropriate for the time of day you took the picture, and similar to Lightroom and Photoshop, there’s a Dehaze to improve clarity and detail. Also, portraits get a lift from the Face Enhancement feature, cleaning up blemishes and improving skin tones. Photolemur also works with Raw files and has noise-reduction and ‘JPEG Fix’ options to improve grainy or overly compressed images. photolemur.com
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