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PRICE: $5.99 A MONTH OR $59 A YEAR
ZONER.COM
Zoner Photo Studio X Zoner is challenging the Adobe hegemony – and isn’t afraid of saying so. This end-to-end editing solution is around half the price of its main rival, but does it come close in quality?
PERFORMANCE: EASE OF USE For general image editing purposes, I found this software intuitive and simple to learn. Speedy navigation around the main tools meant I could boost an image in a matter of minutes – which suits me perfectly. No one wants to sit in front of a computer for hours and hours.
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“YOU CAN ORGANISE, EDIT AND OUTPUT YOUR WORK ALL IN ONE PLACE”
organise, edit and output your work all in one place, with print services available through the software – including 15 free 6x4s – and two cloud options: Zoner Photo Cloud for storage and Zonerama, a free online gallery. You get 20GB of space with a subscription. Other neat touches allow you to install the software on as many machines as you like, plus stopping a subscription doesn’t remove access to your images. As a committed Lightroom user, the ZPSX interface feels pleasingly familiar. Image locations appear on the left side of the window – different modules are top-right, with image adjustment tools down the right-hand side. The Manager tab handles initial importing and
keywording, etc, the same as the Library panel in Lightroom. The Develop module allows a broad range of image adjustments and mimics Lightroom very closely, with different iconography, while the Editor option is like flicking to Photoshop. From a workflow perspective, it’s refreshing not having to open a second program to access a broader range of tools and layers. Remaining Print and Video tabs are reasonably self-explanatory – and work well. From an image editing standpoint, I spent much of my ZPSX time in the Develop module, just as I do with Lightroom. I did miss the spirit level tool for simple correction of wonky horizons, but that aside, I was editing with ease in a matter of minutes. One option I really liked was the ability to output the original file even after it’s been worked on. That was great for the purposes of this test, but also gives you the chance to see whether you’ve overdone it with edits. I ran the software on a fairly lowly laptop – Intel Core i5 processor plus 8GB of RAM. This meant the software
TESTED BY ROGER PAYNE
AS A SOCIETY, we’re increasingly used to the idea of switching. We change mortgage providers, shop around for better utilities bills and even switch camera brands. So why not do the same with our editing software? Zoner clearly thinks so, too. Unashamedly positioned as ‘your Lightroom and Photoshop alternative’ on its site, it costs just $59 a year, or $5.99 a month – roughly half the price of the Adobe options. Compatible with Windows 10 and 11, Zoner Photo Studio X (ZPSX) isn’t the cheapest option, but it offers an end-to-end editing solution. You can
I’d imagine these issues would either be reduced or eliminated. Output images were excellent. I processed JPEG and Raw files from the X-T5 tested on page 34 and was very happy with the results. PN
wasn’t very fast; import speeds were reasonable but not exceptional, and I noticed the software needed time to process quite minor image amends. I wouldn’t hold this against ZPSX, though – with a more sprightly PC,
Verdict A viable Photoshop and Lightroom alternative, Zoner Photo Studio X is easy to use, offers plenty of features and controls your entire workflow in one place – I’m a big fan of that. It’s more likely to suit a new image editor, however, since there’s no means of importing pre-existing catalogues from other software. PROS All-in-one editing solution, intuitive, easy to use, good price CONS PC only, no catalogue import from other software
STRAIGHTEN UP Zoner offers effective tools for alignment and graduated filtering
Issue 104 | Photography News 59
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