
Capture One 2022 brings a new HDR merge feature – it works only on raw files but is extremely effective and natural looking – and a panorama merge feature too. Now up to version 1.10, Affinity Photo has been steadily improved and evolved since its launch, but Affinity has yet to charge for any upgrade.Ĭapture One works both as tethered capture and editing tool for studio photographers with a 'sessions' based workflow and as a Lightroom-style image cataloguing, searching and non-destructive editing tool. Serif has focused particularly heavily on the retouching market, with cloning, healing and retouching tools, an Inpainting tool for automatic object removal and a dedicated Liquify persona (workspace) for localized image distortion effects. Affinity Photo is an extremely powerful photo editor with more tools and features than there’s space to list here, from focus stacking and HDR tonemapping to high-end frequency separation. Affinity Photo is sold at a budget price point, but it has the tools and the features and the power to compete with Photoshop head-on. And Affinity Photo gives you exactly the same thing, but subscription-free, via a single extra-low payment. We complain that there's too much Photoshop doesn't do, but the fact is for many photographers this kind of old-school image-editor is exactly what they need.
ADOBE CAMERA RAW SOFTWARE MANUAL
It lets you apply one-click presets in a fraction of the time it takes to apply manual edits in Photoshop, and there's a great range of free Lightroom presets out there too. If only its raw processing was a little less noisy and as good as DxO's or Capture One's. You get both in the main Adobe Photography Plan, but for us the Classic version is by far the best. HOWEVER, Adobe has made things more confusing by splitting off the ‘old’ Lightroom, now called Lightroom Classic, for regular desktop storage, and introducing a new, slimmed-down Lightroom which stores all your photos online. If your main work is photo enhancement rather than manipulation, you might not need Photoshop at all. The October 2021 updates have brought new intelligent sky and subject masking features that further close the gap.

Lightroom is an all-in-one image cataloguing, raw processing and editing program and the perfect partner for Photoshop. Lightroom CC is limited -Lightroom Classic can be slow

And for crazy AI-driven reality distortion (and some rather good portrait enhancement tools), Luminar AI might be the tool you need. If you want advanced black and white effects, retro/analog filters, HDR merging or one of dozen other specialised 'looks', you're often better off using a custom-made plug-in or a different application. You can get lots of different profiles and presets for Lightroom, but nothing to match the scope and invention of those in the DxO Nik Collection, Exposure X7 or ON1 Photo RAW 2022. And to keep your images organized you need a tool like Lightroom to use alongside it.īut even this double-act doesn't provide a whole lot of creative inspiration. If you need to open a raw file it has to go through Adobe Camera Raw first, and that's not even the best raw processor out there. Despite its mighty reputation, Photoshop is just a photo editor.
