Many who have followed market leader Adobe
into ‘the cloud’ have found themselves in a place that wasn’t quite as perfect
as some marketing hype had everyone believe. Here I highlight some impressive photo editing software applications that
still have both their feet on solid ground while offering terrific value for
money.
Cloud-based image editing software has its problems: paying an ongoing usage or
rental fee for the software rather than a one-off purchase fee, some real time
problems signing into cloud accounts, temporary loss of access to online assets,
and the underlying disquiet knowing that you, the consumer, has little or no
control over costs and accessibility in the long term. In this example, it’s a business model that
works well for cloud-centric companies like Adobe but it’s been somewhat less
so for its many (and loyal) clients.
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| I was quite
shocked when I first unrolled Affinity – expecting a lot of hot air with not
much to show for it. How wrong can you
be! Affinity was not only very easy to understand from the get go, but it’s packed
full of incredibly useful and effective tools. Everything pretty much makes sense in terms of
editing images to perfection – the biggest challenge between using this and your
regular software is in getting used to how efficient its tools are (I thought
most were a little more aggressive than similar tools in Photoshop). Like everything, it’s just a matter of getting
used to its quirks – most of which, I suspect, will be cleaned up once the
final version is published. |
Interestingly
these negative issues have effectively pushed other software companies to produce
alternatives – and that’s been a boon for both the industry and the consumer. This lack of a viable alternative has created
a gap in the market that’s being filled with some great graphics products, some
of which could even be termed Photoshop killers.
But in writing this I need to be careful – Adobe Photoshop is undoubtedly a superb
product - but it’s never been just a
photo editor. Its massive feature set
puts it in the hands of a very broad user base, including video shooters,
designers, pre-press professionals, publishers, colourists, illustrators and
more. In many ways it’s trying to be
something to everyone, with the result that it’s a large, expensive, complex and
in some cases, unwieldy beast if all you want to do with it is edit a few humble photos.
The advantage
that many new photo-editing products have is that they are often simpler,
faster and more specific to the job at hand: picture editing. Then there’s
the photo editing software being developed for the IOS and Android markets –
this is even simpler to use because it has to be gesture-driven - but that’s
another story.
To this end I never recommend Photoshop per
se, far preferring to barrack for Adobe’s excellent Lightroom and Photoshop
Elements, because both these products
are lighter in weight (i.e. occupying less hard drive space) and are almost entirely photo-centric
than their more complex heavy-hitting Adobe brother.
But how good
are these Photoshop alternatives, and do they provide a good enough reason for
die-hard aficionados to migrate permanently from parts of the Adobe camp?
Serif Affinity Photo
UK-based Serif has been in the software game
for years, albeit as a player whose products were either available only
online or were bundled with third party devices such as cameras and scanners. When you consider the massive number of
digital products sold over the past couple of decades, it wasn’t such a bad
business move. Back in 1987 its mantra
was to “provide affordable graphics
software for consumers”. Then I particularly liked its panorama maker (called
PanoramaPlus), though it also
produced a reasonable photo editor (PhotoPlus)
and an excellent page layout designer (PagePlus).
The company is now launching a new-look range of graphics
tools called Affinity – Affinity Designer,
Affinity Publisher and Affinity Photo – that specifically target
professionals in the industry. At
present these are Mac only - although Serif states there are plans to produce a
PC version down the track. There are no
sign-ins or cloud memberships required to get the best from this impressive new
software.
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As you can see in this screen shot, Affinity Photo is packed with good,
familiar and powerful editing tools. It’s an excellent non-cloud based
alternative to Photoshop.
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Serif claim that its new pro products are faster than Adobe’s because Affinity
has been designed from the ground up, whereas Adobe products have been continuously
upgraded from the same original core design.
It’s a big claim but in my tests,
Affinity Photo certainly operated smartly and, as a long time Adobe user, the
learning curve turned out to be not quite as steep as you’d expect. Most of its tools are similar to what I’m
used to seeing in existing applications (i.e. Levels, Colour Balance, Curves,
Unsharp Masking, Layers, Blend Modes, Adjustment Layers, etc) which makes moving
from one application to another somewhat easier.
Part of its extensive tool
set includes end-to-end CMYK editing (16-bits per channel), RAW file processing
and a content aware fill tool called Inpainting
(curiously similar to Photoshop’s Content Aware technology). But there’s no browser to speak of so you
have to rely on using the ubiquitous File>Open
command to open files in the software, or drag and drop the file [icon] into
the main edit window, or use an existing browser such as iPhoto or Aperture to do
the organising and importing duties.
RAW processing is slightly different to Photoshop, but to be
honest, the results, side-by-side, are the same. Once you are familiar with the speed with
which Affinity’s processing works (its tools feels a bit more aggressive than those
in Photoshop) editing is seamless. The
more you use it, the more its tools become familiar: Curves, Shadow/Highlights,
vibrance, sharpness, black/white point adjustment, contrast, and more) although
there are some subtle differences, but I think you can put this down to 'user expectations'.
Those that have been manipulating images
for years will find it hard to escape inevitable Photoshop comparisons.
There’s a very nice Undo brush which
is especially useful if you need to go back into an image to refine your edits.
Expect to find Adjustment layers, all
the usual selection tools, savable presets, and much more. I was pleasantly surprised with this product
– some reviewers claim it’s "not as sophisticated as Photoshop" but I disagree.
It doesn’t have video editing, video
layers, a professional browser function, or 3D animation capabilities – because
it’s a professional photo editing tool.
If you need design or publishing tools, I’d suggest you try Affinity
Designer or Affinity Publisher.
Affinity costs in the region of US$65.
Zoner Photo Studio
Though an oldish
application (released in 2004), Zoner is no less of a Photoshop killer than
Affinity – perhaps more so when you consider that this Czech-based product
already has a global distribution of more than three million users.
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Zoner Photo
Studio is a powerhouse for photographers because it includes everything in one
application – from a browser (seen here), picture manager, photo viewer, RAW
processor and HDR plus the benefits of a very sophisticated image editor.
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For US$80
Zoner Photo Studio 17 is quite a package – though it’s currently PC only. Unlike Affinity, it has an excellent (and
fast) browser and picture management component, a terrific RAW processing
engine and even more impressive, a very good HDR tone mapping and processing
capability (which I find far funkier than Photoshop’s rather tame Merge to HDR
Pro).
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This screen
shot shows that you can not only have a good range of powerful tools for
editing images - but it’s combined with a timeline viewer along the base of the
page.
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For a start,
this program far out swings Photoshop Elements in that its’ browser operates
more like Bridge than Elements’ Organizer.
It’s intuitive, with a full (star)
rating system, colour labelling, keywording, GPS, maps and batch operations, a
full EXIF editor, plus filtering and sorting capabilities. It’s the perfect tool for organising thousands
of images. But that’s just the browser. It’s also a
great-looking professional image editor. Zoner Photo Studio ships with an Import
module, a Manager module (the browser), a Viewer module (for fast image reviews.
This component appears very similar to Lightroom in the way it displays images
consistently and quickly), an Edit module (where all the cool tools are) and a
RAW file module that appears to be as sophisticated as anything Photoshop’s
Camera RAW can throw at you, maybe more, if you consider all the extras that
are also thrown into the mix. The
Manager module also hosts two HDR processing modules (tone mapping and exposure
blending), a panorama making tool, plus 3D imaging making. It’s a lot to digest.
The RAW
processor component is tough to improve on.
When I first used this software I couldn’t see any difference between
this and Adobe’s Camera RAW editor - in its look, its operation and with the
all-important results. Considering this
is only US$80 (for Zoner Photo Studio 17) it’s an awesome deal. When I originally looked at Zoner (a couple
of years ago) it began to dawn on me that perhaps there was both room and a
place in the market for programs other than those from the Adobe stable.
Zoner also includes simple ways to distribute your work to Flickr, Picasa and
Facebook. You can also upload your pictures to Zonerama
(www.zonerama.com), Zoner’s own photo gallery site where you can save, store
and show off your work, in unlimited quantities, across the full range of electronic
devices.
Pixelmator
While
Pixelmator is certainly one of the coolest photo editing applications you are
ever likely to see in the 'under US$40' section of the App Store, it’s also,
believe it or not, one of the best-featured applications too. For anyone wanting a full set of edit
features packaged into a relatively easy to understand bundle, this software deserves
a good look.
Many equate this program with Photoshop - though clearly, a single glance at
its interface would suggest otherwise. On
the surface this is a simple, even 'basic' type of photo editing application
with a wide range of iPad-type quick filters and effects. But scratch further and you’ll find a
stunning array of tools and features that bring Pixelmator well into the professional
editing arena.
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| Pixelmator
is either one of the simplest-looking applications in this review, or one of
the most complex, depending on how it’s used. Definitely one of my favourites
in this review. |
In
Pixelmator you’ll find a full range of tone enhancement tools, selection tools,
layers, blending modes, layer masks, layer styles, and effects, curves, HSL,
type and advanced text effects, vector shapes, a full range of retouching tools
(including a liquefy filter), transformations, painting, brushes and almost
anything else you’d care to imagine.
Again
comparisons are hard because Photoshop is an all-round mega-tool serving a huge
range of professionals, and applications, while Pixelmator is clearly designed
just for photographers. It doesn’t come
with a browser, but is designed for you to use iPhoto or Aperture (now Apple Photos) to do the
browsing. Works a treat! Amazingly you
can also customise the tool bar in this program. Open the preferences and drag your favourite
tools onto the tool bar to fully customise it – then drag the ones you don’t
like (or are less likely to use) off of the tool bar and they disappear in a
puff of virtual smoke. Very neat. I wish I could do that in Photoshop.
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As you can
see above, Pixelmator integrates seamlessly with the Mac, to use, in this case,
iPhoto as the browser to view, organise and manage your image library. Pixelmator is a beautifully designed software
app for the Mac. I’m assuming that once
Apple’s plans for an Aperture replacement are made public, it will only be a
short time before Pixelmator integrates nicely with the new software’s
workflow.
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Unfortunately,
like Affinity, Pixelmator is Mac only but, as such, takes good advantage of all
that OS X Yosemite has to offer,
including very smooth operation, enhanced speed, plus integration with other
Mac features such as Handoff. Start something on your Mac then finish it
off on the iPad. It’s that easy.
GIMP
Released way
back in 1997, GUI Image manipulation
Program or GIMP is a cross platform software application with a heck of a
lot of features in it, but seriously folks, it needs a redesign, plus a name
change.
Despite its very
impressive feature set, GIMP is never going to be a Photoshop killer. Users might be attracted to this product on
the basis that it’s been around for a long time and that it’s free – but then so
is Google’s Picasa – and that’s a slicker product than GIMP even though it
has a fraction of the tool set.
Still you can’t go past a program that boasts professional retouching tools,
masks, layers, channels and selection tools, not to mention all the usual paint
tools (including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone, etc) a powerful gradient
editor and blend tool, text editing, plus advanced features such as paths,
transformable selections, a quick mask function, real scripting capabilities
and much more.
Feature wise it’s an impressive read but I find the interface tough going. It really looks like it was designed in 1987 –
and that’s where so many of the harder hitting Photoshop software applications will
win out. GIMP simply doesn’t offer the
seamless productivity, speed and good looks of Affinity, Pixelmator and others.
LightZone
Somewhat
mistakenly dubbed "an alternative to
Lightroom" by some, LightZone is an open source professional-level digital
darkroom software program aimed at semi-pro and professional users. It features 16-bit RAW processing, a wide
range of innovative editing tools and a unique workflow (called the toolstack) quite different to
mainstream photo editors – but don’t let that deter you from giving it a run
for its money (even though it is free!).
LightZone
ships with its own photo browser
permitting you to view multiple files at any one time, much as you would using
Adobe Bridge. That said its browsing
features are quite inferior to those found in Bridge. LightZone’s browser uses a (star) rating
system (for quick show/hide viewing), simple batch processing capabilities and
a sort engine, but not much more. On my
system this simpler browser worked slower than Adobe Bridge.
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If you know
anything about Ansel Adams’ Zone System, you’ll be familiar with how the Tone
Curve works. Tones are split into a number of tonal areas, each of which can be
brightened/darkened separately to their neighbour so it’s not only difficult to
totally wreck an image (tonally), it also offers a more accurate method of
improving the edit.
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Choose an
image thumbnail, double-click and it opens in the editor window. In the LightZone edit environment you’ll find
a comprehensive list of styles –
these are the same as Lightroom presets - editing ‘recipes’ which can be applied to
the opened image just by double-clicking.
Scrolling over the styles menu previews the effect in the small
Navigator window, top left of the main screen (as in Lightroom).
You can also create your own styles and save them to an existing, or a custom
folder. It’s a really nice feature
that, like presets in Lightroom, makes the job of editing multiple images a
breeze. To apply one effect to other
images, select that file in the browser, use the Lift button to copy the toolstack, select the images you want to
apply everything to, and click the paste button to add those changes to
different single, or multi-image selection.
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As the name
suggests, it’s possible to monitor the precise tonal areas you are editing by
selecting the Zones Palette in the upper right-hand part of the main edit
window – so you can see what it is you are physically
sharpening/brightening/darkening, etc.
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LightZone
saves edited files with a JPEG-LZN
extension file (this default can be changed in the preferences from JPEG to a
TIFF file). The JPEG-LZN is essentially
a copy of the RAW file complete with a record of the toolstack used (i.e. the
effects applied to that file). Open it a
second time and the file, complete with all the tool processes, becomes
editable again – you can increase the existing edits by tweaking individual tools
in the stack, re-arrange the order in which the effects are applied, add more
or delete some.
Toolstacks work a bit like Adjustment Layers in Photoshop/Elements. While many of LightZone's tools might appear
familiar, they also have shared, multiple modification possibilities built in
that amplify their power and flexibility.
For example, most tools operate as you’d expect them to – use a slider
to make the tone/colour lighter/darker.
However to make the tool more accurate, you can apply that tool effect
to a specific colour in the image only (selected using an eyedropper, colour
swatch and gradient). If you need to do
a similar change to two colours, you simply add another toolstack and customise
its target colour. It’s a bit fiddly to
begin with but results in more accurate colour and tone control. Individually selected colours can also be
further refined by broadening the tonal range of the colour selected, much as
you might using Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation tool. Colour range targeted is helpfully displayed
in black-and-white in the Colour Mask window.
LightZone also offers some unusual tools for tonal control — meaning
brightness, contrast, shadows, highlights, etc. Some are inspired by the
(Ansel Adams) Zone System, and some are inspired by HDR tone-mapping.
These tools put LightZone in a class by itself for working with black-and-white
imagery especially. They're useful for
color photos, too, especially in mixed lighting situations. LightZone
doesn’t have a recognisable curves tool either – LightZone’s tone curve is
displayed as a (Zone System) linear tone gradient, enabling you to adjust any
of 16 tonal zones from black to white.
It’s a neat way to adjust images.
A tool stack can be copied to a batch of photos in one hit.
The combination of the individual tools' inherent flexibility, the flexibility
of the toolstack, its completely non-destructive editing in a 16-bit wide gamut
color space, and its intuitive GUI, make LightZone a remarkable alternative for
those not entirely comfortable with other mainstream photo editing software.
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LightZone
http://lightzoneproject.org/
Pixelmator
http://www.pixelmator.com/
Zoner Photo
Studio
https://www.zoner.com/
Affinity
Photo
https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/
GIMP
http://www.gimp.org/
