THE BEST PH
OTO EDITING SOFTWARE COMPANIES OF 2021
HOW WE CHOSE THE BEST PHOTO EDITING SOFTWARE
Whether you’re a design professional creating high-end art or advertising or you just want to make memes from photos you took on your phone, you need photo editing software to help you finish your task. We’ve evaluated the top contenders based on the factors that we think are most important: editing tools, efficiency solutions, and integrations.
EDITING TOOLS
We recommend software that provides a wide selection of editing tools, including RAW editing, noise reduction, and color editing. Other valuable editing tools include:
- Image enhancement:With these tools, you can resize images, increase or decrease contrast, crop images, make images darker or lighter, and remove unwanted reflections.
- Photo restoration: These tools allow you to work with older photos, including physical photos that haven’t held up well with time. Photo restoration tools let you restore crease lines and tears, lost color and tone, faded colors, and missing areas of the photo.
- Image clipping: Use these tools to add realistic shadows, remove backgrounds or distractions, and retouch photos.
- Image manipulation: When you want to create something new, these tools allow you to colorize photos, add elements to existing photos, and composite photos together.
EFFICIENCY SOLUTIONS
Professional graphic designers need to work quickly and efficiently, so we paid close attention to the efficiency solutions available in the photo editing software we reviewed. With efficiency tools like batch processing, you can edit up to hundreds of photos at once, adding filters and resizing across multiple photos. Edit history features also increase efficiency, with versioning allowing you to correct mistakes easily and get the most out of your images.
INTEGRATIONS
Photo editing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Your toolbox gets bigger and more functional when your photo editing software has the ability to integrate seamlessly with other image editing and photography tools, as well as third-party plug-ins. Working with pre-built integrations brings a layer of convenience to your editing work and frees up creativity.
THE 15 BEST PHOTO EDITING SOFTWARE PROGRAMS OF 2021
ADOBE LIGHTROOM CLASSIC
Adobe Lightroom Classic is aimed at professional photographers. While you may have previously known it as “Lightroom,” that title is now targeted at consumers, is only available on the cloud, and doesn’t contain all the features professionals are likely to need. Lightroom Classic, on the other hand, delivers the ability to import, correct, and organize all your photos. Its smooth workflow interface pairs with adjustment tools aimed at correcting and modifying lighting, geometry, and color, as well as lens-based correction tools. The software also provides superb organization and management tools, and it supports plug-ins and mobile apps.
Lightroom Classic continues to receive regular updates to its features, including interface updates. Recently added features include a texture slider, custom ISO-based presets, local hue adjustments, an Enhance Details tool, and flat-field correction tools. Other useful features include panorama stitching tools, HDR tools, and facial recognition. While Lightroom Classic handles cloud integrations and has a mobile app, it’s primarily designed for desktop use, with original photos stored on your local hard drive rather than in the cloud (as is the case with Lightroom).
| PRICE | FREE TRIAL/DEMO | FEATURES |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at $9.99/month | 7-day free trial | >Deployment: Windows >Support options: Chat >Features include RAW editing, color editing, and control and noise reduction >More features at Adobe |
Pros & Cons of Adobe Lightroom Classic Photo Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom Classic streamlines the work involved with processing large photo sessions, with batch editing features that are straightforward and easy to use. The ability to shoot tethered speeds up photo shoots, and the flexibility to make minute adjustments of color, exposure, and more helps photographers get the exact shot they want. However, the software’s file libraries and collections can be confusing.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| >Face detection and tagging capabilities help with organization >Clean, easy-to-use interface >Seamless integration with Photoshop and other parts of the Adobe Creative Suite | >Requires a subscription >No integrations |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers tend to view Adobe Lightroom Classic as the state-of-the-art software against which other contenders are compared, saying they “can’t think of a better product/software for photography editing and retouching.” They praise its “flexibility” and its “ability to save and upload presets.” However, some users find that the catalogs “aren’t as easy to navigate and switch between.”
ANTHROPICS PORTRAITPRO
As its name hints, Portraitpro by Anthropics is photo editing software specifically designed for working on photo portraits. Its AI-powered tools employ ClearSkin5 technology to map facial contours and retouch skin. A face sculpting tool works with sliders to adjust for distortion, and the Expressions slider helps adjust the shapes of eyes, mouths, and eyebrows to subtly tweak the facial expressions of portrait subjects. Masking tools are precise and easy to use, allowing restrained adjustments even to hair color.
Portraitpro also features makeup tools to add eyeshadow, lipstick, and blush to photos, with a wide range of colors and textures available. It offers lens correction tools and 3D relighting to correct lighting errors made in the studio. Customizable presets are available for quick, automated retouching, with special tools on hand to sharpen, whiten, and add catchlights to portrait subjects’ eyes. The Studio Max version of Portraitpro also offers Photoshop compatibility, RAW processing, and editing and automated batch processing.
| PRICE | FREE TRIAL/DEMO | FEATURES |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at $54.95 | Free trial | >Deployment: Windows, Mac >Support options: email >Features include batch processing, RAW editing, and edit history >More features at Anthropics PortraitPro |
Pros & Cons of Anthropics PortraitPro Photo Editing Software
PortraitPro makes it easy to retouch and edit portrait photos with its wide array of highly specialized tools and its intuitive interface. It provides support for profile portraits as well as photos containing multiple faces of different types. However, its hair color tools are a bit awkward and not always effective.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| >Easy to use >Offers smart airbrushing tools >Makeup application features are quick and precise | >No noise reduction >No non-destructive layers |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers consider Portrait Pro “one of the simplest solutions for portrait retouching,” saying, “the results are amazing.” Because it’s “optimized for portraits,” edits that would take a long time in other programs here “only need a few minutes.” However, some users point out that “it’s easy to go too far with an adjustment,” ending up with a portrait that looks fake.
CYBERLINK PHOTODIRECTOR
CyberLink PhotoDirector combines some of the best features of Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, and Photoshop Elements. This feature-rich photo editing software provides a clean, simple workflow with a user interface that’s powerful yet welcoming. It offers tethered support while you’re shooting, and lets you get creative with proprietary AI style effects that add painterly techniques to your toolkit. Stock catalogs are available, including a vast audio library for slideshows, as are professional design packs to give you a jump start on your projects.
CyberLink PhotoDirector updates regularly, with recent additions including new color tools, deblurring capabilities, and new text choices, including text kerning. Other powerful features include glitch effects, drawing tools, a body-slimming tool, dispersion and light ray effects, and photo animation. Express layer templates take the complexity out of photo editing, while the motion and multi-exposure tools can harness the vitality of video in a single image.
| PRICE | FREE TRIAL/DEMO | FEATURES |
|---|---|---|
| $14.99/month $43.99/year One-time purchase of $79.99 | 30-day free trial | >Deployment: Windows, Mac >Support options: Live support >Features include noise reduction, edit history, and color editing >More features at CyberLink |
Pros & Cons of CyberLink PhotoDirector Photo Editing Software
Users of PhotoDirector appreciate the content removal tool, which makes it easy to remove power lines or other unwanted objects from the image. The face and body beautifying tools are powerful and useful, and the workflow is intuitive. However, CyberLink doesn’t integrate well with Microsoft Office, which can cause problems.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| >AI style effects tools are powerful and unique >Content removal tool is useful >Easy to work with 3D images | >Interface can be slow and unresponsive >No integrations |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers find that the “wide variety of filters/presets is extremely useful,” and especially appreciate the ability to correct the angles of objects. They also appreciate the design of the user interface and the “advanced features like multi-layering and merging multiple photos.” However, customers dislike the fact that the “software can only be installed on one computer,” complaining of issues when the software crashes.