Best Photo Editing Software of 2019 - Programs for Less Than $100
Add artistic text for headlines, text frames of any shape, or text that follows any vector path. Apply sophisticated styling and ligatures, previewing all your available fonts and style sets in on. Im a new user for Affinity Photo. Ive bought it today and started using it. My problem is that I cant find the text tool on the left bar along side with the brush and other tools. Affinity Photo is the hottest new image editing program for the Mac and Windows. It has many powerful tools for making your photos really shine. But you need.
We thoroughly tested each program by manipulating the same set of photos to see how each program handled the edits. The programs all scored differently based on how intuitive the software's interface is. We also evaluated the photo organizing system to see how well the system helped us find and arrange our photos. Our testing helped us identify Corel PaintShop Pro 2019 as the best photo editing software in our review. Its user-friendly interface and advanced editing tools are good for both beginners and seasoned graphic designers alike. The photo organizing system helps you arrange your photos in a variety of ways so you will be able to find the images you need quickly.
Best OverallPaintShop Pro 2019
This software's basic and advanced tools can help you make professional-level photo edits to your images. The variety of photo organizing options allows you to create a system that makes the most sense to you.
Best ValueAffinity Photo
It doesn’t include a photo organizing system, but this program has some of the most powerful editing tools you’ll find in software you can buy without paying a subscription. It has a steeper learning curve for beginners, but it can help you become a pro.
Best for BeginnersCyberLink PhotoDirector Ultra 10
The editing and photo organizing interfaces are clean and easy to maneuver. It is a good program for beginners to learn on, but it also has the advanced editing tools that will satisfy a more experienced editor.
Product | Price | Overall Rating | Pricing | Editing Tools | Organizing Options | File Compatibility & Sharing | Help & Support | Supported Configurations | Trial Period | Ease of Use Score | Editing Tool Score | Number of Filter Presets | Organizing Tools Score | File Compatibility Score | Sharing Options Score | Help & Support Score | Windows 10 | Windows 8 | Windows 7 | Mac OS |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Corel PaintShop Pro 2019 | View Deal | 4.5/5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 30 Days | 100 | 100 | 99 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✖ |
Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 | View Deal | 4.5/5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 30 Days | 100 | 95 | 98 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
CyberLink PhotoDirector Ultra 9 | View Deal | 4.5/5 | 4.5 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 30 Days | 100 | 93 | 93 | 100 | 50 | 100 | 60 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Zoner Photo Studio X | 4/5 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 5 | 5 | 1.5 | 5 | 30 Days | 100 | 38 | 38 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 60 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✖ | |
ACDSee Photo Studio Professional 2018 | 4/5 | 4.5 | 2.5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 2.5 | 30 Days | 100 | 60 | 60 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
Affinity Photo | View Deal | 3.5/5 | 4.5 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 2.5 | 5 | 10 Days | 17 | 57 | 57 | 17 | 100 | 25 | 40 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Xara Photo & Graphic Designer | View Deal | 3.5/5 | 5 | 3.5 | 0.5 | 4.5 | 2.5 | 0 | 30 Days | 33 | 140 | 140 | 33 | 75 | 75 | 60 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✖ |
Best Overall
PaintShop Pro 2019
This program is really easy to use.
You can arrange your photos in several different ways.
You cannot make animated GIFs with this software.
You cannot post directly to online photo galleries using this software.
This software offers some automatic editing tools, which is helpful for beginners, but it also provides hands-on editing tools that allow you to tweak your images exactly the way you want.
The Smart Photo Fix tool allows you to compare the original image alongside an edited preview as you make alterations, which can help you make the changes you want.
The interface is clean and organized so you can easily find the tools and menus you need. You can organize your photos by rating, keywords, people and places to help you find your photos faster. It also keeps track of your images' EXIF data so you can look up the exact settings your camera used to capture your photos. It also works with a wide variety of file types, including RAW, PSD and PDF files so you can edit just about any project using this software. One thing that helps this program stand out from the others is its extensive help features and resources. The learning center tool allows you to get information quickly about any of the tools in the program. PaintShop Pro also has hundreds of tutorial videos on its YouTube page so you'll be able to find help on any subject.
The interface is clean and organized so you can easily find the tools and menus you need. You can organize your photos by rating, keywords, people and places to help you find your photos faster. It also keeps track of your images' EXIF data so you can look up the exact settings your camera used to capture your photos. It also works with a wide variety of file types, including RAW, PSD and PDF files so you can edit just about any project using this software. One thing that helps this program stand out from the others is its extensive help features and resources. The learning center tool allows you to get information quickly about any of the tools in the program. PaintShop Pro also has hundreds of tutorial videos on its YouTube page so you'll be able to find help on any subject.
Best Value
Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo
The interface is easy to navigate.
The advanced layers tools allow you to do more in-depth edits.
There is no photo organizing software.
It is hard to get a hold of this company if you have questions.
This software offers all of the advanced photo editing tools that an experienced photographer or graphic designer might want, including content aware tools, EXIF data, HDR tools and more.
While each of the programs on this review can make edits, this software creates the most professional-grade edits. Surprisingly, this program is relatively cheap and only requires a one-time payment instead of a subscription like many of the top programs on the market.
As a more advanced feature, this program's Assistant Manager allows you to make presets to each of the editing tools so that when you select a specific tool it automatically adjusts brush settings, adjustment tools, masks and layers to match your predesignated specifications. This program lacks a built-in photo organizing system. While it isn't necessary to have one, it can make the editing process easier when you can quickly locate your photos.
There are dozens of tutorials on the Affinity Revolution YouTube channel and even more throughout the web so you can learn various effects from experienced users. It is compatible with all the basic files along with PSD, RAW and PDF files. This program is available on both Windows and Mac so it is more likely to suit your needs. A full version of the software recently became available for the iPad.
As a more advanced feature, this program's Assistant Manager allows you to make presets to each of the editing tools so that when you select a specific tool it automatically adjusts brush settings, adjustment tools, masks and layers to match your predesignated specifications. This program lacks a built-in photo organizing system. While it isn't necessary to have one, it can make the editing process easier when you can quickly locate your photos.
There are dozens of tutorials on the Affinity Revolution YouTube channel and even more throughout the web so you can learn various effects from experienced users. It is compatible with all the basic files along with PSD, RAW and PDF files. This program is available on both Windows and Mac so it is more likely to suit your needs. A full version of the software recently became available for the iPad.
Affinity Photo For Mac No Artistic Text Tools
Best for Beginners
CyberLink PhotoDirector Ultra 10
PhotoDirector 365 Monthly$14.99
PhotoDirector 365 Yearly$43.99
PhotoDirector 10 Ultra
The interface is easy to use.
There are plenty of online video tutorials.
It only supports six file types.
This software is split into six different sections to help you find the tools you need without overwhelming you with too many options at once, which is especially helpful when you're a beginner.
A user guide is available within the application to help explain the various tools, and there are dozens of video tutorials online to help you learn and achieve more effects. You can add text and a number of text effects to your photos using this program. This software's watermark feature allows you to easily create and place an identifying mark on your photos so you can feel better about sharing them online. In addition to editing your photos, this software also allows you to create slideshows complete with music, transitions and accompanying text.
The Library section helps you to find and arrange your photos by rating, tags and name. To save you time, this program allows you to use batch editing to complete the same edits to a group of photos. It also features a content-aware removal tool which allows you to seamlessly remove items from your images and fills the empty space in a way that matches the rest of the photo.
The Library section helps you to find and arrange your photos by rating, tags and name. To save you time, this program allows you to use batch editing to complete the same edits to a group of photos. It also features a content-aware removal tool which allows you to seamlessly remove items from your images and fills the empty space in a way that matches the rest of the photo.
Best For Learning Adobe
Photoshop Elements
This program helps prepare you for other Adobe programs.
Photoshop Elements is the gateway software for Adobe CC. The program's interface is divided into Quick, Guided and Expert mode, designed to help beginning users grow and come to an intermediate editing level.
You can toggle between the modes to learn how to use the software until you are comfortable enough to stay in the Expert mode. Adobe offers the best editing tools on the market and this is made evident by its impressive content-aware fill tool, which allows you to remove unwanted objects, like trash or electrical poles, from your images and fill in the space believably with just a couple button clicks.
This is one of the only Adobe programs that doesn't require a subscription. You'll just need to make a one-time payment, albeit it a pricey one, of roughly $100. This will give you access to 90 creative filters, plenty of tutorials, HDR tools, blemish removing tools and many more useful features. Like many of Adobe's programs, this one expects you to work with other Adobe software to fulfill your editing goals. The photo organizer is a separate program that opens in a different window. While this is nice in getting you ready for how other Adobe software works, it can also be a little annoying popping between the two programs.
This is one of the only Adobe programs that doesn't require a subscription. You'll just need to make a one-time payment, albeit it a pricey one, of roughly $100. This will give you access to 90 creative filters, plenty of tutorials, HDR tools, blemish removing tools and many more useful features. Like many of Adobe's programs, this one expects you to work with other Adobe software to fulfill your editing goals. The photo organizer is a separate program that opens in a different window. While this is nice in getting you ready for how other Adobe software works, it can also be a little annoying popping between the two programs.
Best Built-In Photo Organizer
ACDSee Photo Studio
Photo Studio Professional Monthly$8.90
Photo Studio Professional Annual$89
Photo Studio Professional Lifetime
It offers a wide range of high-quality editing tools.
ACDSee Photo Studio offers over 60 filters so you can quickly add stylization to your photos. It also features plenty of drawing and painting tools as well as background removal tools.
However, the reason it didn't score as highly as other programs is because this software doesn’t work in layers, which is standard for most photo editing software. This means you cannot view and select your separate elements as easily as you can with other programs. This software also requires that you take a few extra and somewhat unnecessary steps before you can finalize your editing changes to your file, which is why it didn't score as highly in the ease of use category.
If you don't mind the lack of layers and the extra steps it takes to edit your photos, this program is a great choice. It has a phenomenal photo organizer that allows you to separate, rate and organize your images in a variety of ways so you can find them in the way that makes the most sense to you. You'll find plenty of online support including an active user forum, tutorials and live chat so you can find answers to questions quickly.
If you don't mind the lack of layers and the extra steps it takes to edit your photos, this program is a great choice. It has a phenomenal photo organizer that allows you to separate, rate and organize your images in a variety of ways so you can find them in the way that makes the most sense to you. You'll find plenty of online support including an active user forum, tutorials and live chat so you can find answers to questions quickly.
Why Trust Us
For the past nine years, we have reviewed photo editing software to find the best programs available. We spent over 85 hours in the last 12 months using these editing programs to manipulate photos. Our testers are skilled editors with backgrounds in photography and graphic design. We used the same set of photos so we could compare each program's editing capabilities against each other.
We contacted John Yoo, Head of Sales at CyberLink, to see what he finds most important for any photo editing software. He told us, 'The basic functions – crop, adjust exposure, contrast, white balance, noise reduction – all of these features are not only important but the software needs to be able to adjust these accurately and easily.' We completely agree.
Programs that completed edits in a quick, intuitive fashion while truly enhancing the photos received higher scores in our review. Programs lacking main features or offering them in a clunky fashion scored lower. Since tutorials and forums are such an important part of learning the photo editing process, programs with better instructive and help features scored higher.
We also evaluated each programs' help features and organizing abilities to determine which offered the best options overall. We paid attention to each program's ease of use to see which were best for beginners to learn on. Since file compatibility is such an important part of the editing process, we scored programs higher if they accommodated the main photo file types: JPG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, PSD, PDF and RAW.
How We Tested
We used the same 12 photos in each of the programs we tested to see how well each one performed basic and advanced edits. We began by using the most basic editing tools like cropping, red eye removal and filters before moving on to more advanced editing tools like using mask layers to adjust hue, tone and brightness, or creating HDR images. We compared the final images from each program to see which software performed editing tasks the best.
Some programs provided the same level of editing finesse but forced you to go through several unnecessary steps before completing a task. For this reason, we scored clean, simple and well-organized interfaces higher. This year's best photo editing software, PaintShop Pro 2018, beautifully creates basic and advanced image enhancements through an easy-to-use interface.
If the program you want requires a subscription, make sure you understand the payment schedule. For instance, find out if the $20 payment is due quarterly or monthly.
Affinity Photo For Mac No Artistic Text Tool
If you are a beginner wanting to become a more advanced editor, make sure you purchase a program that allows you to work in layers.
How Much Does Photo Editing Software Cost?
Beginner to Intermediate-level photo editing software costs between $40 and $100, though some programs are subscription based and require a monthly or annual payment that typically totals to about $50 per year. More professional-level photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop CC will cost you roughly $21 a month or more. Before deciding on a program, make sure it has the features and editing tools that you will likely use the most.
Things to Consider With Photo Editing Software
File Types
Most professional photographers prefer to work with RAW images since it gives them more control over brightness, color and overall image quality. PSD is another popular file type since it saves the individual layers of your photos so you can edit them at any time. If you plan on becoming a serious photo editor, it is best to learn to work with these files.
Most professional photographers prefer to work with RAW images since it gives them more control over brightness, color and overall image quality. PSD is another popular file type since it saves the individual layers of your photos so you can edit them at any time. If you plan on becoming a serious photo editor, it is best to learn to work with these files.
If you take a lot of photos and plan on editing them on a regular basis, it can really help you save time if you get a program that offers batch processing. For example, if you wanted all of your photos to be a little brighter, you can use batch processing to quickly brighten all of the photos you select instead of taking the time to do it individually. This feature is commonly found in the photo organizing section of photo editing software.
Simple Tips for Good Photography & Editing
Simple Tips for Good Photography & Editing
- One of the most crucial parts of editing is taking a good picture to begin with. You’ll save hours of work if you learn to set up your camera and lighting correctly from the start.
- To capture better details, get as close as you can to your subject while still keeping it in focus.
- Try not to work in direct sunlight, as the harsh cast shadows can be very distracting. This is why many photographers prefer to shoot on cloudy days or during the golden hours – just after sunrise and just before sunset when the light isn’t as harsh.
- If you must work in direct sunlight, try to counterbalance the sun's harshness with diffuser or reflector panels, the camera flash, light boxes, and shade.
- Learn how to use shutter speeds. To capture crisp details in fast-moving subjects, such as wildlife, you need a shutter speed of over 1/500th of a second.
- Engaging landscape photography often has a foreground, middle ground and background. Try to incorporate all three when taking a shot.
- When taking portraits, try to help your subjects loosen up. You’re more likely to capture genuine expressions and body language this way.
- Practice, practice, practice. If you want to get better, get out there and learn. Experiment with aperture sizes and learn which lenses and settings you like best.
- If you make too many edits, your image may look less organic, amateurish or downright bad. Be conservative with your edits – as the saying goes, “less is more.”
- Keep a copy of the original image in case you don’t like your edits. Before finalizing a photo, focus on something else for 10 minutes and then come back to it. Your fresh eyes will be able to tell if the image looks good or if it needs tweaking.
- Learn from the pros. Many photographers offer tips on YouTube or their websites. Ask questions and learn as much as you can.
- Pace yourself. Photography equipment and editing software are expensive, so you’ll likely have to acquire everything bit by bit.
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Course Info
- Duration:3h 31m 52s
- Skill Level:Beginner
- Released:February 5, 2016
- Viewers:9,838
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Affinity Photo is a powerful photo post-processing program for the Mac platform, combining raw conversion, photo retouching and enhancement, and compositing. In this course, Steve Caplin explores all of Affinity Photo's essential features. Each tutorial helps unlock another of Affinity Photo's capabilities, from its raw conversion and editing controls to its advanced selection tools, image enhancement features, filters and special effects, and compositing features. Whether you want to change the look of a photograph, scale and crop images, or create complex photomontages, each adjustment is completely nondestructive, allowing you to retain quality and incorporate additional effects as you go. To help Photoshop users who may be considering Affinity Photo, Steve also compares and contrasts the two applications.Skills covered in this course
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Welcome
- A number of users of Affinity Photo will be coming to it from Photoshop. So let's take a look at what's better and what's worse than Photoshop. A number of things actually work better in Affinity Photo. For example, here's a standard layer and we can scale it, rotate it, make it any size we want. Unlike Photoshop, when you scale a layer, you don't lose image quality. If I click on it, I can make it bigger again and you can see it still has all the original quality in there. Better than that, the Transform panel shows the size of it and it shows the angle by which it's been rotated and that means we can pick it up and rotate it back to its original angle with ease and it'll always remember the angle it's been rotated to. Now, you could say Photoshop does the same thing with Smart Objects, but this is not a Smart Object. We can paint on this layer. Indeed, we can pick up the Smudge tool and we can smear this layer. So unlike Photoshop, this behaves exactly like a regular layer except we can scale it to any size we want without ever losing that quality. And that is a huge bonus. Many of the filters behave in different ways. For one thing, the filters can behave more like adjustment layers. Let's go to the Layer menu and choose a Live Filter layer. And you can see that these all appear as filters but they can all be edited later. Let's take a look at the Spherical filter. We'll increase the intensity and where in Photoshop you have to make a selection first, in Affinity Photo, you can pick it up and move it over the image, you can change the radius and even when it's very small, you can still see the effect it's having there, and we can increase the intensity to go for a full round. Let's make that bigger. So, a very, very powerful way of using filters. We can either have it as a separate layer that's attached to our pixel layer. or we can merge it into it. In this case, I'm going to delete it. Some of the filters that have Photoshop equivalents just work better. Let's take a look at the Clouds filter. Here it's called Perlin Noise and, as you can see, it looks just like the Cloud filter in Photoshop except we can change the granularity of it in a way you can't do in Photoshop. We can zoom it in and out, so we can have it very small, very large, however we want it, and indeed we can change the level of detail in it. Affinity Photo has layer effects built in including this rather interesting Gaussian Blur. How about that blur as a layer effect? We can even say, let's preserve the alpha so it doesn't leak beyond the edges of the original image. The Shapes tools are very ita-vit-ive. Here's a double-star and we can change the inner radius and the radius of the secondary star here. We can change the number of points. It's currently on five. Let's change that to, maybe, eight. If we want to change the layer mode, all the regular layer modes are there. The difference is we can see what they all do just by rolling over them. We don't need to apply them first. And this makes the choice that much easier to make. We can copy and paste between documents and when we copy, Affinity Photo will copy a layer together with its layer mask rather than just the pixels on the layer, something that Photoshop doesn't do. You can apply multiple masks to a layer, so you could have several different ways of masking the same layer if you want. And where Photoshop by default limits you to 20 undo steps, in Affinity Photo, you have a massive 8,192 levels of undo. It is really unprecedented. Of course, there's a lot in Photoshop that isn't in Affinity Photo. There's no Paths panel, for example, which is a surprising omission, and, of course, there's none of the 3D technology that's been built into Photoshop CC. And you're going to find all kinds of other smaller omissions that may be minor, but they may just be the things that you need. All in all, though, I think you'll find that Affinity Photo offers the bulk of what you need to do in Photoshop in a very slick, modern environment. In some ways, much easier, but there are also differences in the interface that may take a little getting used to. It's certainly worth taking a look at it to find out if it's right for you.Practice while you learn with exercise files
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