PRACTICALPHOTOGRAPHY.COM 133
E DI T I NG S OF T WA R E
Editing suites come in a wide range of styles and sizes.
Whether it’s aimed at a specific genre, or provides
unlimited creative opportunities, there’s a perfect fit for
al l users. Of course, this does make our job a touch more
complicated. While ON1 produces one of the finest RAW
developing suites on the market, it won’t appeal to those
wanting to make the creative edits other suites offer.
Likewise, LandscapePro may be ideal for novices, but
it lacks the power of Affinity Photo, or the catalogue
function of Adobe’s Lightroom and Skylum’s Luminar.
That said, we have taken factors such as ease of use,
creative potential and value for money into consideration
to bring you our top three.And the winning software is...
Affinity Photo has to be our clear winner. It’s a more
than capable contender for Photoshop’s long-established
crown on the editing front, and it’s packed with creative
fr eedom. It might not offer quite the same amount
of power when it comes to a library feature, such as
Lightroom or ON1’s Photo RAW, but the comprehensive
li st of features, intuitive design and price assure itthe
to p spot in test. It’s even being slated for more upgrades
in the coming months, so will only get better.
Our number two pick is the subscription-basedAdobe
Creative Cloud Photography plan. The £10 pay-monthly
model opens the software up to those who may never
have considered it previously at a hefty one-off payment.
For the price, you’re effectively getting two comprehensive
software packages with unlimited creative possibilities,
industry-leading tools and one of the largest education
networks on the planet. With so much going for it, it’s
a worthy runner-up.
Finally, taking third spot on the podium is Skylum’s
Luminar 3. Consistently raising its game, the latest
version packs in a rather comprehensive library function
for organisation, intuitive tools to create complex edits
in seconds and an easy-to-use interface that makes it
ideal for beginners.Overall verdict
“AFFINITY IS A MORE THAN
CAPABLE CONTENDER FOR
PHOTOSHOP’S CROWN”
KEY: Bestperformingeditingsoftwareunderourtestconditions HighlyrecommendedproductAt-a-glance results Minimum system requirements RAW conversion Layers functionLibrary^ Price RATINGADOBE
PHOTOSHOPELEMENTS 2019Mac OS X 10.12
Windows 7 Ye s Yes Ye s £85ADOBE
CCPHOTOGRAPHYPLANMac OS X 10.12
Windows 7 Ye s Yes Ye s £10 p/mANTHROPICS
LANDSCAPEPRO3 STUDIOMac OS X 10.7
WindowsVista Yes Ye s No £50CYBERLINK
PHOTODIRECTOR 10Mac OS X 10.11
Windows 7 Ye s Yes Ye s £64ON1
PHOTORAW 2019Mac OS X 10.11
Windows7 64-bit Ye s Yes Ye s $80SERIF
AFFINITYPHOTOMac OS X 10.9
Windows7 64-bit Ye s Yes No £49
SKYLUM
LUMINAR 3Mac OS X 10.11
Windows 7 64-bit Ye s Ye s Ye s £65Above Affinity is
taking the editing
world by storm.Left & below
Photoshop sets the
industry standard,
hile Luminar packs
n powerful features
and a library
function.