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Software

Updated: April 11th 2024

Image Editing and Photo Related Software

Foreword

I like to test software, especially the raw developers, photo organizers and editors. This post will be on a constant update.

The comments here should not be taken as reviews. They are just brief comments based on my own experience with them.


Reasons why I would never use a subscription-based software, aka SAAS (software as a service)
  • It's a money sink in the long run. It's an illusion to think it's cheaper.
  • I want to decide IF and WHEN I have or need to update
  • With SAAS you will always be a hostage of the software company in question. They have all the cards at their disposal.
  • If by some reason the referred company decides to stop the service you will certainly be very mad about this.
  • If someone else buys the company that makes the software you use as SAAS and decides to shut it down, you can't do anything, just cry.
DAM = Digital Asset Management
Image browser = feature that shows thumbnails of several images
Editor = Allows modifying elements of the image
Converter = To convert raw format files to something else

Best for Panoramas

PTGui ★★★★★ (Personal Pick) 

Function: Panorama Assembler
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
Speed: Fast

PTGui is by a far margin the best program to make multi-frame panoramic images. It's a very well made front-end to Panorama Tools, It's easy to master and extremely comprehensive. It can make even spherical panoramas.

To this date I never found anything like it.

Pros:

- Very, very fast
- Best in class
- Many types of projections
- Full control of every aspect of the process
- Affordable
- Can handle extremely HUGE images

Cons:

- None


DAM Software

Photo Supreme ★★★★★ (Personal Pick) 

Function: DAM
Platform: Mac, Windows
Speed: Fast

A nice alternative to the now-defunct Phase One Media Pro and maybe the best DAM still in production for Mac and Windows.

Works very well and can handle large photo collections. I tested with 150K images.

It has a very powerful scripting language and search engine.

It's fast but be advised, its thumbnails cache eats disk space like crazy. You may want to change the default thumbnail size to a smaller one.

The customer support is very friendly.

Download Photo Supreme

XnViewMP ★★★  

Function: Viewer
Platform: Mac, Windows
Speed: Fast

It's not a real DAM, but more a very decent image viewer and browser. It has some basic forms of search and very basic operations like resize, flip, etc.

Download here


Photo ExpressViewer ★★★★

Function: Viewer
Platform: Windows
Speed: Fast

A very fast image browser/viewer from the Sylkypix makers. Not free but affordable. Too bad it's Windows only.

Download here

EDITORS 


DxO Elite / DxO PhotoLab ★★★★★ (Personal Pick)

Function: Raw converter, advanced
Platform: Windows, Mac
DAM: No
Image browser: Yes
Speed: Fast

This is an amazing piece of software. If you need extreme exposure compensation, distortion control, noise filter and sharpness, you can’t go wrong with DxO. It’s by far the best program I tried for highlight and shadow recovery. It has custom modules for lenses and cameras to go beyond other software just can’t. 

Pros:
  • Stunning noise reduction tool
  • Very fast, assuming you have a supported GPU in your computer
  • Best highlight/shadow recovery to my knowledge
  • Optical modules can boost sharpness in a powerful but natural way
  • Stunning for Fuji X-Trans or Sigma Foveon sensors.

Cons:
  • Works just with Bayer type sensors.
  • No support for Intel HDxxxx GPUs

Customer support is excellent. Worth every cent ! 
DxO here for trial download, Mac and Windows, 30-day trial. 
Update on November 2017. DxO Optics Pro changed the name to DxO PhotoLab


Raw Therapee ★★★★★

Function: Raw converter, advanced
Platform: Windows, Linux, and Mac
DAM: No
Image browser: Yes
Speed: Fast

RT is an extremely powerful and advanced raw converter and photo adjustment software. 

It has an overwhelming set of features and demands a lot of time and dedication to master it properly. In my opinion, it's the most powerful photo editing software I used, by a large margin.

The highlights are the extremely comprehensive set of tools for sharpening, noise reduction and curves/color adjustment ones.

It works very well (if not the best) with the dreaded Fuji's X-Trans files.

But if you spend the needed time and have patience, this freeware program will surprise you as a very heavyweight player in the image processing arena. 

Mac, Linux, and Windows 

The good:
  • Extremely comprehensive demosaic and sharpening options.
  • Film color simulation by HaldClut profiles.
  • Powerful color control
  • Very advanced noise reduction options
The bad:
  • Very steep learning curve, especially from people coming from Lightroom.

Download: Rawtherapee.com


Affinity Photo ★★★★★ (Personal Pick)

Function: Photo Editor, advanced
Platform: Mac, Windows
DAM: No
Image browser: No
Speed: Very Fast

A VERY powerful retouching and adjustment software from Serif. It's fantastic and probably one of the best for this function. Extremely fast and responsible.

For me, it's the ultimate option for Lightroom image editor.

The interface, like all Serif's programs, is clean and easy to manage. There are lots of video tutorials. They did a quite nice job and the Affinity suite has everything to be a classic !

The layer management is superb and it supports many of PS plugins, but you need to test. I was able to use the Nik Collection and Noiseware Professional on my Mac but I didn't test on Windows.

It's also cheap ($49) and you'll have upgrades forever, and they do a lot of them. Highly recommended!

Download HERE


Iridient Developer ★★★★

Function: Raw converter, advanced
Platform: Mac
DAM: No
Image browser: Yes (well, sort of)
Speed: Good

It's paid but affordable. It's VERY good with Fuji's RAF files, delivering stunning details well over Lightroom. Also capable and good for Sigma Foveon X3F raw files.

Kudos to the developer, Iridient Digital. I really appreciate this very high-quality converter and the extremely friendly support.

There are Fuji film simulation profiles that can be used with Fuji X-Trans files. Look here and here.

Sharpening should be used with caution. It tends to oversharp and to create artifacts with the default settings. 

It's a very good choice if you don't dare to use RawTherapee or Silkypix 8 Pro to work with Fuji X-Trans files.

The drawbacks are:
  • Mac only
  • The user interface is not the best one around. Actually, it sucks at this point and very confusing sometimes.
  • Very annoying with batches, but works.
  • No support for Sigma Quattro series
The developer's technical support is excellent. 

Silkypix ★★★★★ (for the quality, but ★ for the speed)

Function: Raw converter, advanced
Platform: Windows, Mac
DAM: No
Image browser: Yes

Speed: horrendous, a truly CPU hog with no GPU acceleration. Recommended just if you have a very powerful Windows-based PC with at very powerful CPU like a Ryzen 7 or an i5/i7 10th generation with a minimum clock frequency of 3.5 Ghz.

It’s a fantastic digital lab for processing large collections in batch. The “tastes” (presets) are very easy to make and it’s a damn good program in terms of sharpening algorithms, especially the "pure detail", present since version 6 Pro. 

It can handle raw files of the pre-Merrill Sigma Foveon Cameras (but not the SD9/SD10) and it’s much better than Sigma Photo Pro. Perspective control, retouching, cropping and rotation are a breeze to do. Can’t manage Sigma Merrill or Quattro X3F files (shame on you Ishikawa!)

Works VERY well (version 7 and up) with Fuji X-Trans sensor, especially the color management and film profiles. Actually, to this date (Jan/2018) it's the best one for X-Trans in my opinion. 

There are OEM versions for Pentax and Panasonic with paid upgrades to the full version. Upgrades are rated at a fair price. My advice is that if you have any Fuji X-Series camera, it is to upgrade from the bundled OEM Silkypix to the current professional version. 

The last version in January 2021 is 10.x and it has some nice features like stacking and a better noise reduction, but still slow as hell.

The good: 
  • Excellent output quality
  • Excellent sharpening algorithms
  • Decent color management
  • One of the best fo Fuji X-Trans but nothing special for other cameras.
  • Works very well with Sigma Foveon SD14, SD15, DP1 and DP2
  • Good user manual
The bad:
  • Poorly designed menus with strange names and translations lending to confusion. 
  • Laconic customer support
  • No support for Sigma Merrill Foveon cameras
The ugly:
  • Slow, very slow processing. It remembers me of continental drift. Incredibly slow on a Mac (Intel and M1). I can't recommend it for Mac.
Download 30-day trial.

PictureWindow Pro ★★★★★ (Personal Pick)

Function: Image Editor, advanced
Platform: Windows
DAM: No
Image browser: Yes (outdated)
Speed: Extremely fast

Update: PictureWindow 7 Pro is now freeware !! 

Be advised: This is a monster disguised in something like the Paintbrush. Make no mistake, besides the weird and outdated interface, it can blow away almost any other image editor. Its masking and color correction tools are light years ahead of the others. 

The bad thing is that you really need to read all the 500-page manual to even be aware of what it does. By the way, the provided documentation is very good.

PW7 is NOT a raw converter. It can convert many raw file types via a DCRaw graphics front end, but it's an extremely powerful image editor and it's also extremely fast.

If your raw type is not supported, convert it to TIFF using whatever you like, then process the TIFF file with PW7. 

Sort of hate and love feeling. Learning curve is a bit steep.

Version 8 was released.

Aperture ★★★★ (discontinued)

Function: Raw converter, advanced
Platform: Mac
DAM: Yes
Image browser: Yes
Speed: Very Fast

Fantastic interface, very fast and very good on geotaging. 

It's a very powerful organizer, with a terrific search engine. The only drawback at organizing is it's not good (just acceptable) on hierarchical keywords. There's a third-party script that fixes this problem. 

Retouch tools are very good. It’s a digital lab and organizer. 

Apple's raw engine is pretty capable, do not underestimate it. 

Apple decided to kill it in 2015. My suggestion is to take it while you can. I will curse Apple forever for discontinuing Aperture. Shame on you Apple !!!

Update 1: Apple removed it from the Application Store. If you were smart enough and bought it before, you will still be able to download it from the old purchases tab. 

Update 2: Tested and working all OSX versions up to Monterey (need Retroactive).

Update 3: Tested with X-Trans files (XT1/XE1/XE2/X10/X20/X30) and working. Sometimes it freezes when doing raw adjustments on them.


Update 4: Will NOT run on OSX Catalina and beyond (officially)


Update 6: NOT running on the new M1 Macs :(

Raw Power ★★★★★ (Personal Pick)

Function: Raw converter, beginner
Platform: Mac
DAM: No
Image browser: Yes (simple)
Speed: Very Fast

It's made by some of the former Aperture's authors. For Mac only.

If you have a Mac, it's a must-have.

It can be used as a helper application for Apple Photos and as a standalone program. It's actually a front end for Apple's own raw engine (it's good, believe me) and it works very well.

The new version (2.0) adds some serious stuff to it, making it probably the best option in simpler raw editors category. It does the basic, but very well.

Version 3 has HUGE improvements over the previous 2.x with lots of editing tools and a much better image browser. Kudos to Gentlemen Coders

The last version adds some very useful features like the so demanded file browser and batch processing, some nice tweaks on the interface and new features, like the "Enhance" adjustment group and more.

It's inexpensive for what it offers and the maker's technical support is excellent!

If you need an uncluttered and easy to use raw converter (and you're a Mac user), it will give you a fantastic bang for the money. 

Highly recommended if you have a Mac

I hope that the author doesn't stop improving it.

Download: Gentlemen Coders or from Apple App Store

Adobe Photoshop Elements ★★★

Function: Photo Editor, beginner
Platform: Mac, Windows
DAM: No
Image browser: No (can use Bridge)
Speed: Good

It’s a simplified version of the Photoshop aimed at beginners. It’s reasonably cheap and a good alternative if you can’t afford the full version.

It does well all the basic stuff, but some features are severely crippled, like curve adjustments.

I use it just because I have some excellent plug-ins from Photoshop that are still compatible with PSE.

It’s good to know that old PSE versions are sometimes bundled with some scanners and low-cost tablets and Adobe offers upgrades for a fair price.

Adobe Lightroom ★★★★

Function: Raw converter, Photo Editor, advanced
Platform: Mac
DAM: Yes
Image browser: Yes
Speed: Good

Lightroom is not Photoshop, be advised. It’s a digital laboratory, like Silkypix and DxO. It can be used to adjust colors, levels, etc. and also to catalog your images, but keywords and tagging features are so-so (hierarchical tags really sucks with this program). It works well and it’s not very expensive. It’s slow and eats memory, like all Adobe software. It has a good interface. If you are familiar with PS, it’s a good choice. Not the best choice if you use Fuji's X-Trans sensors even in this page last review date.

Adobe killed the standalone LR and make it part of its dreadful "Creative Cloud" subscription-based use. I totally refuse to use subscription-based software, and I DO NOT recommend it unless you have an excellent reason to do this, it's a money sink in the long run.

30-day trial.

Phase One's Capture One ★★★★ (NOT RECOMMENDED - READ BELOW)

Function: Raw Converter, Photo Editor, Advanced
Platform: Mac, Windows
DAM: Yes (sort of, simple)
Image browser: Yes
Speed: Fast

Update on December 15, 2023

C1 decreed the end of life of all Express versions and all the existing installations will ke remotely killed. Users will no more able to access their catalogs will be locked unless they move to the subscription based version (or the "perpetual").

For me this was the most unfriendly step any company ever had to push people into subscription-based model. Better, read blackmail instead.

What's the point to disable already installed and working software ? This is the best way ever to make people angry and move to other softwares. Adobe must had a very loud laugh after reading C1 news.

Killing installed software that students and hobbysts (who are opinion-forming guys) uses is the most greedy and stupid movement I've ever seen. It's spitful.

Also their Loyalty Progam is aslo a bad joke.

Unless you have a very good reason to stick with them, my advice is to avoid this company. 


C1 is a heavy-weight professional tool to convert raws and make image post-processing and it's very good on this. It has probably everything someone will ever need, and it's a very high-quality software. I will not comment on technical things because this would be far beyond the scope here. Instead of this I will focus on the basic stuff and on what you get for the money.

C1 is definitely not cheap. In my opinion, it's just too expensive for what it offers.


Phase one is also pushing hard to subscription-based plans. I would stay away from this, it's just too expensive and a commercial trap. In two years you'll be paying more than for a perpetual license. Their motto should be "We want your money!" 


Situation in January 2022:
  • The Sony/Fuji Pro dedicated versions were killed. People that paid for them will be able to continue using.
  • Pricing for the perpetual license increased A LOT. They desperately want people to go for the subscription model.

Situation in 2023:
  • Express versions were remotely killed after january 30th 2023
  • Very harsh movement to force people to move into subscription 

Darktable ★★★★

Function: Raw Converter, Photo Editor
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
DAM: No
Image browser: Yes
Speed: Good

It's a very good and comprehensive image editor, best suited for image adjustments. 

Tons of adjustments and controls and well documented. There are hundreds of tutorials around and this program is a very strong competitor to Lightroom. There's nothing LR can do that Darktable can't. 


Worth a try and it's freeware. For Windows, Mac, and Linux

ImageMagick ★★★★★

Function: Command Line tools
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
DAM: No
Image browser: No
Speed: Depends on what you're doing

This is a monster. It's an extremely powerful command-line image processor. It's not a raw converter neither an image editor, but there are some situations that this is THE tool you need. Not user-friendly, but sometimes it's all you need. No interface, no GUI, just plain command line. It's a specialist tool.

www.imagemagick.org 

Fred Weinhaus made the best scripts to my knowledge to work along with IM. 

DigiKam ★★★★

Function: DAM
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
DAM: Yes
Speed: Good

DigiKam is freeware, and a very powerful DAM. Worth a try.


16. Luminar ★★ (several caveats, slow, bugs, subscription)

Function: Raw Converter, Photo Editor, Intermediate
Platform: Mac, Windows
Image browser: Yes
DAM: Primitive one
Speed: For simple adjustments, ok. For retouching, horrible and unstable.

Update in 2023:

Skylum no more sells perpetual licenses, just subscription. My advice is to AVOID it because it's simply too expensive for what it is.

Ai tools are not reliable and results are so-so.

The perpetual icense case:

It's a fair option if you are on low budget and what something easy to use. 

Has the potential to be an excellent program. At the moment (version 4.1) it's so bugged and has so many issues that I can't recommend it. Maybe I'll try it again, but not my priority.

Retouching tools are extremely slow and bugged.

Version 2018 will give you less headache.
(actually, try it and see for yourself the definition of a bugged software)


Lightzone ★★★★

Function: Photo Editor
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
DAM: No

Freeware. Very capable but strange interface. Works with X-Trans files. 
I need to investigate more, looks nice. 

Canon Digital Photo Professional ★★★★

Function: Raw Converter, Photo Editor
Platform: Mac, Windows
DAM: No
Image browser: Yes
Speed: Good

This is a pleasant surprise. It's a powerful RAW converter/editor dedicated to Canon's own RAW format. CR2 and does indeed an excellent job!

It has a file browser (navigator) and possibly all the tools you may need for adjustments and raw conversion.

It also allows remote tethering for almost all Canon DSLRs and advanced compacts like the G1X.

Available for Mac and Windows.


Sigma Photo Pro 6.x.x  ★★

Function: Raw Converter
Platform: Mac, Windows
DAM: No
Speed: Slow

SPP is something that Sigma Foveon users need to swallow and not complain, at least for what I learned from being a Sigma Foveon user for over 10 years.

It's SLOW. Period. But does a very good job with the dedicated Sigma Foveon files. Actually, the image quality from it is superb IF you don't need things like tone curve adjustments (read below).

It has some good points but also a MAJOR flaw:

Can you imagine a so said "professional" dedicated raw converter supporting tone curves just for the most recent camera models? This adjustment is available just to the Quattro generation. This is ridiculous, insane and stupid from Sigma.

Available for Mac and Windows.

Corel Aftershot Pro ★

Function: Raw Converter, Photo Editor, DAM
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
DAM: Yes, basic
Image browser: Yes, basic
Speed: Very Fast

Remember Bible Pro ? Corel bought it and changed its name. Good as an organizer and also a nice digital lab. Not fantastic but very affordable and usable. 

Don't buy it before doing stability tests in your system, be advised.

 VERY fast, cheap, but it lacks some important features like a good sharpen and noise reduction modules, but it can compensate for some features with the use of third-party plug-ins. You'll need to do some digging and a lot of experimentation.

The DAM is... functional. Not bad, but also not good. The search filters are just too simple and the hierarchical keywords management is very clumsy. But works.


The GIMP ★★★★

Function: Raw Converter, Photo Editor, advanced
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
DAM: No
Image browser: No
Speed: Fast

The GIMP is the strongest challenge to Photoshop. It's a heavyweight photo editor that can cover every single aspect of Photoshop, but many times in different ways.

The documentation is enormous, there are many dedicated plug-ins and all sorts of add-ons.

It's like Photoshop but it's not Photoshop.

ACDSee Photo Studio ★★★★

Function: DAM and basic editor
Platform: Mac, Windows
Speed: Fast

Another nice alternative to the now-defunct Phase One Media Pro.
Very affordable, but has far less features.

Photo Mechanic ★★★★

Function: DAM
Platform: Mac, Windows
Speed: Fast

A good DAM that can handle well hierarchical keywords, but the outdated interface and strange commands kept me away from using it.

Conclusion:

Paid Software

BEST DAM: Photo Supreme (by a large margin)
BEST RAW converter for Bayer-type sensors: DxO Photolab
BEST RAW converter for X-TRANS-type sensors: DxO Photolab
BEST EDITOR: Affinity Photo

Low-cost Paid Software

BEST DAM:  Well... Stick with Digikam or XnView (maybe)
BEST RAW converter  DxO, RawPower
BEST EDITOR: Affinity Photo


Free Software

BEST DAM: Digikam
BEST RAW converter: Raw Therapee, Darktable
BEST EDITOR: The GIMP or PictureWindow 8 Pro


Also, check what you already have or came with your equipment. Like I said before depending on your needs, the bundled software may be enough for you.
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