Photo-editing software

Photoshop is often used as the yardstick for judging all other photo editing programs – but is that the right way to look at it? It’s unlikely any other program will be better at being Photoshop than Photoshop is, but some programs can do things Photoshop CC doesn’t.

For example, a lot of people don’t like subscription plans. It’s the only way to get Photoshop now, but many photographers would prefer to pay a single licence fee. While Photoshop is slick and efficient, it does demand a certain technical knowledge that beginners might find intimidating. And you can create almost any effect you can imagine in Photoshop, but often only with a great deal of work and expertise, whereas many rivals bring one-click presets that do all these things in a fraction of the time, and offer instant inspiration too.

Photoshop doesn’t organise your photos, either. You can do that in Lightroom, the other half of the Adobe Photography Plan subscription package, but that means switching between applications for different jobs. For many photographers, an all-in-one cataloguing, enhancement, editing and effects tool could be a much better option.

Over the next few pages, then, we’re going to steer a path through all these