PCPhoto 
Software Image Editing Software 10 Top Imaging Applications
Software Image Editing Software 10 Top Imaging Applications
10 Top Imaging ApplicationsOur favorite software for photographers, from beginners to pros |
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Page 2 of 6  Apple Aperture 1.5When Apple introduced Aperture in late 2024, it offered a new kind of workflow for photographers working with RAW. The typical workflow—a standard set by Photoshop—is to work on one image at a time. Other steps of the workflow, from importing to organizing and comparing images, are left to another application. Aperture takes a different approach, starting with import and organization and ending with output, and encouraging you to work with multiple images from a shoot at once. While taking a broader view of the photographer’s workflow, Aperture is in other ways more limited in scope than typical imaging software. It doesn’t try to do everything or include features that aren’t photo-centric. Instead, all of Aperture’s tools are geared for the most common tasks and adjustments for photographers, from color and exposure correction to minor touch-ups like blemish removal and cropping. Image edits in Aperture are nondestructive. When you make adjustments, they’re recorded separately from the original file, so you always can return an image to its capture state. With version 1.5, Aperture offers several significant enhancements to its original recipe. TIFF and JPEG files are supported, so Aperture isn’t just for RAW users. The Loupe tool—one of the most innovative features of Aperture—has been improved, with more options for viewing pixels up close. Magnifications from 100% to 1600% are adjustable on the fly from a drop-down menu on the tool itself. The Loupe is as indispensable in Aperture as it was on the light tables of yesteryear for examining sharpness and details. Additionally, there are improved Color adjustment controls and a new Edge Sharpen tool. The Color adjustment panel lets you adjust hue, saturation and luminance on a per-color basis for red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magenta channels. Edge Sharpen provides luminance-based sharpening to localize effects on the edges of your subjects rather than globally. Aperture is for Mac OS only, but the good news is that version 1.5 now supports all Intel Macs, including the Mac Mini and MacBook. List Price: $299.  Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XIIf you want an all-in-one suite of imaging tools, Paint Shop Pro Photo XI is a good choice, with everything you need to import, organize, enhance and create your images. Several features are new to version XI, including the Organizer “photo management center,” special effects tools and Levels and Curves controls. Some of the special effects tools can make quick work out of usually tedious tasks. The Color Changer tool allows you to quickly change the color of an object in your photo—your subject’s shirt, for example—without requiring you to carefully trace the object’s outline with selection tools. Also new in this version is a Depth of Field effect that lets you emulate the look of using a fast aperture. In a few clicks, you can select the area of focus to keep your subject sharp, then use sliders to adjust the amount of blur and spread of the effect. When you’re prepping an image for printing, you may want to crop to specific print sizes. The improved Crop tool makes this easy, with presets for typical print sizes such as 4x6 and 8x10. Choose a format, then move the crop window to frame your subject. In addition to photo enhancement tools, Paint Shop Pro Photo XI also helps you turn your favorite photos into creative projects. Support for layers, vector graphics and text lets you use the software for graphic designs such as greeting cards. With a list price of $79, this is one of the most versatile applications for Windows available today.   |
