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Gallery
26 January 2012
Watch out Photoshop?
Heading: Photoshop.
Why should Photoshop have it all its own way? Rod Lawton finds out if PhotoPlus X5 can beat Adobe at its own game.
Photoshop has become a byword for image editing. Pictures arent enhanced, theyre Thotoshopped. But Photoshop is extremely expensive, especially for amateurs, while the cheaper, more amateur – orientated Photoshop Elements lacks many of its high – end features. Does this leave a gap for a powerful, low – cost image editor such as PhotoPlus X5?
PhotoPlus really is like a cut – price Photoshop. The program interface, which has been subtly updated, has a vertical tool panel down the left – hand side, the contents of which will look pretty familiar to anyone whos used Photoshop, and on the right of the screen is a series of stacked palettes offering Adjustments, Layers, Channels, Macros, History and more.
But Photoshop has moved on. This is what it used to look like, and in many respects PhotoPlus looks more like Photoshop Elements now. It offers features that Elements doesnt, such as channel adjustments, curves and more advanced black – and – white conversion tools, but a fly – out How To panel on the left shows that Serif is also targeting novice and intermediate users, which is Photoshop Elements territory.
GETTING ORGANISED
This rivalry with Elements is emphasised by the new PhotoPlus Organiser application. It fills exactly the same role as the Elements organiser, bringing all of your photos together into a centralised catalogue, where you can apply tags to photos, create smart albums based on specific search criteria, locate your photos on a map and even stack related photos so that they dont become separated.
You can open photos from the Organiser, and open the Organiser to find photos from within PhotoPlus. When you save a new version of a picture, it appears in the same folder as the original in the Organiser. But it doesnt offer to stack the new version with the existing picture like Elements very usefully does.
The Organiser looks rather dated compared to the Elements version, and it has a few rough edges. Its less sophisticated —theres no equivalent to Elements 10s visual search tools, or its built – in quick image fixes, although you can open pictures in the PhotoFix window. You do get a set of photo projects, worth 19.99, courtesy of Serifs CraftArtist scrapbooking software, and you can also upload your photos to Facebook or Flickr.
The new Organiser is the big news, but there have been enhancements to the main PhotoPlus editor too. You can now adjust vibrancy as well as saturation —the Vibrancv adjustment targets the weaker colours for enhancement, and avoids over – saturating skin tones. A new Clarity filter applies a localised contrast effect that makes outlines stand out more clearly and gives photos more punch. The Brightness and Contrast adjustment tool has been improved, as has the Adjustment panel, and there are some new blend modes to create different effects when combining image layers.
A PHOTOSHOP BEATER?
PhotoPlus X5 mimics Photoshop and Elements very closely, right down to the way adjustments are made. Like the Adobe programs, PhotoPlus no longer applies adjustments directly to image layers the old – fashioned way —instead, you choose one from the panel, and its applied as an adjustment layer, together with a mask, which you can use to limit the area the adjustment is applied to.
Its list of features places it somewhere between Elements and Photoshop, with support for channels and the Pen tool for paths and shapes. It also has features you dont find in cither Adobe program, including the PhotoFix tool and the Cutout Studio.
But in many ways, PhotoPlus falls short. The Organiser lacks the automatic version sets of Elements, and will overwrite your original photos unless you remember to save new versions. It also failed, with an insufficient memory warning, despite using a test machine with six times the minimum RAM requirement.
While X5 comes with a raw converter, it doesnt support the same range of cameras as Adobe Camera Raw, its adjustment tools are limited, and its highlight recovery is very poor, often producing strong colour casts or severe under – exposure.
Its difficult to see the thinking behind separating out the PhotoFix tool. This separate window, available in both the organiser and the main editor itself, offers a stack of expanding panels for fixing white balance, lighting, chromatic aberration, lens distortion and more. These arent simplified, semiautomatic enhancements. Theyre quite complex manual adjustments —you can even mask the parts of the image you dont want to modify, as well as cropping the picture, removing spots and fixing red – eye. A series of preset adjustments on the left – hand side can speed things up, but in the end it feels like using one image editor inside another. Its odd and confusing. What can you do here that you cant do in the regular PhotoPlus X5 window, and why split and/or duplicate common adjustments and present them in such different ways?
The Cutout Studio is interesting, but this too feels a little superfluous. Its meant to make it easier to cut objects out by defining and adjusting the areas you want to keep and those you want to discard. It looks like Photoshops old Extract tool, but really it just works like the Quick Selection tool in Photoshop, and with limited selection adjustment options the results are disappointingly patchy.
In fact, the word patchy could be used to sum up the whole program. PhotoPlus X5 starts out with a great premise, as a potential Photoshop – beater at a fraction of the price. But in reality it doesnt even compare that well with Photoshop Elements.
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