Is Photoshop the Best Photo Editor?
I have always used Photoshop to do all of my photo editing. I went to school for design. Photoshop was what I was trained to use. I have spent hours and hours with training videos, written tutorials, books and more to learn Photoshop inside and out. Lately, there has been a huge uproar about Adobe switching exclusively to the Creative Cloud subscription service. A lot of people are really mad that they can’t purchase the disks anymore. Many designers don’t feel like they can own the software. They don’t like the idea of renting the software from Adobe. Many designers say that they will switch to a different photo editor. With that being said, is Photoshop the best photo editor? It certainly isn’t the only photo editor out there. Below is a list of some of the other photo editors that are available.
Pixelmator
Pixelmator photo editor
Exclusively for Apple computers, Pixelmator is a very popular photo editor. For just a minor price tag of $14.99 compared to other photo editors, Pixelmator is a very cost effective choice if you are on a budget. You can create custom shapes, turn text into shapes, and produce vibrant effects. There are also quick selections, gradients, light effects and color adjustments. Pixelmator could be a great photo editor for anyone on a budget.
Aperture
Aperture Photo editor
Aperture is another Apple app that is meant to perfect your images. This app is made more for photographers than designers. It doesn’t boast all of the bells and whistles that Photoshop or Pixelmator does. It is mainly used for color correction and tweaking professional-level photographs. Aperture does have brushes, which is great because they are non-destructive. This means that you can make edits and not ruin your images. Aperture also has a lot of built in color effects to create common photographic looks, such as cross-processed or black and white. However, I am afraid this photo editor just doesn’t pack as much of a punch as Pixelmator does and rings in at the price tag of $79.99.
Gimp
Gimp Photo Editor
Gimp, an open source photo editor, comes in at the impressive price tag of being free. One of the more popular photo editors, simply because of it’s price tag, It is for Mac OSX and Windows and has a customizable interface. Where gimp is unique is that it supports many different formats, even PSD files. So if you want to try out your Photoshop files in GIMP, you can do so. It also has some interesting hardware support and you can map different devices, such as tablets for use with GIMP. This adds an extra layer of customization and is worth looking into. Gimp comes with a lot of tools and it similar in layout to Photoshop.
PaintShop Pro X5 Ultimate
Corel, for some reason has always been one of those companies that does a good job with their products, but doesn’t get the recognition or publicity that they deserve. Paintshop Pro X5 Ultimate has a reasonable price tag of $59.99 and is packed with a lot of great features. In reality, you can do a lot of what Photoshop can do, but this photo editor also includes Nik® Color Efex Pro™ 3.0 photographic filters and portrait enhancements. It includes a lot of brushes and filters, and allows you to composite photos just like Photoshop. You can share your images instantly to Facebook, Flickr and Google+, too. Corel also put in a retro lab as well, meaning that you can instantly create retro effects. All around, this photo editor is a solid choice if you want a cost effective way to edit your photos, but don’t want to sacrifice features. This is a Windows photo editor.
Xara
Xara is one of those lesser known graphics and photo editors. Xara has a lot of the same capabilities that Photoshop does. It can even import Photoshop files. You can create shapes, draw, edit photos, correct colors, create gradients and more. You can even create 3D inside of Xara. Xara is only $69.00, so this photo editor isn’t expensive. One thing I like that stands out is that Xara has infinite undo and redo commands. I don’t know how many times I have wished I could go back further in Photoshop(you can add more history states, but hindsight is 20/20). Xara is for Windows.
So which one is the best Photo Editor?
Unfortunately, I can’t answer that question for you. It is really a matter of opinion. It would be like mechanics choosing between Craftsman and Crescent tools. Some will choose one, and the other half will choose the other option. The point of this article wasn’t necessarily meant to make an ultimate decision, but simply to let you know that you do have options, and very viable ones. You can cost effectively own a photo editor that works great, is fast and intuitive. You aren’t stuck using Photoshop is you don’t want to. Several of these options were reasonably priced and packed with all of the features you could ever want. Which photo editor do you like the best? Do you use another Photo editor not mentioned here? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
