I review a lot of software on Life after Photoshop but I rarely talk about ACDSee. Why? On the face of it, ACDSee Photo Studio 2025 is a powerful all-in-one photo organizing, developing and editing tool that embraces the latest developments in AI and is available both as a subscription and subscription free. So what’s not to like?
Life after Photoshop software reviews
Choosing the right software isn't easy and you often have to try quite a few different applications to find the ones that suit you. We're all looking for different things, and quite often a single piece of software won't do everything that we need.
So these reviews are designed not just to see whether the software out there is any good or not, but to explain exactly what it does and how it might fit into your workflow.
- Always download the trial version if there is one. My best guess at what photographers need is not necessarily right for you.
- This is an archive of all Life after Photoshop review content. There is also a curated guide to the best photo editing software.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 2025 review
Photoshop Elements 2025 verdict: 3.3 stars Photoshop Elements looks like the perfect family-friendly, subscription-free antidote to the complexities of Photoshop, with fun projects, easy Guided Edits and plain language. But underneath it’s cluttered, dated and confusing. There’s too much to see and do and too many ways of doing it, all on top of an old-fashioned workflow with limitations that quickly become apparent.
CameraBag Pro 2024 review: this simple effects tool deserves to be better known
Verdict: 4.5 stars CameraBag Pro is a photo editing tool from a company you might never have heard of, at a price which might make you think it can’t be very good. Well, it’s not clear why this software isn’t better known, but the bottom line is that it’s very good indeed. It comes with 200+ photographic effect presets, and they’re of a pretty high standard, plus all the tools you need to modify these and make your own. It even does basic photo enhancement and file browsing. It’s quirky and weird – at first – but at this price, and subscription-free, it’s an absolute steal.
DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite review
Verdict: 4.5 stars PhotoLab 8 is the latest update to DxO’s flagship photo organizing, image enhancement and editing software. The changes in this version are incremental but still very useful. If you’re upgrading from a previous version you might want to look closely at what’s new before you take the plunge. But if you’re new to PhotoLab then here’s the low-down. If you want to get the best possible quality from your RAW files and you’re prepared to put in a little time and effort, PhotoLab 8 is quite simply in a class of its own.
Adobe Lightroom Classic review 2023
Verdict: 4.5 stars Lightroom Classic is the traditional, desktop-based version of Lightroom. Its editing tools are powerful and versatile, aided by new and steadily improving AI masking tools. Lightroom Classic continues to be the professional cataloguing and editing tool by which all others are judged, though it’s not always the best.
Capture One Pro review (Dec 23)
Verdict: 4.6 stars Capture One Pro is not cheap. It’s not designed for beginners, and it doesn’t have Adobe’s cloud-based ecosystem – yet. But it’s excellent for tethered shooting, it offers both session-based and catalog-based workflows and its editing tools and output are superb.
ON1 Photo RAW 2024 review
Verdict: 4.5 stars If you want a single, all-in-one, do-it-all photo organizer, editor and effects tool, look no further. ON1 Photo RAW 2024 is in a class of its own. Other programs might give you better cataloging tools, better raw processing or a wider range of effects, but never in one place like ON1 Photo RAW does.
DxO PhotoLab vs Lightroom Classic – using PhotoLab for cataloguing
That’s an interesting question. PhotoLab 6 offers better RAW processing and noise reduction than Lightroom and more extensive local adjustment tools, but with the improvements to the PhotoLibrary in PhotoLab 6, can it also do the same job as an image cataloguing tool?
Affinity Photo 2 review
Verdict: 4.5 stars Affinity Photo 2 is not a huge leap forward from version 1 for photographers, but more a major refresh and rebranding for Affinity. It remains an extremely powerful professional Photoshop rival at an exceptionally low price. Its tone mapping is superb, its RAW processing can now be applied non-destructively and its central Photo personal is hugely powerful.
Topaz Photo AI review
Verdict: 3.3 stars $199 is a lot of money to pay for a simplified AI photo fixer and there’s not even a trial version, just an ‘unconditional’ money back guarantee. When it works, Photo AI is good, even spectacular, but the image and its problems have to fall within its window of fixability. Photo AI is also slow, over-aggressive with noise reduction and can only fix the right sort of blur.