PhotoPlus’s similarity to Photoshop is apparent, ideal down for the screen layout, having a tools palette on the left, tool solutions around the top toolbar and stacked palettes including adjustments and layers around the appropriate.But then the two programs diverge. PhotoPlus X7 also has newcomers in thoughts, and functions an array of Studios for producing different photo effects.
There’s a general-purpose PhotoFix Studio, by way of example, a Makeover Studio, Black and White Studio, Warp Studio, Cutout Studio and Print Studio.
This most up-to-date version adds help for Lab mode (helpful for particular kinds of colour adjustment), lens corrections and a Clarity filter which boosts neighborhood contrast for added definition.
The Clone tool is enhanced, with advanced live preview, the PhotoFix Studio has a Smart Brush tool for applying adjustments to particular areas and there are four new blend modes for layers, like Vivid Light and Hard Mix.
PhotoPlus X7’s new features are worth having, but they don’t address this photo editing software’s principal failings.
One problem is that it’s confusing. Why have a PhotoFix window, for example, which carries out what look like quite similar adjustments to the main editor window?
Another is the poor quality of some of the tools. The slow and ponderous Cutout Studio, for example, had trouble cutting out a dark grey jet against a near-white sky – a really simple subject.
Worst of all, though, is the Raw Studio. This supports most but not all cameras (there’s a list on the Serif website), but even here the quality varies massively between cameras. The results from a Nikon 7100 seemed all right in our test, whereas those from a Nikon K5200 looked dark and muddy.
As if that wasn’t enough, if you try to open a RAW file that PhotoPlus X7 doesn’t support, it doesn’t tell you so. It just creates a really bad conversion with distorted colours and muddy tonal rendition.
In itself, PhotoPlus X7 is a patchy but reasonable photo editor. But the low quality of its RAW conversions is a major drawback.
