You could be forgiven for thinking that image manipulation is the exclusive province of Adobe Photoshop. After all, "photoshopping" became a word for a reason, right? This massive, powerful, and expensive photo editor isn't the only kid on the block, though, and one popular Photoshop alternative is Cyberlink's PhotoDirector 365.
Cyberlink PhotoDirector 365: prices and plans
- Average price monthly subscription, but negotiate a year
First of all, this program is cross-platform and will work on a Mac or PC. Letting you choose your computing preferences is always a good thing.
- Cyberlink PhotoDirector 365 (Download) on Amazon for €54.99 (Opens in a new tab)
PhotoDirector 365 is a subscription service, which costs €15/€14 per month or €55/€50 per year.
If you prefer a one-time price for a perpetual license, you'll need to pick up PhotoDirector 14 instead for €100/€80, though surprisingly it's a PC-only option.
The subscription model offers some other features besides the app. You get unlimited access to Cyberlink plugins, audio clips, music samples, and SFX libraries, all of which are added monthly. You'll also get access to Shutterstock and Getty Images photo libraries, 50 GB of cloud photo storage, and hundreds of templates.
Cyberlink PhotoDirector 365: interfaz
- Lots of features divided into complicated categories
PhotoDirector's interface is incredibly clean and simple, sporting a dark, modern look that helps you focus on the image you're working on, removing most screen distractions.
You will find that the app is divided into sections, which can be easily accessed via buttons at the top of the screen. "Library," for example, is where you select a photo you want to work on. Any that you have already opened will show up here. You'll also find a section where 'recently edited' images are stored, as well as those you've featured. It's a great convenient way to get back to work quickly. Another aspect of the "Library" is the metadata section, which gives you editable access to IPTC information and tags.
"Adjustment" is probably where most people will spend most of their time - it's where you have access to all the color correction tools you'd expect, including a host of LUTs, a healing brush, a red-eye tool , various brushes and masking tools, and a large number of presets.
'Guided' stores the effects of the application. You will find many of them, some of which are computer assisted, others have more manual controls. Any changes you make will be saved to a separate image, without touching the original image.
If you need more handy manipulations, like working with multiple layers, adding gradients, text boxes, distortions, that sort of thing, then "Edit" is for you. "Create" lets you turn a group of photos into an animated slideshow, and "Print" is self-explanatory.
We have to admit that we were a bit confused at first by the title of these categories, which appears to be the software itself, as it recommends "doing all photo adjustments and retouching" before entering the editing module.
It's also confusing to find similar tools in different places. For example, you can work with skins in the "Adjustments" section, but also in the "Edit" section. We found that it wasn't as easy to move between sections as we had to save the changes we made first. However, once you know where everything is, you get used to such eccentricities.
Cyberlink PhotoDirector 365: Tools
- A growing number of useful and easy-to-use tools
PhotoDirector 365 is regularly updated and you will find new tools introduced throughout the year.
We were big fans of CyberLink PowerDirector - it's a complete video editing software (and one of the best alternatives to Adobe Premiere Pro). And one of the things we liked was the series of new updates and features it received. Luckily, the company's photo editor gets the same treatment.
The latest updates provide AI-based algorithms to improve grainy image quality, remove unwanted objects from the photo, or turn the image into a cartoon effect. You also get better lens correction tools, can automatically apply masks to multiple objects in a single frame, and get improved depth-of-field controls, to name just a few of the recent additions.
Every month, as mentioned above, you also get various content such as Halloween overlays, fall stickers, new fonts, background music, and more.
We appreciate the many "Watch Tutorials" buttons scattered throughout the interface. We found them to be a great way to help newcomers get acquainted with the many features of the software, and being a very versatile app, there's a lot to learn.
Cyberlink PhotoDirector 365 is generally well organized and its tools are easy to understand and use, at least if you are already comfortable working in similar environments.
Cyberlink PhotoDirector 365: Stability
- More problems than expected for software of this era
However, there is one side of PhotoDirector 365 that isn't as fun as expected: it's not very stable. During our exploration of the software, it crashed several times. We tested it on a modern Mac, with a 9GHz 8-core Intel Core i2,3 processor and 64GB of RAM, and it still lagged.
It even seemed to have trouble manually scrolling an image - we'd drag it around and then have to wait a few seconds for the images to catch up. It got pretty frustrating after a while. We found this issue even with a 517KB image!
This surprised us as this is version 14 of the app. We were trying out such simple procedures on one of the sample images that had been included with the software.
Finally, in the guided section, PhotoDirector 365 has some cool tools for editing faces. Sounds like fun, right? But we fought to make it work. The first time, the software got stuck in "processing" mode forever. The fans started. Nothing happened. We had to force close the app and start over.
When he managed to finish his treatment, he couldn't find a face, maybe the subject was too far away. We were once informed via an alert menu that she would not recognize a face if she was tilted.
Since Cyberlink touts its facial recognition software known as "FaceMe" which is ostensibly "accurate, smart, secure, and fast," we expected some of this technology to make its way into this photo-editing app.
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