
Some of this data such as Stability and Learning Curve is rather subjective – it is based on my experience running the software, which might differ from other people’s experiences. Instead, we decided to focus on the key / most important features and include additional data for consideration, such as Stability, Performance, Learning Curve and Update Frequency. Please note that we did not list every possible feature and slider offered by each individual software package, as it would make the above chart unreadable. It was a pretty exhausting task to say the least! Below is the software comparison table: FeatureġSubjective opinion based on personal experience of the authorĢHDR Merge Tool in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 is extremely poor / unusableģAurora HDR Tool must be purchased separatelyīasic RAW File Editing (Crop, Exposure, WB, etc)ĭistortion, CA and Vignetting Corrections To come up with all the data below, we had to install every software package on a single machine and run them all for some time, going through and testing out the features. If you disagree with our choices and would like to see other non-destructive software included, please let us know in the comments section below (note that destructive software editing tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Elements, Affinity Photo, PaintShop Pro and GIMP should not be in this list). We recognize that there are many more out there, but we cannot include them all, since such research would take a lot more time and the chart would get massive, making it hard to read. We picked the following six software packages that offer non-destructive editing based on their popularity among photographers:

We decided to put together a detailed table that compares the most popular non-destructive editing tools on the market today.


What is the best software for photo editing? What features does it have? Is it easy to learn and how much does it cost? These are just some of the questions photographers seek answers for. Many of us go through that stage, especially when starting out. With so many editing / post-processing software packages on the market today, photographers might find it rather difficult to go through them all and compare key features in order to pick something that would ultimately work for their needs.
