Stephen Walton Photography Workshops

I don’t care what you say, it’s still the King of photo editing – Photoshop does everything you need and I think every photographer should use it.

It’s been a part of my photo workflow since about 2006 and I’ve used it almost every day since so I’m pretty comfortable with all it can do.

And to be fair in this assessment I’ve also spent time editing photos with Lightroom, Affinity Photo, Luminar, On1, Snapsneed, Canon/Nikon native editors, and many more. And after all that I’d still use Photoshop over all of the others.

Show Me What You’ve Got…

I’d like to think not, and here’s why. Tell me something Photoshop can’t do that another piece of editing software can? I’m quite confident there aren’t any tools, important functions or features that Photoshop can’t replicate in one way or another.

It feels that much other software (Affinity Photo for example) was built off the back of Photoshop anyway. The interfaces are alarming similar making it look like an admiring copy but without a clear reason of what makes it different – was it just the pricing structure that makes Affinity Photo more appealing? I can understand that.

Changing with the Times

Photoshop admittedly fell behind when new boys rolled on to the scene, like it’s little sister Lightroom and bigger challenges such as Affinity and Luminar. They posed new offerings to new photographers learning photo editing using more streamlined and accessible platforms.

• Lightroom just looked better – sliders are easy to follow rather than curve graphs.
• Luminar gave us innovative Sky Replacements which changed the game – but then they went too far with AI (but that’s another story)
• Affinity Photo removed the designer/illustrative tools from the menus and just focused on photography ones.

All these features Photoshop noticed and counteracted for. The built-in Camera Raw so you can now get the Lightroom experience inside Photoshop. It’s only the cataloguing feature Lightroom has going for it now! eek!

Photoshop adapted and brought out its own sky replacement too to rival Luminar’s – and it’s pretty good. They even went one step further and added more advanced tools such as colourising B&W shots (and despite being in beta phase at the moment they’re quite accurate).

They’ve Woken Up (at last)

Photoshop, I feel, is growing again and taking notice of the community is was taking for granted for so long – sorry but it’s true. But when you’ve got no competition it’s easy to get complacent.

We should be thankful for all these competitors coming into the market to shake up Photoshop and really deliver the technology we need as photographers.

But as ever I want to know, do you agree or not? Is Photoshop the King of Editing still or is it still missing a trick? Let me know,