Cyberlink Photo Director 2011

With PhotoDirector 2011, CyberLink advances to photo management and processing from the video area they are good at. Cyberlink is known for its PowerDVD and PowerDirector software. This software is a convincing debut in which they were inspired by Adobe’s PhotoShop Lightroom. It is really a well thought out photo processing tool for semi professionals.

The interface of this software looks very similar to Cyberlink’s video editor. The interface is very attracted and user friendly that it can get you started right away. The main menu consists of three points which mark the working steps during photo management. Under ‘Library’, photos can be imported and organized or tagged in projects, collections and albums. Moreover, an access to the metadata of a photo is available here. During import, PhotoDirector supports many RAW formats with focus on the camera of the two market leaders, Canon and Nikon. Using the filter and search function, you can quickly find the desired images. ‘Smart Albums’ helps sort the images automatically as per the individual criteria, for example date or file name or file type.

Photos can be properly tuned and processed in the Adjustments section. Using parameters, the complete image and masked ranges can be adjusted, retouched and improved. A batch mode offers options to make changes by clicking on several photos at once. Advanced users can save their manual settings to use them as a macro in the future. The software allows you to edit your photos via various sliders. As you keep moving the sliders, the photo changes to show the effect applied to it. For ease of use, similar settings a grouped together, such as sharpness, brightness and saturation are grouped together.

The good thing about this photo editing software is that it uses non-destructive editing, which means that it will always keep the original photo even if you create several edited versions of your photos. You can also view the log of all changes made on a photo in depth. The software also lets you do a side by side comparison of your photos before and after editing, thereafter letting you see how your photos are gradually evolving. The multi-monitor support is also very handy as it lets you see and edit photos over two computer monitors.

The best way to be able to assess the effects of different functions on a photo is to place a virtual copy of it. These copes requires space on the hard disk only if exported. Using the ‘Adjustment process’, you can access all the changes that are mad and can get back to any processing time period. Under the ‘Slide Show’ menu, photos can be exported as an automatic image gallery. A slide show can be displayed as H.264, MP4 or WMV formats and can also be uploaded on YouTube immediately. Moreover, individual photos can be exported in the library as a file or stored on photo websites such as Flickr or Facebook.