CyberLink PhotoDirector

CyberLink's PhotoDirector combines the workflow features of Adobe Lightroom with the functions of Photoshop while providing the support that non-professionals need. The all-in-one photo editing application packs adjustment layers, guided edits, masks, and text kerning, as well as an ever-increasing set of generative AI tools. That said, the interface could use more polish and the performance isn't always top-notch. Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop remain our Editors' Choice winners for their slicker interfaces and deep, approachable collections of photo editing (and, in Lightroom’s case, organizing) tools.

How Much Does PhotoDirector Cost?

The non-subscription version of CyberLink PhotoDirector is PhotoDirector 2024 Ultra. It lists for $99.99. Just be aware that this version doesn't give you access to most of the generative AI tools I discuss here. You can bundle PhotoDirector with PowerDirector, an Editors' Choice winner for consumer video-editing apps, for $169.99.

As for subscription options, the $59.99-per-year (usually deeply discounted) PhotoDirector 365 tier gets you the photo program along with 50GB of online storage, content packs, and frequent updates. The full Director Suite 365 subscription is a $134.99-per-year plan that includes all of CyberLink's media software along with 100GB of cloud storage, content packs, and plug-ins.

For comparison, a three-year license for Photoshop Elements costs $99.99. For Lightroom, you pay $9.99 per month as long as you want to keep using it. ACDSee Photo Studio costs $99.99 for a lifetime license, and Corel PaintShop Pro lists for a one-time price of $79.99. The more professional-targeted DxO PhotoLab and Capture One Pro cost $219 and $299, respectively. Most of the higher-end photo software follows Adobe's lead in trying to get customers to sign up for a subscription.

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A fully functional, 30-day free trial of PhotoDirector requires just your email address. After that period expires, it converts into a limited version of the program. This version requires just under 1GB on disk, less than much of the competition. Note that the trial is not upgradable to the licensed version. You must reinstall the program if you decide to buy.

System Requirements and Getting Started

PhotoDirector is available for Windows 10 and 11, as well as macOS (10.14 and later). Both versions require a 64-bit processor and at least 4GB of RAM. It natively supports Arm-based CPUs with either OS.

A separate mobile version of PhotoDirector for Android and iOS is powerful, with a lot of fun effects and editing tools. The app is ad-supported, or you can pay $19.99 per year or $5.99 per month to remove the ads and unlock higher output resolution and more AI tools.

To get started, you must install the CyberLink Download Manager if you choose the trial or single-payment version or the CyberLink Application Manager if you choose the subscription version. As with Adobe's Creative Cloud software, the Application Manager makes updating easier. Once it's installed, you see the Launcher, which I cover below.

What's New in PhotoDirector?

CyberLink continually updates PhotoDirector, and subscribers receive new editing tools, effects, fonts, and templates as they're available. You can see every one of them on the company's handy What's New in PhotoDirector page. Below are some highlights of what's new since my last review, including the GenAI Studio interface section, which collects the program's assortment of AI tools.

• AI Background for People and Objects. You can move the subject around in the new background, and the updated algorithm can handle complex subjects like those with unruly hair.
• AI Face Deblur. This unblurs faces in photos and maintains background blur.
• AI Face Swap and AI Outfit. You can now swap faces with “friends, family, celebrities, [and] even famous artwork.” The second lets you turn up your fashion by generating new wardrobes.
• AI Headshot. This wizard takes you through the process of creating images appropriate for business or social network profile pictures.
• AI Image Extender. Expand your image in any direction.
• AI Replace. Easily select and replace parts of your image using text prompts.
• Image to Prompt. This is different from most generative AI: You start with the image, and the program generates a prompt describing it.
• One Click Face Retouch. This aims to save photo editors from the multi-step drudgery of editing faces.

Previous feature updates included an AI Art and Sticker Maker, AI Deblur for sharpening and adding details to soft shots, AI Denoise, an AI Image Enhancer for restoring old photos, an AI Image Enlarger for removing pixelation from low-resolution shots when you upscale, AI sky replacement, color gradient presets, Content-Aware object removal, Getty and Shutterstock content, and LUT support.

Interface

PhotoDirector's interface is generally attractive and functional, but it can take a little while to figure out where everything is. Guided and Expert mode buttons don't appear until you're in Edit view, which you have to switch to using a drop-down option on the top right side, far from the other mode buttons. After this initial puzzlement, I got used to switching to Edit view quickly. PhotoDirector lets you import, organize, edit, and export photos inside the main PhotoDirector application, which is simpler than the way Photoshop Elements does it with multiple app windows.

The Launcher highlights new tools with sample images along the top. Below are buttons for more than a dozen other tools. The first three, In bright yellow, are those you're most likely to click: Edit, Organize and Adjust, and GenAI Studio. You can customize the array of buttons to taste. By default, the Launcher appears on initial startup and also, illogically, after you close the program. (You can turn off that behavior.)

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The program starts quickly, and most editing operations are snappy, but it takes longer to load images than other apps like Lightroom. On the first run, you see a helpful Quick Start tutorial window that introduces the program's features and provides links to online tutorials.

Modes

As is common among pro- and near-pro-level photo workflow apps, PhotoDirector uses modes. That means you see global tabs or buttons that switch the interface among different functions, usually organizing, editing, and sharing. PhotoDirector has five modes: Library, Adjust, Create, Edit Guided, and Edit Expert. You have to switch to the Edit modes via a drop-down menu at the top right. I would prefer just having all the mode buttons along the top. Export gets a dedicated, always-present blue button at the top rather than a mode.

Within each of PhotoDirector's modes, a left-side panel has relevant options. In the Library and Adjustment modes, the panel breaks down further into two tabs: Project and Metadata for the first and Manual and Presets for the second.

The main viewing area is flexible. In Library mode, a large view of the photo sits above a filmstrip-style collection of other pictures in the folder. Alternatively, buttons at the top let you see just the photo, a gallery browser of thumbnails or filenames, or a full-screen view of the current photo. In addition to viewing one large image, you can also compare two or several in Library mode.

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You can filter the Grid view by photos you've color-labeled or flagged, as well as those you've edited. I appreciate that you can also filter by camera model and lens, like in Lightroom Classic. Hover the mouse over a thumbnail in Gallery view, and you see star rating and flagging buttons for easy rating and selecting. When you're viewing one large image, the same choices appear along the bottom with a color labeling option. You can also enter a search term in a box at the top right.

In Adjust mode, you can pull up a before-and-after split view. Like Lightroom, PhotoDirector lets you zoom only to preset sizes—25%, 33%, 50%, and so on—rather than provide a full-range slider like the one in ACDSee Pro. But a single click switches between zoomed and unzoomed views, which is convenient.

Adjustments, Undo, and History

I like the way adjustments are grouped into Regional and Local groups, and that the adjustment panel has Manual and Presets tabs. I also enjoy that double-clicking on a slider returns it to the default position and that you can adjust them with the mouse wheel—Lightroom is inconsistent about the latter. And I appreciate that (like in Lightroom) arrows let you collapse the side panels in Adjust and Expert Edit modes, though these should be in the Library mode as well.

In terms of the Undo function, an excellent adjustment history panel shows not only all previous tweaks but also a thumbnail at the top with a mini view of those tweaks' effects. Clicking on any history entry applies that point to the full image view. Keyboard shortcuts work well and are customizable, too. Export is a simple Ctrl-E, compared with Photoshop's convoluted Shift-Ctrl-Alt-W. In all, CyberLink PhotoDirector gets high marks for its interface. You can't detach the program's panels to float anywhere on the screen, as you can in ACDSee Pro, but I suspect that's not something everyone wants to do.

Quick Photo Imports

The photo import dialog groups zoomable thumbnails of images on the card by date. As with Lightroom, you can select photos for import from these thumbnails. You can apply Auto-Denoise, Auto-tone, and even effect presets, such as B&W Cool, Faux HDR, or Fantasy Pink during import. You can also add keyword tags and a copyright notice.

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The program can import raw camera files in formats such as Canon's CR3 and Nikon's NEF. You can simply start viewing photos without the need for an interim applet like the Camera Raw utility that Photoshop and Photoshop Elements use. You can also simply drag a photo from File Explorer to open it.

Raw conversion detail and color are good, though Capture One and Lightroom brought out more detail and truer colors in the initial raw imports of test images. PhotoDirector is somewhat behind Lightroom in supporting new camera bodies. For example, it still can’t work with raw images from a Nikon Z8 or the Canon R5 Mark II, but I was impressed that it let me import RAF raw shots from a Fujifilm X-T4 and a Nikon Zfc. PhotoDirector is on the left below, and Lightroom is on the right.

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The program includes all the expected organizational tools with easily accessible color coding, flagging, and ratings tools in the Library interface. And, as I show in the next section, it even has face tagging, a powerful organization tool that's been available in Photoshop Elements for several years. Geotagging and maps, however, are still absent.

Cyberlink PhotoDirector imports as swiftly as the competition in my testing. Another type of importing, tethered shooting, is also available. The feature now works with many models from Canon, FujiFilm, Nikon, and more. You get a shutter button on-screen, along with the ability to change shooting settings like f-stop, ISO, and shutter speed.

Face Tagging

To get started with face tagging, select some photos in Library mode and hit the Tag Faces button above the thumbnail grid. This starts an Analyzing dialog, which goes through each photo one at a time. Processing 129 photos took just under 3 minutes. As with all face-recognition software, there were a few false positives. It identified a bush as a face, for example. But I'm impressed that it picked up profiles and full faces.

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The interface for assigning names to faces is clear and simple. Once you assign one name, it becomes a button for one-click assignment to other photos with faces. After that, you can click Faces on the Library's left panel Project tab and then select a name to display photos only of that individual.

Access to Shutterstock and Getty Images

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If you don’t have a suitable photo, a PhotoDirector subscription lets you use stock photography from two of the biggest names in the game: Getty and Shutterstock. A Stock Photos button at the bottom of the left sidebar opens a window full of evocative photos. You can search for topics, select multiple thumbnails, and then hit Import. A test sample was 16 megapixels, and it was simply in my Library to edit and export at will. Subscribers also now get iStock by Getty images. You don't get the full catalog of either stock service, but at more than 4 million images combined, you'll probably find something that works for you.

Basic Photo Adjustment Tools

PhotoDirector includes all the basic adjustments you expect, including contrast, exposure, sharpness, and white balance. Ubiquitous fixers (blemish and red eye removers) are part of the local adjustment brushes. Cropping and rotating follow the useful approach of Lightroom and Photoshop, showing you the result rather than an outline of your intended crop.

PhotoDirector also has pro image editing tools, such as curves and levels. The latter lets you manipulate highs, lows, and midtones with controls on a three-color histogram, with optional quarter-tone controls. The tone curves tool provides only three control points if you have the Tonal region box checked, but you can add lots more if you uncheck it. Alternatively, you can adjust the tone by dragging on the place in your image you want to change.

When it comes to pumping up or cutting down on overly dark or bright areas, PhotoDirector adds a couple of levels in between the standard brights, midtones, and darks. You get five sliders—Brightest, Bright, Midtone, Dark, and Darkest. This setup lets you use the histogram's Show Over/Underexposed Areas tool and then correct these areas with a more appropriate slider. PhotoDirector's Auto-tone magic wand button, like similar tools in every photo app, worked beautifully for some photos but not so well for others.

Another image correction tool that worked well in testing was Dehaze. This did a better job than Lightroom, which tends to add a color cast, usually blue. PhotoDirector's Dehaze was nearly as good as DxO PhotoLab's best-in-class ClearView tool.

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The program's geometry adjustment tools let you fix the barrel and pincushion distortion of telephoto and wide lenses. The Keystone correction tool's vertical and horizontal controls allowed me to straighten distorted lines at the sides of photos of buildings. The Auto Keystone option does a good job of straightening buildings, and it cropped the unusable sides of the photo. This tool is easier to use than DxO ViewPoint, which solely focuses on photo geometry corrections, but it doesn’t offer as many options.

That said, a fisheye shot stumped CyberLink. PhotoDirector has a separate Fisheye Distortion adjustment tool, but it wasn't strong enough to convincingly correct my 8mm shots.

CyberLink has nifty color adjustment tools, like the AI-powered Auto Color Enhancement option and Three-Way Split Toning. The former opens a dialog box with a slider for the strength of the correction and then applies it when you close the dialog. An unfortunate side effect is that you can't use the Before-and-After split screen to see the effect unless you make a copy of the image.

For the ultimate color control, three-way split-tone color adjustment lets you change the hue, lightness, midtones, saturation, and shadows. You move the cross cursor around the color wheel for the three tone levels to adjust their color settings independently. It's very similar to Lightroom’s Color Grading panel. Use these tools sparingly unless you're going for a heavily tinted effect.

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AI Image-Generating Features

PhotoDirector’s generative AI tools now live in a dedicated section called GenAI Studio. Here, you find tools for business needs like headshots and product backgrounds, for generating imagery from a text prompt, for portrait work with things like face swap, and for transforming photos by replacing or extending areas.

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To use these genAI tools, you need to use credits to cover the server costs; subscribers get 100 credits per month, and a typical generation requires three credits. You only get the genAI tools with the subscription version of PhotoDirector. It’s a great way for the artistically challenged to let their imaginations run wild and create new combinations of imagery.

But AI can misinterpret or misrender prompts that are too complex or unusual, as this attempt at a “realistic photo of a crowded Caribbean beach with owls flying around and a team of huskies pulling a dogsled with a driver on the shore with reindeer in the background,” shows. Where are the owls and the dogsled?

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You get multiple generations and can ask to regenerate more options even without changing the prompt. Prompts that focus on people tend to do better, though you may get distorted hands in those. Here's a take on a family around the hearth in winter with the Pure style:

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GenAI Replace

If there’s something in your photo that you think would look better as something else, turn to the Replace function. It’s in the Transform group. Simply brush over the object you want to replace, type a description of what you want to replace it with, and voilà, you’ve got a mountain in Coney Island!

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Background Replace

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The application offers two different ways to replace the background in photographs. GenAI Studio includes a People Background choice and a Background Remove choice that works for people and other objects in Guided mode. The tool in GenAI Studio did a fine job of removing the background and offering replacements; you can either use samples or generate new ones.

AI Headshots

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This tool, which works in a separate window, lets you clean up any photo of a person to make it look like they’re in a corporate setting and in corporate garb. It could work as your LinkedIn profile picture in a pinch, but close examination makes it clear that these photos involve AI. You simply import your picture, optionally use the Face Beautifier, choose a style with an accompanying background, and wait for the program to generate 20 to 80 results, depending on how many credits you want to spend. Here’s what it did to my picture:

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Image to Prompt

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I had a little difficulty finding this option because it’s actually part of the Text to Image feature. You tap the little image icon with the plus sign above the dialog’s text prompt area, and you can choose a photo for text prompt generation. My results were a little off, with proper names that didn’t correspond to the photo, though they mostly included accurate descriptions. This action doesn’t require any CyberLink AI credits.

Guided Mode

Guided mode creates a copy of your image so that the original remains unchanged. In Guided mode, you find many editing tools with additional hand-holding. You get sections for Cutout/Background (including Sky Replacement), Edit, Effects, Elements (stickers, frames, and watermarks), Enhance, Portrait, and Text. This is a good collection of tools that covers many common needs.

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The Guided Deblur (above) didn't turn a blurry photo into a perfectly in-focus one, but it did improve it. A slightly blurry photo did show further improvement, however.

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CyberLink bills Image Enhancer as a tool for restoring old photos, but it only does part of the job by improving image clarity. It doesn't fix scratches or spots the way Photoshop's Image Restoration tool does. If you use Image Enhancer knowing these limitations, you may appreciate how it improves old images and employs face recognition. But Adobe's Photo Restoration neural filter lets you choose the amount of image enhancement and face improvement with sliders, while PhotoDirector's tool is a one-click affair.

Picture to Painting

If you've used the Prisma mobile app, you know how fun it can be to turn prosaic smartphone shots into artsy, painted-looking images. PhotoDirector's Picture to Painting (formerly AI Style Transfer), available in Guided Edit mode, does the same for your DSLR photos. You get 18 styles with the standard version, though a Director Suite 365 plan unlocks dozens more.

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You can adjust the strength of these effects and erase them for select areas of the image with a brush. Better yet, the Auto Select button lets you easily apply the art effect to everything but a person or main subject of the photo. It worked instantly and flawlessly in testing, producing a striking image.

Another option is Apply Original Color. It creates a color palette for the painting effect using your image rather than the palette the effect includes. I found that using the template color scheme produces a more drastic, artsy result. I would like more controls and remixing capabilities. For example, the canvas creases in the example above aren't adjustable, and applying the effect a second time produced the exact same result (meaning the app doesn't recalculate the effect). A Reapply tool would be useful here.

Anime Cartoon Styles

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This one is for anime fans. From Guided Edits > Generative AI/Effects > Cartoonize Portrait, you can choose between 21 styles. The one used above is called Cartoon 2, but there are some in Anime style. It's a one-click effect that's easy to use, but it can take 10 to 20 seconds to complete.

Face Swap

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This is a really fun tool. It substitutes the face from your photo into one of a choice of over 50 sample images with interesting scenes. It impressively removes the background and transforms the face you supply to fit the model’s head position and size, not like an old-school Photoshop job. Face retouching tools are conveniently accessible in the Face Swap window.

Sky Replacement

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In Guided mode, the Sky Replacement option lets you instantly apply a more dramatic sky than the drab one in your photo. It found the obelisk in my test shot of the Vatican easily. A dozen preloaded skies are available within the app, and you can download more. Some even feature moving clouds for use in GIFs or video files. You can adjust the feather and horizon for the effect and change the color cast of the land or the exposure of the sky.

Multiple Exposure Effect

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The Multiple Exposure Effect has been around for several years but remains one of PhotoDirector's coolest features. Take a group of up to 10 action shots while keeping the camera still, and CyberLink PhotoDirector can automatically produce a multiple exposure like the one above. Doing the same thing in Photoshop would involve selecting the person in all six images and creating multiple masks and layers. PhotoDirector even lets you apply a fade-in or fade-out effect to the sequence. It also lets you reduce the number of exposures from a drop-down, rather than making you recreate the merge.

How Does PhotoDirector Handle Layers?

Showing its ambitions to be more than just a photo workflow application that competes with Lightroom, PhotoDirector includes layer editing—Photoshop's forte. I was initially leery about this kind of tool cluttering a program that's designed for efficient photo workflow. PhotoDirector's tool doesn't clutter things up, though.

You see layers when you switch to Edit > Expert mode. When you enter the mode, a Photoshop-lite appearance takes hold, except that the layer controls are on the left, and the tools (blur, drawing brushes, fill, gradient, shape, and text) are on the right.

As mentioned above, the text controls are granular. They let you adjust not just the font and size but also border effects, kerning, and shadow. Bevel and emboss options bring the program that much closer to Photoshopping capabilities. The app saves your projects with layers in PhotoDirector Layer File format (.PHI), not in the more standard PSD.

PhotoDirector recommends completing all overall photo adjustments (lighting, white balance, and the like) before you work with layers.

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You can add adjustment layers, apply prefab project layers, create clipping masks, create empty layers, edit with layer masks, and group layers. These techniques should be familiar to Photoshop users. But PhotoDirector also offers Express Templates that add clever layer effects in one step.

PhotoDirector now has 27 blending modes, the same number as Photoshop, which gives you a lot of creative options. I like how you can solo and edit a layer by double-clicking on its thumbnail image. But Photoshop's right-click options are a bit more helpful.

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You can apply multiple borders and border gradients on layers, copy and paste layer properties, and set the blending mode for each layer property. These are particularly useful when you're working with text overlays, but you can add the effects to any layer with transparency. The copy-and-paste capability means you don't have to reinvent the wheel if you want consistency between multiple layer objects.

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As in Photoshop, PhotoDirector's layer-boasting Expert mode lets you select and mask parts of an image. Auto Object Selection is an option under the Select Area tool. It can automatically identify people and animals in a picture, similar to Adobe's Subject Select tool. For well-set-off subjects, it did an excellent job identifying subjects, and you can adjust the size and feather for the tool. The Smart Brush selection tool is also excellent. It auto-selects objects as you brush on the screen.

These tools let you draw on top of your images and superimpose text, as well as add fills, gradients, and shapes. You select areas with a lasso and a smart lasso, but PhotoDirector's selection tools are not as smart as Adobe's. This program offers a lot of the layer-blending modes found in Photoshop, including Darken, Difference, Exclusion, and Multiply—14 in all. You can drag layer entries to change their order. Adjust any layer separately with the standard color, details, and lighting tools.

Video-to-Photo and Panorama Features

CyberLink PhotoDirector's Video-to-Photo toolset does more than its name suggests. You can use it to create a group photo from a video with everyone making an acceptable expression, a multiple-exposure image, or a panorama from a video clip. You start from the Video-to-Photo button right above the Import button. The feature does let you make still photos from video, but in my testing, it couldn't sharpen a moving subject. The same problem made multiple-exposure shots from a video a lot less appealing than those I created from stills.

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I had success with the Panorama feature in testing. I took a video of Niagara Falls in which I panned from side to side and impressively created one wide image, which I could then crop to remove areas with no photo content. The tool alternatively lets you auto-fill these areas—a nice content-aware feature.

Content-Aware Tools

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CyberLink PhotoDirector has Content-Aware Clone, Move, and Remove tools. The Remove tool now has AI smarts and works surprisingly well, as evident from the photo above. As you might expect, removing objects with complex backgrounds (especially when the object intersects with it) is less successful.

The Content-Aware Clone feature produced some unwanted transparency in the object I was cloning. But note the fun trick of resizing or even rotating the cloned objects:

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People Beautifier

PhotoDirector's People Beautifier tool has four subsets: Face Tools, Face Deblur, Body Shaper, and Skin Smoother. The first includes sliders to resize each part of the face (Face Shaper), along with Blemish Remover, Concealer, Eye Brightener, Face Smoother, Plumpness, Shine Remover, Skin Tone, Teeth Whitener, and Wrinkle Remover. If you don’t want to get into all those details, you can use One Click Face Retouch, which does result in some improvements in my tests. Note that you can undo anything here since PhotoDirector creates a working copy. On one test image, the Face Shaper let me tuck in some jowls.

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Body Shaper also uses AI to detect body areas for you to reshape—something not available in Photoshop. If you need these tools, PhotoDirector is the app for you. It lets you reshape arm thickness, breasts, body width, hips width, leg length, leg width, shoulder width, and waist thickness. If none of these hits the area you need to change, you can turn to the Distortion tools, which work like Photoshop's Liquefy tool.

Blur Tools and Passable Noise Reduction

The Blur Tools section in Editing mode makes it easy to add not only blur but also bokeh, zoom focus, and tilt-shift effects. It's as fun, powerful, and interesting as the Motion Blur tool in Photoshop Elements.

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But a more fun way to add bokeh, or narrow focus depth with lens light distortions is through Guided Mode > Light Effects > Bokeh (example above). This lets you choose an aperture shape and focus shape, along with a gaggle of other settings. It even lets you create an animation of the effect. This tool can detect the subject automatically, saving you the trouble of drawing around it or sizing a circle to it.

Another tool, Focus, also among the Guided options, lets you choose whether to blur near or far objects, similar to a recent feature in DxO ViewPoint.

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CyberLink updates PhotoDirector's Denoise tool with AI machine-learning smarts. It's separate from the Noise Reduction tool in the Adjustment menu and appears in the Guided mode. It takes longer to work its magic than the standard—45 seconds for a 24-megapixel shot. But it produces less blurry results than the standard tool.

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You can still do better with a couple of standalone denoising applications. Below, you can see the results from Topaz Photo AI, DxO PureRAW, and CyberLink PhotoDirector, from left to right. The first two preserve more detail than CyberLink. All started with the noisy image on the left above, so all are improvements on the original. Adobe Lightroom’s results, even with its newer auto AI Denoise tool, are very similar to those of PhotoDirector, with the eye area oversmoothed.

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Lens Profile Corrections

This kind of tool has been a feather in the cap of programs including Adobe Lightroom and DxO PhotoLab for a while. The idea is to fix any issues that your lens introduces, such as darkness around the edges (vignetting) or warped perspectives. The technique, as with most photo adjustments, works best with raw camera files.

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For lens-profile-based correction to be useful, it needs to support a lot of lenses. CyberLink's library of profiles is limited compared with Lightroom's, but you can manually adjust the distortion. CyberLink users can create custom profiles and make them downloadable from DirectorZone.com. PhotoDirector still doesn't have my Sigma 150-600mm zoom lens in its database, but it does have a profile for my Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM.

The program automatically chooses the correct model, and those I tested did improve barrel distortion and vignetting. However, I'm disappointed that chromatic aberration (CA) didn't improve when I applied profiles. PhotoDirector has sliders for CA correction that let you remove some color fringing, and the program's Defringe tool, though manual, does a great job of removing color strokes from object edges. For excellent automatic results, though, try DxO PhotoLab. Lightroom and DxO PhotoLab are still way ahead of PhotoDirector when it comes to lens profile corrections for both geometric distortion and CA.

Output and Help Options

PhotoDirector can no longer export directly to social photo sites, but it does let you share to CyberLink's cloud galleries. You can generate slideshows for instant viewing, too, a process that creates an MPEG-4 video file. Lightroom goes beyond this, though, with some actual video editing capabilities.

PhotoDirector's dedicated Print mode supports custom grid settings, every imaginable paper size, and watermarking, but it has no presets for standard sizes. The company adds a soft proofing feature, which should please pros who print their pictures.

One final note about help: PhotoDirector includes a comprehensive, organized, and searchable help system and video tutorials, both of which are accessible from clear buttons in the interface. The help is now on the web rather than local, however. Adobe's software also takes you to the web for help, but you usually have to hunt through info on programs other than the one you're using and even user comments before you possibly find what you're looking for. CyberLink wins on this count, and you can download its User Guide, in case you're editing on the road with no connectivity. Wildlife photographers can relate to that situation.

Verdict: Advanced, Cost-Effective Image Editing

CyberLink PhotoDirector is a capable and low-cost image editing app with a ton of cutting-edge generative AI features. We like its effective slate of standard tools and comprehensive guidance, too. Just keep in mind that you need a subscription to unlock all of its best capabilities (including access to valuable stock photo libraries) and that certain tasks are a bit slow. Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop remain our Editors' Choice winners thanks to their better interfaces, wider camera support, and even larger sets of professional features.