Review of PhotoWorks 10.0: Laptop-Friendly Photo Editor for Windows 10

There are many ways to skin the proverbial cat when it comes to editing your images these days, many of which are excellent alternatives to the most famous software. So, Patrick had a look at PhotoWorks 10.0 to see how it holds up.

PhotoWorks 10.0 is a photo editor for Windows 10 that has a lot of impressive features, utilizing AI-based "intelligent" tools that can save you a lot of time and effort. However, it isn't a holistic solution and there are people who will not benefit from it as much as others. For example, it is not the best tool for culling large batches of images like events and wedding photographers do. It is also not great for high-end retouching or composites for commercial use. It is also — and this is going to be the cold water for many — Windows only at the moment; Mac users will have to wait for their version I'm afraid.

While PhotoWorks can't do everything, what it does do, it does very well. One such quality PhotoWorks boasts is an area that doesn't get enough credit: user interface. The UI of an editing suite can make or break the user experience, and for me, I find it's most common that it breaks it. The layout is usually chaotic and the workflow convoluted. However, with PhotoWorks, it is intuitive, clean, and straightforward. That is far from an easy task, especially when you're creating deep, AI-driven software.

Right off the bat, importing an image gives you initial options where it can make preliminary adjustments for you, or you can leave it as straight-out-of-the-camera. From there, you have your usual enhancement panel with all the sliders you're used to seeing. Then come the more complex tools of the suite. The Effects module offers a whole host of different edits and augmentations, from the subtle and interesting, through to the garish and wholesale. As Patrick notes, if you use subtlety with these effects, you can have a positive impact on your image, but it's easy to go overboard.

The next interesting module is Retouch. This offers a number of impressive, albeit controversial retouching techniques. You can make people thinner, body parts bigger, and a plethora of facial sculpting sliders that allow you to alter everything from eyebrow height to chin width. However, there are some really useful and less aggressive retouching tools that Patrick puts to good use with headshot editing. One of the most impressive of which and one I can imagine using often is the background remover. Most software that attempts to automate the removal of backgrounds is heavy-handed and sloppy, but with this Windows 10 photo editor, that isn't the case.

I have saved the best selling point for PhotoWorks to last, however, and that is the price. It is under $20 for a year of the license which puts it roughly in line with the monthly cost of an Adobe Photoshop subscription. This software is clearly not aimed at the high-end professional photographers — although even for them it has its uses — but rather for the enthusiasts who want to make significant edits without the time and effort required to do so. Additionally, it's a great option for those who cannot justify some of the expensive costs seen with other software of this type.

If you're interested in trying it yourself, you can click the link below and try this photo editing software for Windows 10 totally free: https://photo-works.net.

Make sure to check out this special offer for Fstoppers readers: https://photo-works.net/lp2/photoworks-10-for-fstoppers.php