With recent updates released for the fall 2020 season, Zoner Photo Studio X now includes enhanced local edits that allow you to locally modify colors and tone curves in the Develop module. What’s more, you can change the intensity of your edits. The Windows-only program, with RAW output and editing options incorporated into its upgrade last year (and the addition of four new groups of preset filters in the Develop module the year before) is definitely worth a look.

At $4/month or $49/year, it is half the price of an Adobe Photo subscription. Included in this release is 20GB of online storage and galleries; if you don’t renew, you keep the program and your work—you just don’t receive further updates.

What’s New in Zoner Photo Studio X

Zoner added color grading and the ability to adjust a specific color globally in its last update; this new release adds the ability to adjust specific colors locally, as well as several colors if you so choose. Using any of the mask creation tools—including my favorite, the masking brush—allows you to highlight the color you wish to change, select within the mask, and use the outer ring of the color wheel to change the color. Only the color within the area you masked changes, even if the same color appears elsewhere in the image. You can use this feature to change the color of, for example, a model’s hat (shown below, before and after) without effecting any similar colors in her dress.

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Users can now create up to 250 variants (virtual copies) to try different effects or looks with Photo Studio X. There are many of these effects included, and you can create and save your own. The variants stack together, or you can view them separately. Ratings and metadata entered into the master variant are added to all other variants, but those added to sub-variants do not change the information in the master. Variants are useful when working with the wide range of presets available in the program. You can now adjust the preset parameters using tone curves in the latest version.

Speaking of tone curves, Photo Studio X adds a luminance curve to the global and individual RGB curves found in earlier versions. The luminance curve allows you to adjust the tonal contrast without effecting the relative saturation values that would otherwise change using the color tone curves.

Other useful additions to the program include auto-straightening that detects lines in your photo and automatically straightens them. There is even a smart mode that automatically adjusts both horizontal and vertical lines without deforming the image of a building. And many changes are found in the Create module, adding new page layouts and quicker assembly for photo books and the ability to buy multiple products at one time with one shipping fee.

A User-Friendly Interface

While I initially found the interface a bit cluttered, having the equivalent of Bridge, Lightroom and Photoshop in tabs in a single attractive interface easily got me through my initial misgivings. If you infrequently use one or more of the submenus in the Develop mode, you can temporarily hide it from the list. However, I do wish there was a “solo” mode where the submenus you aren’t using would close when you select the one you wish to use. Similarly, there is no solo mode in the Adjustments tab of the Editor mode. The Adobe keyboard shortcuts seemed to perform the same functions, but there is no way to edit them in Photo Studio X.

As always, new users will need a little time to feel totally comfortable with a new program, but the learning curve should be easy to manage whether moving from a previous image editor or new to image editing altogether. There is no Help dropdown at the customary end of the menu bar, but a “?” icon in the title bar opens a comprehensive online help tool. Excellent video help and tutorials are available at zoner.com.

Zoner Photo Studio X: New Features I Liked

The new features all perform as expected and flawlessly. The local color shifting is especially excellent and not widely available in competing programs. The hue, saturation, luminance and uniformity sliders allow fine adjustments to the more visual color wheel changes. The single, uniform tabbed interface gives you a Lightroom workflow (without the need to import files into a catalog) and a Photoshop-like layers editing mode. This coupled with the attractive interface makes Zoner Photo Studio X enjoyable to use for long creative editing sessions.

Features I Didn’t Like

Photo Studio X seems slower than its competition and while not by much, it is by enough to feel less responsive. This is particularly noticeable when moving from the Develop mode to the Editor mode with Nikon Z 6 raw files. This could be due to my having to download and install the Adobe DNG Converter to work on them. It seems that support of newer cameras is not fully implemented.

I found the Clone and Spot Healing tools confusing to use as they function differently in Develop and Editor. In Develop, you brush off dust spots with the Healing Brush as expected, but in the Editor mode you must use the Ctrl key to choose a place to brush from, as you must do for the Clone tool in both modes. And in Develop, the Healing Brush leaves residual circles where you have removed spots and defects until you move to a new tool.

Missing entirely is a content-aware fill tool and the essential variety of selection tools found in all of the top image-editing programs. Also lacking are modern tools to refine selections. The only options for this are radius, contrast and smoothing. And what about some options for sky replacement and more sophisticated portrait retouching tools.

How It Compares to Other Image Editing Software

Zoner Inc. has aimed for the top rung of the image-editing software grouping for many years, but continually falls just shy. Zoner Photo Studio X, while costing less than the Adobe Photo offering (without even including the free online storage from Zoner), and less than the online subscription to ACDSee Ultimate 2021, just doesn’t have the full set of tools that these programs provide. For many professionals, what the program lacks may be unimportant, or you may have specialized programs such as Portrait Professional to cover specific shortcomings. Perhaps you prefer subscription software that is constantly being improved throughout the year, not with a yearly update that may or not be free. If that is the case, then Zoner Photo Studio X deserves a serious look, which you can do by using the 30-day free trial.

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