Almost all the software applications reviewed and described on Life after Photoshop are available as a free trial, and here are the links. I always recommend using the trial version before making your mind up.
Featured posts
Welcome to the Life after Photoshop archive of 'Featured' posts. These are favourite articles or tutorials that appear in the carousel at the top of the home page.
The DxO Nik Collection non-destructive workflow and how it works
The DxO Nik Collection 3 brings non-destructive editing to the Nik plug ins for the first time. This is how it was done, and what you need to know.
Non-destructive editing: does it cause more problems than it solves?
Non-destructive editing sounds like a no-brainer. This is where your software stores your edits as processing instructions which can be updated, changed or removed at any time. But is it really that easy?
5 quick masking tips to save time and get better results
Masking complex outlines can be a slow and fiddly business, but there are tools to help, and once you’ve got your mask, there’s a lot you can do with it.
How to carry out Single Image Edits in Luminar 4
You can open and edit single images in Luminar, and you don’t have to import the entire folder they are stored in first. It’s still important to understand what Luminar is doing, though.
Nik Collection presets: Even on a Cloudy Day (Color Efex Pro)
You can learn a lot from experimenting with manual adjustments and individual filters in a program like Color Efex Pro, but you can learn even more by dismantling a preset to see how its individual parts work together.
How to get started with Analog Efex Pro
Analog Efex Pro is one of the plug-ins in the Nik Collection. It works as a plug in with Lightroom Classic and Photoshop but it can also work as a standalone program or as an external editor with all sorts of other programs like Capture One, Exposure X and more. It’s designed to recreate the […]
Nik Collection tips: image effects, ideas and insights for the Nik plug ins
The best Nik Collection plug ins are so deep you might never completely get to the bottom of what they do. Here’s a series of tips and ideas for Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, HDR Efex Pro, Analog Efex Pro and Viveza.
How to mask effects in ON1 Photo RAW
Masks can quickly get confusing in ON1 Photo RAW. It’s not the tools themselves which are confusing, but the fact they can be used in three different places: Local adjustments: These are applied to the image as a whole in their own ‘Local’ panel. In other words, they are not associated with any specific layers […]
How to get started with Silver Efex Pro
Silver Efex Pro is one of the best-known plug ins in the Nik Collection and widely regarded as the premier tools for fans of black and white photography. There are lots of really good ways to create black and white images in all sorts of software, but even now Silver Efex Pro has a magic […]