Zoner has updated Zoner Photo Studio X and the watchword is SPEED. The updates significantly enhance performance by utilizing your graphics card, enriching the experience on lower-powered PCs, improving ease of navigation, and much more. Already established as a top features-for-dollar photo and video editor, Zoner Photo Studio X continues to get better and better with every upgrade. Plus you get a ton of extras and all for the same very affordable price.

If you’re not currently a Zoner Photo Studio X user, scroll down to the bottom of this story to get a quick overview of what makes ZPS X so desirable. Then download the full version of ZPS X for Windows 10 and 11 PCs and try it for 7 days absolutely free and with no obligation.

What’s New in the ZPS X Fall Upgrade?
The list of enhancements is extensive and has the emphasis on speed and ease-of-use. One of the best features of every ZPS X upgrade is that owners do not have to do anything to activate or access the improvements. Like all ZPS X upgrades, these new features appear in your software automatically.

GPU Acceleration Cuts Processing Time in Half
ZPS X now fully utilizes your PC’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to deliver faster editing. In a nutshell, a GPU works in parallel with your PC’s CPU for faster and more efficient throughput. ZPS X makes the most of the power of your GPU so you can edit at lightning speed. Editing in the Develop module is now up to 2X faster.

Optimized for Even Lower-powered PCs
It would be nice if everyone owned the latest and most powerful computer, but that’s just not the case. ZPS X has been optimized so users with older or less powerful machines can still edit their photos fast. Enjoy smoother editing without sacrificing quality on older or entry-level hardware.

Support for 3D LUTs
ZPS X users can now more easily perform advanced color work and discover color toning using 3D LUTs (Look Up Tables). Often used in filmmaking and similar to (but more powerful than) simple presets, 3D LUTs help you change and set the color and tone of your images and easily manipulate select hues in a controlled, consistent and repeatable way. Zoner Photo Studio X supports all LUT formats and allows adjustment of effect intensity. You can download custom LUTs online from multiple sources or create your own custom LUTs and thereby accelerate your workflow. See this exciting feature in action on Zoner’s YouTube channel.

New Navigation Panel and Toolbar
The enhanced, easier-to-use ZPS X user interface is available in all ZPS X modules, making browsing your photos easier. With the new workspace, you can have the functions you use most often at your fingertips. In addition, the toolbar is completely customizable—once again, adding speed and complete control to your editing sessions.
[local tools]

Enhanced Local Adjustments
All tools can now be used locally—which means that all adjustments can now be applied to a specific part of the photo. ZPS X has added settings to the Radial Filter, Filter Brush, and Gradient Filter so they have all the popular functions of the Develop module.

Customizable Default Settings for Raw Files
You can improve your Raw file processing procedure and achieve more shot-to-shot uniformity by establishing custom default settings for processing Raw files. Instead of making the same adjustments over and over again, you can set default adjustments from the Develop module for each of your cameras—and never have to do them manually again. The default adjustments are saved even when you reset additional adjustments.

…and there’s more!
Once-over-lightly, here are more of the new enhancements and features.

Speed ramping for videos gives you seamless control your video’s speed using keyframes. You can even go back in time.

Keyframing has been simplified so you may easily select and change multiple keyframes at once.

Live editing for the Print module—adjustments made in the Develop module are immediately reflected in your projects in progress.

More natural vignetting effect in your images’ corners in the Develop module. 

Curves selection for Raw processing. If you want to be in control of everything when processing Raw files you can use linear curves.

To see concise videos of the new features in action, check our Zoner’s YouTube channel. 

Why People Love Zoner Photo Studio X
Zoner Photo Studio X is an affordably priced but extremely powerful Windows PC software tool for browsing, managing, enhancing, editing and printing photo and video files, including Raw format.

Want to see more for yourself right now? Download the full version of ZPS X for Windows 10 and 11 PCs and try it for 7 days absolutely free and with no obligation.

Zoner Photo Studio X provides five interface modules found as tabs labeled Manager, Develop, Editor, Print and Video. They’re easy to navigate and intuitive to use. You can conveniently switch from one module to another without leaving the ZPS X program—a huge timesaver. There are flexible workspace layout choices, too. And you can select the Browser view and see all images in a specific folder—without leaving the Zoner Photo Studio X workspace.

You can print photos and photo gift items directly from ZPS X; plus, you receive 15 free 4 x 6 inch (10 x 15cm) prints as a gift each year.

Use ZPS X to edit JPEG and Raw images (including use of Layers and Masks) and perform all cropping, blemish removal, cloning and other photo tricks with ease. The unique retouching brush and the Facial Features tool in the Liquify submenu make portrait enhancement a snap.

Edit video. Turn your photos into a video, a presentation, or a time-lapse without switching software. Enjoy creative presets. Change a photo’s entire mood with just one click (one of the best-loved features in ZPS X). Catalog your images for easy organization and retrieval. Browse them by date, shot location, keywords, or folders.

ZPS X Pricing & Extra Benefits
Edit your photos and videos in Zoner Photo Studio X for only $59 per year. As part of your subscription, all updates are automatic and free. A Family Plan is also available. And anytime new features are added—including the collection described here—they automatically appear in your ZPS X.

Each license comes with 20GB of storage on the Zoner Photo Cloud and synchronization with Zonerama Premium, Zoner’s elite online photo sharing and storage gallery where you can upload photos directly from ZPS X and get unlimited space for 4k videos. Note that Zonerama standard version is FREE and an unrivaled online gallery even for those who don’t have a ZPS X license.

And you can access ZPS X from anywhere. Once you purchase a ZPS X license, you can log in to your account from any computer. Access ZPS X from home, work, or even on vacation.

Try the full version of Zoner Photo Studio X for 7 days with no obligation. Download for Windows 10 and 11 here. Or click here to purchase for $59.

 

∞ Shutterbug Staff

Creating panoramic photos can be a great way to increase detail, capture a wider angle, or employ a unique composition as a photographer. However, much of the work behind good panoramas happens in post-processing when you stitch the images together. What software is the best for creating panorama photos? This guide covers the most popular panoramic software tools today and explains their pros and cons.

There’s no better source of wildlife photography techniques than the Pangolin Photography YouTube Channel, a group of experienced safari guides and imaging experts based in Northern Botswana. The images used to illustrate their tutorials often depict big cats and other exotic species, but the advice they provide is also valuable for photographing birds at your neighborhood park, or a “photo safari” at the zoo.

Instructor Janine Krayer spends much of her time teaching workshops and photographing animals in the wilds of Africa. In this 14-minute episode she demonstrates  the “foolproof” method she uses to edit her beautiful imagery in Lightroom or Photoshop. Her five-step workflow is appropriate for photographers of all skill levels and will elevate your photography to a whole new level.

Krayer’s post-production process includes everything from cropping and adjusting color and exposure, to sharpening, masking, and other local adjustments. Her advice is very helpful for editing images with conventional exposures, but she also discusses some tricks for creative effects.

The tutorial begins with a few simple cropping tips for well-composed photos with a compelling sense of balance that emphasize the beauty or imposing stature of a subject. You’ll see how to tighten up a shot by eliminating unnecessary elements at the edges of the frame, and how to rotate an image to straighten a crooked horizon.

She also demonstrates how to determine the best aspect ratio for the image at hand, and why making use of the ruler simplifies these tasks. When it comes to perfecting exposure Krayer turns to the Basics tab to work on the tone of a photo. One of her goals is to “create the largest amount of contrast without clipping the White Point on the right side of the histogram or crushing the blacks on the left.”

Krayer moves on to color grading, with helpful suggestions for fixing images shot at Golden Hour (when animals can be most active) that look a bit too warm. Here you’ll see the advantage of shooting in Raw because Jpegs tend to be more difficult to adjust for a natural look. That’s because these files “simply don’t have enough data left to alter your image in terms of color tones, hues and luminance.”

The tutorial concludes with some great advice for correctly sharpening images without making them look too “crispy,” and a very helpful discussion of masking and other local adjustments to enhance specific portions of a scene. Be sure to check out the Pangolin Wildlife Photography YouTube channel, for more great shooting and editing tips.

We also suggest watching a tutorial we posted recently from another accomplished pro, explaining seven effective tips for shooting awe-inspiring macro photographs.

Today’s Photoshop tutorial addresses a very common problem that many of us encounter when shooting landscapes, environmental portraits, and other photographs outdoors. It occurs when your camera is pointed up or down, rather than flat to the horizon.

In such circumstances you’ll notice a weird perspective in your photos with converging vertical lines, be they tilted trees or crooked buildings in cityscape images and portraits with structures in the background. In this Photoshop tutorial from the popular PHLEARN YouTube channel you’ll learn how to easily fix these problems and other frustrating perspective issues.

Instructor Aaron Nace is an image-editing expert with a variety of helpful post-processing lessons on his channel. Today he demonstrates how to straighten vertical lines, merge layers seamlessly, and use Photoshop’s powerful Transform and Perspective Warp tools. You’ll also discover how Photoshop’s Generative Fill tool can automatically correct backgrounds and remove distortion.

When it comes to portrait photos the trick involves cutting out the subject, fixing the skewed lines, and then placing the subject back in the corrected image. In the case of his first example the buildings in the background converge toward the top of the frame because the camera was pointed upward while Nace shot the portrait. This fix starts by clicking on the Select tab atop the screen, and then choosing Subject from the dropdown menu that appears.

You don’t want to use the Warp tool for this task because it can make faces and bodies look really strange. Instead Nace duplicates the Background layer and drags it to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the screen. He then explains what to do so the subject appears on a plain white layer.

Now Nace creates a new version of the background that doesn’t include his model. He then explains how to use Generative Fill to quickly straighten the buildings. From there it’s a simple matter to add his subject back into the scene.

The foregoing is just one of the tools and techniques you’ll learn how to use in less than 20 minutes. By the time you’re done watching, photos with a distorted perspective will be a thing of the past. You can find more great editing methods like these by paying a visit to the PHLEARN instructional YouTube channel.

We also encourage you to watch another tutorial we posted recently that demonstrates how to use both positive and negative Clarity to edit landscape photos for maximum impact.