Product Review: PhotoPad Pro Photo Editing Software
Pros:
Free trial mode available
Very user friendly tools
UI is clean, not cluttered or confusing
One-time fee for Pro Mode
Cons:
Auto tools are inaccurate
Manual tool sliders can be small and imprecise
Tools are not as robust or versatile as other software.
Small online community for support or advice
In the interest of editorial disclosure, I acquired my copy of PhotoPad Pro as part of my purchase of the ClearClick scanner I reviewed earlier. I am not an affiliate of PhotoPad or NCH, the software developer, I am not being paid anything by PhotoPad to provide this review, and all opinions are my own.
Installing PhotoPad was a bit of a process. I inserted the DVD, had to register with the product key (how very early 2010s!), and then install an update. Once that was over, I was able to start the software up and get to editing. Based on my research, you should be able to get a single-PC license for around $30. NCH, the company which created PhotoPad, has yearly subscriptions available starting at $35/year. I am strongly against using software as a live service model, and avoid monthly subscriptions at all costs, but $35/year is cheaper than Adobe PhotoShop, which was advertising its product for $22/month as of the date of this post. I have seen some online complaints about NCH upselling its software, but I have not once received a prompt to do so.
The first thing I noticed was that the bars were organized pretty well. The categories might seem odd to someone who is brand new to photo editing, but once you get used to it, categories named “Color”, “Tools”, or “Effects” are all useful because they had the appropriate tools underneath them. I also appreciate how the underlying tools have large, graphical boxes to click to select them, instead of smaller icons or a drop-down menu. I know that if I want to remove red eye from a photograph, that tool is in the “Retouch” category, which makes logical sense. Having sampled multiple photo editing software platforms over time, I find PhotoPad to be one of the more user-friendly interfaces on the market.
Jumping in and beginning to edit is also simple. If you have previous experience using an app like Microsoft Paint, you can make simple edits in PhotoPad just about as easily. I also find PhotoPad’s zoom feature to be stronger than some other software I’ve sampled. You can zoom in or out by simply using your mouse wheel, instead of having to find the zoom option and click to zoom in or out. The selection tools involve the standard options of shapes, user-created polygons, or free-form drawing to help you pick certain parts of an image to work on. The retouch tool can be as simple as choosing a sample location, clicking, and then going to the target area and clicking again. There are also slider options for this tool, in case you want to change the size of the brush or its intensity. This is an immense improvement over the retouching tool in other photo software like GIMP, which is needlessly complex and not at all user-friendly.
The user-friendly nature of the tools does come at the expense of robustness, though. This is most noticeable when attempting to manually control tools like hue balancing or color channels. The color channel editor does separate the channels into an all-inclusive RGB, along with individual red, green, and blue channels, like other photo editing software. However, channels lack input and output numbers, instead displaying only a graph. You essentially have to click, drag, and hope for the best, instead of being able to really manage the inputs and outputs. When compared to the channel controls in software like GIMP, the PhotoPad controls come up short. Finally, the AI tools have mixed levels of usefulness. Resizing and upscaling photos works well enough, but don’t even bother with their AI colorization tool. I have yet to get a single photo look even close to finished with that tool.
Like anyone else who works in photo editing, I like to occasionally reach out to online groups if I need to brainstorm an idea, or go through tech support and the help pages if I’m stumped on something. Unfortunately, the PhotoPad community is on the small side, and the pages that exist aren’t updated very frequently. The last Reddit post from the official NCH software page is from 9 years before this blog post, and the inactivity continues on to their official help pages. Clicking help in the program gives you options for a tutorial, official help page, forums, and FAQs. The tutorial page is plain, but has some links and inline YouTube videos for assistance, so it’s ok. The FAQs page is also on the NCH website, and looks plain but serviceable. The official help page, however, looks like it has formatting from the early days of Windows XP. The page just feels OLD. Finally, the forum page brings you to the official NCH forums, which average about one post per month.
In closing, PhotoPad is solid, entry-level software for someone who is beginning their photo editing journey. The basic tools are accurate, but in-depth restoration and editing needs are better handled with other software. I can recommend PhotoPad for finishing touches and light editing, but would hesitate before attempting a complete restoration using PhotoPad alone.