Review by WB Halper

I have been a user of Lightroom for several years. I’ve dutifully upgraded from Lightroom 3 up to the current 5.1 as successive versions were released. When I was offered the chance to review Cyberlink PhotoDirector 5 Ultra, it seemed like a natural fit…

To make a long story short, CPD5U is a solid competitor to Lightroom. If you’re a current Lightroom user, moving to CPD5U is a no brainer…the user interface is very similar and the workflow is the same. It was able to import photos from my new Sony NEX-5T in both RAW and JPEG format. Lightroom (at least my version) couldn’t understand the RAW file.

So far, everything that I’ve tried to do in Lightroom can be duplicated in CPD5U. Exposures, white balance, hue and saturation can be easily corrected; facial blemishes and red eye removed; pictures can be cropped and queued for printing. Editing is non-destructive, which is critical if you need to back up and start over.

For roughly half the price of Lightroom, I don’t see any reason that you shouldn’t purchase this instead. Unless there’s a really good reason to continue upgrading LR - some feature that I absolutely need - I’m going to stop paying for new versions and switch to this instead.

Highly Recommended