Radiant Photo is not designed for quick-fix AI ‘reality enhancement’, but considered, professional-quality adjustments
(Image credit: Radiant Photo)
Built around the Perfectly Clear processing engine, which many photographers may have heard of already, Radiant Photo is geared up specifically towards fast and effective image enhancement.
It’s not an all in-one photo editor, it doesn’t offer cataloguing tools, HDR merge, panoramas or focus stacking. It does not do, as Radiant Photo pithily points out, sky replacement.
What it does do is apply automatic AI-driven object recognition and tone and color adjustments to deliver “great results in record time”. These adjustments are automatic and don’t require time spent with manual sliders and adjustment panels. There are three sets of ‘Smart Presets’, including Radiant Photo – Pro, Radiant Photo – Subtle and “My Smart Presets”. You can have adjustments applied automatically based on your choice of presets, but you also have control over the adjustments.
Essentially, Radiant Photo intelligently optimises the colors, tones and contrast in your photos to maintain realistic color rendition and contrast, while optimising the contrast and dynamic range, bringing out dark shadows and improving overall tonal balance.
Radiant Photo is the brainchild of professional photographer Elia Locardi, who says:
“Radiant Photo is the first photo editing software that makes every image print ready by using intelligent scene detection and pixel-by-pixel adjustments to optimize each photo’s exposure and contrast, while preserving true-to-life color rendition that perfectly matches what we see with our eyes.”
Radiant Photo will work with 8-bit JPEGS or 16-bit TIFFs, for those who want a higher bit-depth workflow. The software can open many raw formats, but the company is expecting users to continue with their preferred raw processing workflow and use Radiant Photo alongside it, either as a standalone application or as a plug-in for Lightroom Classic or Photoshop.
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The standalone and plug-in versions are sold separately for $129 / £129 (about AU$193) or you can buy both as a bundle for $159 / £159 (about AU$238). Find out more at the Radiant Photo website.
Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com
