Cyberlink PhotoDirector 7 Ultra

First, let me state that Ive been a big fan of Cyberlinks Director Suite and have purchased several over the years. In addition, while occasionally glitchy, PowerDirector, ColorDirector & to a lesser extent-- AudioDirector are reliable and easy to use tools for producing great video.

I originally got version 6 as a free download, then upgraded it to version 7 (paid upgrade). I am still learning the program.

Well, call me surprised. Very surprised. I consider myself a photo enthusiast. A former pro who now shoots mainly for pleasure. And Ive owned a ton of software in the past. Lots of Adobe products, especially and currently run LightRoom, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, OnOne, Corel Painter and Photomatix. Lightroom is my go-to and will remain so. But Ive been using OnOnes software for special effects and some artistic treatments I just couldnt get with LightRoom or get easily (or at all) with any of the Adobe software. Frankly, I had never heard of this package but thought it might be worth a try and Im glad I did. It has suddenly and unexpectedly moved up to #2 in my list of programs.

The key functionalities offered by the Cyberlink PD7 Ultra are available in Adobe Photoshop Elements, but the design is more friendly on the eyes. Cyberlink needs lower their price to be comparable to Elements before they will find a successful product.

Very disappointed given the ratings the software enjoys. My major complaint was that you can only download a single folder at a time. I have nearly 10,000 photos over 127 folders. I was dumbfounded to find I couldnt select all the folders at once. Even a small folder took considerable time to download. To download them all would have taken hours if not days. Because of this issue I did not get to check out all the other features. I downloaded a 30 day trial which was a wise decision. Other interested buyers should do the same.

The technical support is among the worse Ive ever experienced. My question was this: the software was not recognizing my camera for importing files, although Windows recognized that the camera was connected. There was an alternate way to import photos, but they would have to be imported one at a time, rather than all the photos on the camera at once. I emailed support (through their web interface) and received a canned answer that clearly didnt address my problem. I replied to them, and they ignored my reply.

I had high hopes for this program. I have been looking for a NON-Adobe product that does more to enhance my photographs than the free program I currently have. This promised great potential, since it is supposed to allow you to layer images, substitute faces, etc.; however, I did not find it lived up to my expectations.

This is my initial take on this edition of Cyber Link Photo Director 7 Ultra, to satisfy the needs required by Amazon Vine.

I wanted an easy-to-use software product for simple editing. This one makes tinting pictures easy, but doesnt have the ability to do cropping or resizing. Extremely difficult to use. It also crashed my internet. Took it back and spent the extra bucks on Adobe.

Up to now, the only photo editing Ive done with with the simple crop, contrasts, brightness, and red eye effects with the Windows program that came with my computer. With a backlog of family photo CDs collected over the years, I wanted a program to help me organize and edit the best of them. So, I was pleased at the opportunity to try this program, even though I thought it might be overkill for what I wanted. It is.