photosarah Loc: East Sussex, UK

I received an e-mail this afternoon from Matt Kloskowski who works full time for onOne as the Vice President of Photography with an offer of Perfect Photo Suite 9 at a reduced price: US$129.95 instead of $209.95 plus some add-ons. I currently use PSE 12 reasonably competently, but I am not a very technical person - in fact, you might say I am "technically challenged" - and I do not find learning new IT skills very easy. Do any of you use PPS9 from onOne? If so, can you advise whether you think I would benefit from having this new app to deal with photos i.e. does it do things much better than PSE 12 - or would I just be complicating my life? The offer expires on Dec. 31st. Your advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Just Fred Loc: Darwin's Waiting Room

Hi Sarah,

I recently purchased PPS9 to supplement my use of Adobe Lightroom 5, and I must say, I'm quite impressed with it. The suite contains a variety of programs (which can be purchased separately, I believe) which integrate together to provide a wealth of post-processing capabilities.

Lightroom doesn't support layers, but PPS9 has a layers module. There are a lot of tools, and if they seem to have the same basic interface as Lightroom (and PSE?), so learning them isn't that hard if you know one already.

One thing I really like about onOne Software is that they have a wealth of training videos, PDFs, and emails. The documentation for the software is available online as HTML, or downloadable as PDF files. In addition, the modules are packed with "presets," which you can preview, apply and then adjust. This makes tuning photos a lot easier in some cases.

My software "toolkit" for photo processing has grown quite a bit since I got hooked on developing the photos I've taken. While I'm not ditching Lightroom (or my other programs), I find PPS9 nice to have close at hand.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Well I think there is a free module you can get anyway and you can get the whole suite as a 30 day trial. I think you maybe able to use the onone software as plugins for your pse12 (certainly can with photoshop and lightroom).

Don't stress the deadline while there is a discount on the suite, its about $20 or $30 of the regular price. With free extra's worth ... on top.

There probably will be another sale in january, they are big on sales. Also there are promotional codes scattered around the internet.

That sounds like I don't like it, but I do. Try the trial see how you get on with it onone will email you with an offer that suits you.

photosarah Loc: East Sussex, UK

Thanks for replying, Fred.

photosarah Loc: East Sussex, UK

The free 30 day trial offered is a good idea, and I may well give it a go with that. Thanks.

Picdude Loc: Ohio

Something to keep in mind - OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 9 has specific requirements for System RAM and video card. The $129.00 is a great price but still too high if your computer cannot drive the software or runs very sluggish. The picture is a snapshot of the system requirements from the OnOne website.

http://www.ononesoftware.com/support/956559/

(Download)

rizer Loc: Long Island, NY

I use PPS9 the same way as Just Fred-- as a plugin to Lightroom 5. I agree with everything Fred said, including the vast amount of training materials. You can use it as a stand alone or as a plugin. I would highly recommend it.

Bob Yankle Loc: Burlington, NC

To run PPS9 from within PSE, you go to File>Automation Tools>Perfect Effects 9 Suite (or whichever other module you may wish to use. Effects has most of the stuff you need for editing a photo). This is different from other filters which are usually called from the Filter menu.

photosarah Loc: East Sussex, UK

Thank you picdude, rizer and Bob. What a lot of knowledge we all have collectively in the Hog, it's wonderful.

wmcy Loc: Charlotte

I have the PPS9 trial and using it as a stand-alone program. How do I run from within the most current version of Lightroom 5 on my iMac?

Thanks in advance.

Wm.

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

I would say if you don't take to learning new skills easily, don't bother with it. While its a great program suite, you will need to spend many hours to learn it.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

In Lightroom look under /File/Plug in Extras. If it's not there, the easiest thing to do is to close LR and reinstall PPS the LR version, and PPS will attach itself to LR automatically, will tell you what it did and the next time you open LR you should be able to access it as above.

If you can't re-download the trial for some reason, email them and they'll help you, they have good tech support.

Brucej67 Loc: Cary, NC

Love PPS9 I have had them since PPS3 and the effects module alone is worth every penny.

Bob Yankle Loc: Burlington, NC

I only have the PC Version, but it can be found in the Develop Module menu: Photo>Edit In>Perfect Effects 9 Suite

Brucej67 Loc: Cary, NC

It is a great piece of software and has been greatly improved over the years. The latest iteration of the software is version 9.0.1.