Exposure X7

$129 Beautiful presets and an elegant workspace

Exposure X7 is another all-in-one program that can browse, catalogue and edit images non-destructively – but this one is different. Exposure X7 is great at regular image adjustments, but specializes in analogue film effects and darkroom processes. These are applied via a one-click presets library.

Exposure X7’s presets apply a series of adjustments that you can browse and modify manually. These include image borders, light leak effects and textures that you don’t get in regular all-in-one programs. However, Exposure X7 also works as a plug-in for Lightroom and Photoshop, and as an external editor for Capture One, so you can use these programs for your organizing and Raw processing, and Exposure X7 solely for its effects.

You might want to do that, because if Exposure X7 has a weakness, it’s Raw processing. Raws often look noisy and a little soft, and the highlight recovery – one of the main reasons for shooting Raw – isn’t that good.

However, Exposure X7’s analoguelook presets are excellent, and also easy to modify and combine.