Radiant Photo 2 Review: Powerful Automated Photo Editing

All photographers recognize the importance of enhancing and editing their photos. However, with so much software out there, it can be difficult to know what to use.

We recently got hands-on with Radiant Photo 2, which offers powerful automated photo enhancements, with the freedom to make manual edits yourself.

Read on to learn if this is the solution for you.

What is Radiant Photo 2?

Radiant Photo by Radiant Imaging Labs is an AI-assisted photo editor, suitable for enthusiasts and professionals alike. Now in its second edition, the user-friendly tools are available as standalone software or plugins for Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, and Corel PaintShop Pro, along with a simplified mobile app.

It’s a non-destructive solution that quickly detects the type of photo and can automatically enhance it. New workflows include portraits, landscapes, pets, and birds, while simple sliders let you make quick manual adjustment.

Pricing starts from $159 – Try for 30 Days. Pay Nothing. Cancel Anytime. 

Key Features

Here’s a closer look at what you can do with Radiant Photo 2:

Automatic Photo Detection and Enhancement

The software immediately saves time by intelligently detecting the type of photo as soon as it’s loaded. For example, I dropped in a photo landscape of a park, then it immediately started the landscape workflow. It does the same for people, animals, and other subjects. 

Furthermore, it automatically applies the relevant enhancements – correcting color, lighting, noise, and more. In seconds you get professional results without doing anything. In a lot of cases, this will be all the editing that’s required.

Manual Tweaks

After automatic enhancement, you get a set of relevant sliders for making manual adjustments. Beginners might opt to focus on the Smart Editing sliders to adjust enhancement strength, color, and skin tone for people.

For more control, you can expand the settings for professional color grading, tone, enhancing details, working with faces and features, and more.

Portrait tools are new in Radiant Photo 2, allowing you to refine your headshots and other portraits with face-focused lighting. 

It functions like a digital version of a photography softbox, resulting in softer, more even lighting of the subject, and helping to minimize harsh shadows.

Auto-detection also comes with a set of unique editing style options known as Develop Collections. In one click, these transform photos and allow fast iteration.

If you want to try a different workflow than the one applied, you can choose from the core 16 or an add-on. For example, if using the Landscape workflow, you can choose “Landscape – Night” to skew the enhancements and Develop Collections for a nighttime shot.

Additional Workflows

While the core workflows are impressive and offer enough enhancements for anyone, if you specialize in certain areas, the optional workflows are definitely worth considering. These include:

Portraits: Accompanying the new portrait tools, this workflow offers advanced skin tone detection and the removal of color casts. It recognizes and enhances photos in studios, group settings, outdoors, and other environments.

Landscapes: Enhances the natural lighting effects of sunrise, sunset, and twilight hours. Recognizes urban landscapes, as well as shots with mountains, waterfalls, and more.

Pets: Tools focused on enhancing shots of pets, including cats, dogs, horses, and other animals. 

Birds: An impressive workflow that detects 94 scenes and identifies individual types of bird.  

Non-Destructive Editing

The quality within Radiant Photo while editing and the finished results cannot be ignored.

As a non-destructive solution, you never have to worry about rasterization, flattened layers, or an inability to undo changes. It uses 16-bit live effects, with each adjustment saved and editable.

Plugins

As a plugin for Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, or Lightroom Classic, it provides two paths for working with photos. Perhaps the most logical approach is to work on the raw files with Radiant Photo first and then make further edits afterwards.

Alternatively, you can make edits first, though you must merge layers into a new layer at the top to use the plugin.

Radiant Photo itself can handle raw files, TIFFs, JPEGs, and other common formats.

Batch Processing

To top it off, the software allows you to export in batches, processing multiple images at once without sacrificing quality. What’s more, the plugin for Lightroom Classic facilitates batch processing within Lightroom itself.

This is perfect for professionals or those who otherwise have large collections of photos.

User Interface

Radiant Photo is designed to completely streamline photo editing and couldn’t be easier to navigate. Beginners and professionals alike will appreciate its simple sliders, selections, and check boxes. Virtually all the hard work is automated.

You get a nice big image window in the center, with workflows and Develop Collections on the left and tools for manual tweaking on the right. 

It avoids clutter by letting you collapse and filter tools you aren’t using.

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Radiant Photo Pricing

Radiant Photo 2 offers a 30-day no credit card required free trial. After that you have the following options and add-ons:

• Standalone Application & Plug-ins ($159) – All Features, Core Workflows + 6 Months Free Updates.
• $79 per Additional Workflow or All Workflows for $349.
• Toolkit ($50/yr) – Free Updates and $15/mo Credit for Workflows, Develop Styles and LOOKs. New subscribers get the first year of Toolkit for free.

Radiant Photo 2 comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Radiant Photo 2 Review – Verdict 

In conclusion, Radiant Photo is a very effective solution for bringing your photos to life. Its automated approach saves considerable time, while producing results you often wouldn’t achieve manually in PhotoShop and Lightroom. Even when you do want to make some manual adjustments, the process is fast and easy.

Its core and add-on workflows cover a comprehensive range of subjects and styles, offering something for any photographer.

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