Some photo editing software tries to recreate as much of Photoshop as possible. Not InPixio. Its aim is to give you push-button tools for enhancing your photos. How? By using AI, of course! InPixio can remove objects you don't want in your pictures, fix lighting, replace a dull sky with an awesome one, and add sharpness or blur. Unfortunately, the most powerful features only come in the more expensive subscription plans. Worse, the program is slow and occasionally unstable, so it's not as much fun to use as it might at first seem. If you're a hobbyist, you'll do better with Editors' Choice winner Adobe Photoshop Elements. For the ultimate tools in the field, Adobe Photoshop is our top pick (though for some, it might be overkill), and if you just want AI tools like background replacement, check out Canva. For organizing your photos, look to Adobe Lightroom.
How Much Does InPixio Cost?
Pricing for InPixio is needlessly complex. The program is available from two different websites, each with different payment models. I suggest heading to the Avanquest site (the parent company of InPixio) rather than the InPixio site, since Avanquest lets you buy a version of the software (without the AI tools) in one shot for $59.99, whereas InPixio only sells subscriptions.
You have a choice of three subscription levels: Standard ($49.99 per year), Pro ($79.99 per year), and Ultimate ($89.99 per year). Standard gets you object removal and a meme-like photomontage capability in addition to standard photo editing options like lighting and cropping. Pro adds sky replacement, one-click image correction, touch-up tools, filters, frames, and effects. Ultimate adds image upscaling and noise removal.
You can download the program for free and use all its tools to see what it can do, but any time I tried to save an image that I'd edited even in basic ways, like cropping or changing the exposure, I got a message saying I needed to activate a paid version.
Be mindful that when you're in the site's shopping cart, two things you may not want are checked by default: a five-PC installation option and the separate Photo Maximizer utility. There's a 30-day money-back warranty, but reports on TrustPilot indicate people have had trouble canceling subscriptions or getting refunds. It all makes InPixio difficult to recommend.
For comparison, you can get both Photoshop and Lightroom together for $9.99 per month. Photoshop Elements, the company's more consumer-friendly option, costs a one-time $99.99. CyberLink PhotoDirector, which sports workflow and lots of AI impressive tools, costs a one-time $99.99 or is available as an annual $39.99 subscription.
System Requirements and Installation
InPixo Photo Studio 12 runs on 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11. The app's support pages say it requires an Intel Core i3 processor or better, 8GB of RAM, 2GB of free disk space, and an internet connection. Mac users have to content themselves with the older version 10, which requires macOS version 10.14.6 (Mojave) or later. The installation placed over 2GB on my hard drive, which seems excessive for a one-click photo editor.
The InPixio Interface
There's no "getting started" wizard with InPixio, but the start screen is so clear and basic that one isn't needed. The interface is nonstandard, feeling more like a webpage than an application. I do appreciate how it lets you see the original image along with all your editing steps in a circular button at the top left. I had suspected that the program was using server processing to do some of its AI functions, but I disconnected from Wi-Fi and it still worked.
You can only work with one image at a time, in contrast with Photoshop and other programs that give you tabs for multiple images. Even so, many operations are extremely slow, even basic things like opening photos. At a couple of points during a couple of days of testing, the app shut down unexpectedly, and upon reopening it, my edits were not saved.
You do get the option of a thumbnail browser for a folder of images across the bottom of the interface, which is helpful. Aside from that, the program doesn't have any photo collection organization features, such as tagging or albums, as you find in Adobe Photoshop Elements, CyberLink PhotoDirector, or Lightroom. The closest it gets is letting you designate folders on your computer as Favorites.
One interface aspect I do like is that zooming is accomplished with a simple mouse-wheel spin. Another is that double-clicking on sliders resets them to their default position. Arrows at the top let you step backward and forward in your editing history, as do the Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y keyboard shortcuts, something I like to see.
The program does let you open raw camera files, including more recent types like Canon CR3 and FujiFilm X-T4. It rendered these images just fine, though sometimes the program crashed when I was loading images.
Basic Photo Editing Tools in InPixio
The last button in the program's left menu rail is where you find basic editing tools such as Exposure, Contrast, and Saturation. You also get very useful sliders for Shadows, Highlights, Vibrance, and Clarity, just like in Lightroom.
I had mixed results with InPixio's AI Auto-Correction. One shot was left too dark and drab, and another lost detail by being overly brightened. A dozen filters can give your image various tints, with one black-and-white choice. If you switch to the Tools section's Creative tab, under LUTs you see more B&W styles, but you can't install LUTs from outside sources. Other available effects include Vignetting, Film Grain, and Graduated Blur, which lets you create a tilt-shift effect or home in on a focus area.
The Crop tool lets you pick an aspect ratio among common choices, rotate, and flip your image -- it's all you need, though there's no auto-straightening feature like that in competing software.
There is a noise reduction tool in the most-expensive level of InPixio, but it mostly just blurs noisy photos and doesn't have an automatic noise reduction setting. You'll do far better with DxO PureRAW or Topaz DeNoise AI.
Background Removal
InPixio did a decent job of removing the field behind a goat (see below), and for the strand of hay that it missed, I could use a brush to paint the foreground back in for a better result.
The program helpfully color-codes the foreground, background, and edges. There's an edge softness slider, which you can add to the foreground and background selection, but there's no edge detection like you get in Capture One, Photoshop, or Lightroom, so the rough edges around the goat are hard to get right. Expect a noticeable delay -- around ten seconds on my Core i7 laptop -- before these edits appear.
Photomontage
Photomontage, a major section of the InPixio interface, lets you overlay text or place your image in a template, such as magazine covers, greeting cards, and meme-style text. It's also where you can overlay your own images or canned items like hats and glasses onto your image. The tools for placing and sizing any of these items conveniently let you use drag and drop. And when you choose a magazine cover, your subject's background automatically has its background removed.
The same flexibility holds true for text overlays. You get a large selection of fonts, can choose any color your heart fancies, and can easily size and move your text around the picture.
Verdict: Cool AI Tools, But You Can Do Better
Avanquest's InPixio Studio 12 has a clear and simple interface, and it accomplishes some of the fancier AI effects, like background removal, with ease. But its results aren't up to what you get from competing software, and it doesn't include tools that perfect the results. It's also quite slow at basic functions like simply opening photos. Unless you find the one-time purchase option, it's not particularly inexpensive compared with other photo-editing software, and even then, getting all the features only comes with the highest price option. For better-performing, more capable software, check out our Editors' Choice winners: Adobe Photoshop Elements for hobbyists, Adobe Photoshop for the ultimate in AI tools, and Adobe Lightroom for photo workflow.
