These effects feed more into any surreal or exaggerated images you may want to create, which is something CyberLink is keen to showcase with PhotoDirector 12. They’re great for things like making waves roll into a beach scene, but we struggled to make the animations look natural in many other circumstances. While it’s fun, we didn’t enjoy the animation effects as much. One example we created was making blossom float gently away from a cherry blossom tree, and while there isn’t a specific petal shape, we found that the oval or heart shapes worked well unless we increased the particle size dramatically. Dispersion is, for us, the standout - you can essentially add animated particle effects to your photos, to bring them to life. One definitely works more effectively than the other, although this very much depends on the starting image you’re working with. The headline improvements for PhotoDirector 12's toolset are dispersion effects and image motion, along with powerful AI-driven cropping and background-swapping enhancements.

CyberLink PhotoDirector 12 review: Features

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