My use for photo editing software these days is basically limited to restoration of old photos--mainly fixing damage and restoring color. I did a bunch some years ago when scanning in old prints. Today I scanned in an old pic and did a restore in Elements 2023, and decided to see what the newest version (2026) would offer, when I discovered you only get a 3 year license, after which the software is effectively bricked.
This is especially frustrating as I'm not doing a lot of restoration anymore, so it's possibly I'll pay the upgrade, do a few restorations, and then find the software no longer works after just a handful of jobs.
So as of now I'll stick with PE 2023. I also own Acorn 7.x and Affinity Photo 2.x, though neither has the same simple restoration tools.
Any suggestions of perpetual license (at least, for non-full number updates) software for restoration? I know of only one instance where I may want to remove an object, otherwise that's not a big feature I'm looking for. My aim is to get a photo back to as close to the original as possible (no colorization, certainly no animation).
This is especially frustrating as I'm not doing a lot of restoration anymore, so it's possibly I'll pay the upgrade, do a few restorations, and then find the software no longer works after just a handful of jobs.
So as of now I'll stick with PE 2023. I also own Acorn 7.x and Affinity Photo 2.x, though neither has the same simple restoration tools.
Any suggestions of perpetual license (at least, for non-full number updates) software for restoration? I know of only one instance where I may want to remove an object, otherwise that's not a big feature I'm looking for. My aim is to get a photo back to as close to the original as possible (no colorization, certainly no animation).
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