Alright so yesterday I decided to check out this Duende Pictures thing everyone’s buzzing about. Grabbed my laptop, fired up Google, and typed it in expecting magic.
First off, the setup. Downloaded the installer from their site – straightforward enough. No crazy permissions or hidden junk. Installed quick like on my Windows machine. Felt optimistic hitting that launch button.
Initial Impression: Whoa that interface is dark and moody. Like editing photos in a basement club. Tool icons look slick but honestly? Took me five minutes to find the crop tool. Everything’s hiding under tiny hamburger menus. Started testing basic adjustments – brightness, contrast, saturation. Works fine but man it’s sluggish. Like dragging sliders through molasses.
Then I imported some 4K vacation shots. Here’s where things got ugly:
- Preview rendering took ages. Seriously watched my coffee go cold waiting
- Tried applying a preset filter – POOF! Whole app froze. Had to force quit. Twice.
- Layer handling felt janky. Dragged a text layer over my sunset pic and it just vanished. Like digital Pac-Man ate it.
The “Oh Crap” Moment: Attempted exporting my edited masterpiece. Selected PNG format, hit export… aaaaand nothing. Progress bar didn’t move for three minutes. Suddenly got an error saying “memory allocation failure.” Buddy I’ve got 32GB RAM! Restarted, tried exporting as JPEG – same disaster. Lost all my edits. Felt like throwing my mouse.
Real Talk – Why I Ditched It
Look it’s not all bad. The color grading tools are kinda neat once you find them. But the cons? Dealbreakers:
- Slower than dial-up internet
- Buggy like a swamp in summer
- Weirdly missing basic tutorials
- Export issues made me want to cry
What I Actually Use Now:
After this mess I went back to my usuals:
- For quick fixes: * – simple and FREE
- Serious editing: Photopea in browser – basically Photoshop without ransom pricing
- Batch processing: IrfanView – old but gold
Honestly Duende Pictures feels like a fancy car with no engine. Looks pretty till you turn the key. Maybe it’ll improve later but right now? Not worth the headache. Stick with what works.
