Photon Workshop Review

Photon Workshop is worth starting with if you own a supported Anycubic resin printer and want to prepare prints without paying for slicing software. A slicer turns a 3D model into the layers and instructions your printer needs to make it. Photon Workshop also lets you position models, hollow them and add the temporary structures that hold them during printing.

Its main drawback is the judgment it still leaves to you: automatic preparation doesn’t mean a model is ready to print unchecked. Keep it if that work feels manageable. Consider CHITUBOX or Lychee if a compatible alternative makes support editing easier for you.

Getting Photon Workshop onto your computer and printer

Photon Workshop is free to use. Get it through Anycubic’s official software downloads or your printer’s support page, and choose the Windows or macOS installer appropriate for your computer. Anycubic’s similarly named filament-printing programs serve a different purpose, so check that the download actually says Photon Workshop.

Photon Workshop 4.0 is a real release: Anycubic identifies it as compatible with the Photon P1. However, older official regional download pages still list 3.6.2. That makes the version number on an old download page a poor guide to the latest build. Follow the current download route for your printer; if you already have Workshop installed, Anycubic documents Help → Check Update as another way to check.

Before installing, check the requirements attached to that release, including the operating-system version, memory and graphics support. Old recommendations for the 2.x or 3.x software don’t establish what a 4.x installer needs. If you depend on Linux or an older Mac, confirm a supported installer before making Workshop part of your setup.

Choose your exact printer profile—the saved configuration for that machine. “Photon” alone isn’t enough. For example, the Photon M3 Max uses .pm3m output, while the Photon Mono 4 uses .pm4n. Changing a filename’s ending won’t convert the print instructions inside it.

You install Photon Workshop on your computer; downloading it online doesn’t make it a browser slicer. Connected printing is a separate feature. Anycubic advertises remote operation for the P1, while USB transfer remains the documented route for older Photon machines. Use the transfer method your specific printer supports rather than assuming every Photon has the same network options.

Preparing a model in Photon Workshop

The everyday workflow covers what you need for ordinary resin prints: select the printer, open a model, position it, check the resin settings, add supports, slice and inspect the result. Anycubic’s guides for version 3.0 and later document this sequence, though button locations can differ between releases.

STL and OBJ are supported model-file formats. You can import several models and select them through the object list, so preparing a plate of separate parts doesn’t require a separate project for each one. The layout tool lets you adjust spacing and placement. Check the arrangement yourself, especially near the edges of the printable area.

Move, Rotate and Scale handle basic positioning. If a model is too large, Free Cut lets you divide it into smaller pieces. Hollowing removes material from the interior to use less resin, and the hole-punching tool adds openings so resin can drain out. Those are useful options for larger figures, but hollowing adds decisions about wall thickness and access to the inside. It isn’t a necessary first step for every model.

Select settings intended for your printer and resin. Exposure time means how long the printer shines light on each layer to harden it; layer height controls the thickness of those layers. Start with the relevant recommended settings and calibrate before committing to a large print. Leave the printer’s preset dimensions and resolution alone.

After adding supports, slice the model and move through the layer preview. Check that every intended part appears and inspect areas that begin separately from the rest of the model. Export the printer-specific sliced file, then transfer it using USB or the supported connected workflow.

Treat the estimated print time as a guide. In a reported test using Workshop 3.3.2 on macOS with an M7 Pro and high-speed resin, a small Validation Matrix calibration print took almost six minutes against an estimate of about one minute. That example doesn’t predict the error on a larger print, but it shows why the estimate shouldn’t be your deadline.

How much work Photon Workshop’s supports need

Supports are temporary stems that connect parts of your model to the build plate or another supported area. They give newly printed sections something to attach to. Photon Workshop can generate them automatically, and its light, medium and heavy presets give you a starting point.

Use automatic supports as a first pass. Then inspect the model’s lowest points and any small sections that start printing before they connect to the main body. These isolated sections are called islands. Workshop’s Check Islands tool and layer slider help you find them. A connected section can still have a weak attachment, so an island check doesn’t prove the whole structure is strong enough.

You can add support points manually, move them and change their size. That matters when you want to reinforce a weak area without covering the whole model in heavier supports. Think about removal, too: a contact on a visible face gives you more cleanup to do there.

Contact size involves a tradeoff. Anycubic’s version 3.0 guidance explains that wider or deeper tips can leave larger marks, while making tips too small can weaken the connection. Ball-shaped contacts can leave raised bumps; they don’t guarantee a flawless surface. The Break Point setting is intended to make supports easier to remove, but it doesn’t eliminate finishing work.

A reported Photon P1 test using Workshop 4.0 shows why those adjustments matter. Thin connectors on a dog figure held during printing but deteriorated during washing. Increasing their thickness made them more robust. The wider printer test used Anycubic standard and ABS-Like Resin 2.0, but didn’t give all the settings for that individual model. It’s a useful example of a correction you might need to make yourself.

A June 2024 Reddit owner report describes an M3 Max printing the first of three plates for a quarter-scale figure using mostly medium automatic supports and a few manual additions, with light scars to clean up. The owner had run an exposure test first. This was their first print on that machine, not their first resin-printing experience.

Neither example makes “medium supports” the right answer for every print. Calibrate exposure for your resin and printer, inspect the attachments, and judge the cleaned result. When watching a video demonstration, look for those details and the software version—not just a successful reveal.

When another slicer would make more sense

CHITUBOX and Lychee are the closest alternatives to consider, but check compatibility before comparing interfaces. A slicer needs to export the file your exact printer accepts. Support for one Anycubic model doesn’t establish support for its Pro, Max or Ultra sibling, and file export doesn’t automatically include remote printing.

CHITUBOX is worth trying if you want to prepare models for printers from several brands in one application. Its current printer list includes the Photon M3 Max, Mono 4, Mono M7 Pro and P1, alongside machines from other manufacturers. Its documented workflow includes automatic supports and manual placement, so you can compare the same basic job without assuming a subscription is necessary.

Pay attention to which CHITUBOX documentation you follow. The current documentation describes a free application and marks the older standalone Pro product as “Deprecated,” meaning it has been superseded. An old tutorial about separate Basic and Pro installers may show different controls or put features in a different plan. Check which plan includes the tool you want before paying.

Lychee offers a free Lite edition and a paid Plus subscription. Lite includes ads on export; Plus removes them and includes tools such as support painting, which lets you mark regions for supports, and more extensive hollowing options. That makes Plus worth evaluating if those are jobs you do often. Its trial gives you a way to find out whether the controls help enough to justify paying. Confirm your printer in the software’s printer list first.

Don’t assume switching will mean faster slicing, fewer support corrections or cleaner prints. Try a model you actually want to print. Prepare it in Workshop and the alternative, keeping its size and angle the same. Compare how easily you can inspect and adjust the supports, then check the output on your printer with the same resin and equivalent exposure settings.

Be careful when copying settings between programs: compare the labels and units, especially movement speeds. Record the settings that already work before changing them. Switching software is worthwhile when it solves an identifiable problem; paying for a longer feature list alone doesn’t establish better results.

Should you use Photon Workshop?

Start with Photon Workshop if your Anycubic resin printer has a supported profile, your computer meets the release’s requirements, and you want positioning, hollowing, support generation and slicing without a software bill. Its manual controls give you room to correct automatic preparation as you learn.

Stay with it if you can prepare your usual models comfortably and repeatedly get prints you’re happy to clean up. Needing a few manual supports isn’t, by itself, a reason to change slicers. The important question is whether you can spot and fix the weak areas without the process becoming frustrating.

Try CHITUBOX if handling several supported printer brands in one program would help. Try Lychee if its support-editing tools address work you regularly struggle with, and check whether the features you want require Plus. If your computer or printer isn’t supported, resolve that first.

Your next step should be a small calibration print followed by a model like the ones you want to make. You can check that the file prints properly and see how much work the supports need before filling the build plate.