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TUAW's Daily Mac App: Colorize
We've featured selective color applications before on the Daily Mac App, and today we're going to take a quick look at another -- Colorize. Colorize caters for the non-artists among us with almost idiot proof usability. To get started you simply drag-and-drop an image of your choosing and let Colorize desaturate it for you. You then re-saturate only the portions of the image you want to highlight using a paint brush-type tool. You can vary the brush size using a slider, zoom in and out from the tool bar or using pinch-to-zoom, or switch between colorizing and 'uncolor' with nice large buttons on the toolbar. If you make a mistake you can hit the undo button, or save your image in its original size when you're done. There's not much else to the app, which makes it incredibly simple and easy to use, but if you're looking for a boat load of advanced features, Colorize will disappoint. I also experienced an odd bug when testing the app, in that it wouldn't let me re-saturate the image at maximum zoom -- the brush tool simply didn't work -- but I'm sure that's a bug that can be easily fixed. Colorize isn't the first selective color app in the Mac App Store, and it won't be the last. If you're a keen artist, then this isn't for you. But for those of us who can't afford Photoshop, or just want a quick and fun tool, this app will do the job. Colorize is available for US$2.99 from the Mac App Store, but if you want slightly more functionality check out ColorWash, which we featured last week. Original photo credit: Jonathan Gill
TUAW's Daily Mac App: ColorWash
Those with an artistic bent have been making color-isolated photos in Photoshop for years, but a recent crop of quick and easy tools for doing just that has allowed novices (like me) to create some of the same beautiful photos in a fraction of the time. ColorWash, currently US$0.99 in the Mac App Store, is one such program. It allows you to make color-isolated photos in minutes. You load your image of choice into the app, which will then remove all color from it, giving you a grayscale photo canvas. You then 'paint' the color back in using a brush tool, restoring the original colors into the areas of the photo that you want to. If painting the colors back in sounds like hard work, there's also an automatic fill tool to detect edges and colors and either fill in or remove the color automatically from a selection (although we had mixed results using this tool). ColorWash is great for anyone who just wants to play around with their photos. But those looking for more advanced features, options and control over the image, or even just pinch-to-zoom, should probably look elsewhere.
