image editing
Latest
Adobe's next-gen Firefly 2 offers vector graphics, more control and photorealistic renders
Just seven months after its beta debut, Adobe's Firefly generative AI is set to receive a trio of new, more powerful models and a host of fresh capabilities.
Pixelmator Photo's in-depth image editing comes to the iPhone
Pixelmator Photo is now available for the iPhone, bringing some high-end image editing tools to your pocket.
Adobe adds AI-powered masking tools to Lightroom
AI-powered tools will let you select the sky or a subject with a single click.
Adobe brings more desktop Photoshop features to the iPad, including Magic Wand
The desktop app and Fresno for iPad are getting some upgrades too.
Pixelmator's photo-editing app is coming to the iPhone
After testing the waters on Mac and iPad successfully, Pixelmator is now bringing its highly rated image editor to Apple's iPhone. Finally. Most notably, the application will feature new editing elements to assist while you're on the go, including a distort tool that lets you warp a photo to your liking and see the changes in real-time. The soon-to-be universal iOS app is going to be available for $5 starting tomorrow, or as a free update to people who already own the iPad version. Oddly enough, the Pixelmator app seems to have disappeared from the App Store in recent hours, but we're sure it'll be back there in time for tomorrow's scheduled launch.
Tonality for Mac is a powerful black and white image editor
I used to think that my photos needed color to be compelling, but a good black-and-white image can be very powerful. Of course, producing a monochrome image from a color one is not as simple as removing the color information. Talented photographers like the late Ansel Adams, who worked primarily in black and white, often shot with colored filters to highlight certain aspects of a subject, and then spent hours in the darkroom getting the tonality just right. Today, there's a Mac app called Tonality. It's US$24.99 (on sale for $17.99 through the weekend) at the Mac App Store, and it offers great control over the final look of your black-and-white image. Yes, many of these tools are available in Photoshop and Lightroom, but this app is quicker and easier to use. It features more than 150 pre-sets to get you started, but you can easily create your own looks. The app even supports digital color filters, so you can get very selective about how skies and other things in your image translate to black and white. For example, A red filter, used so frequently by Ansel Adams, darkens a light sky while letting the tones of the landscape pass mostly unchanged. Tonality gives you the freedom to experiment and create some really stunning photos. The app also includes pressure-sensitive brushes and masking tools, and you can work with multiple layers. You also have control of selective blurring, vignette creation and frames. Using the app is quite simple. You can load up to a 16 bit raw file and edit away (JPEGS or TIFF files are fine too). Down the right side of the screen are a series of pre-sets, or you can use sliders and filters to get the look you want. When you're done editing, Tonality offers several export options. You can output to iPhoto, Aperture, Photoshop or Lightroom. You can also export to several social photo services like Flickr, Facebook, and SmugMug. Finally, you can share any image via email.There are also options to have your work professionally printed for postcards, framed prints, or prints on canvas. The only thing I found missing is the ability to compare your original color image, which would be good to have. If you want a bit more, there is a Pro Edition available for $69.99. It's not available in the Mac App Store, but it adds things like plug-in support for Photoshop and Lightroom. It also adds more layers (eight rather than five) and some improvements in the histogram display. The only thing I've seen with equal power and ease of use is part of the Nik tools package from Google for $150.00. Silver Efex Pro as part of that set has similar features. Tonality is a very powerful package that is going to make a lot of photographers happy. Unlike Photoshop, it doesn't require a subscription. If you want to explore black-and-white imaging this is a great tool to have. Tonality requires OS X 10.8 or later, and a 64 bit processor.
SkinneePix trims some bloat from your selfies
How often do your hear that the selfie you did with your iPhone makes you look 'so much heavier'? It's not just a tired excuse. Often times a subject photographed at close quarters can elicit 'barrel distortion'. A majority or standard lenses aren't really optimized for extreme closeups, so your face can appear wider in the middle then at the top and the bottom. Just like a barrel. The iPhone cameras have the same issue. Pro photographers often use a zoom lens for photos, getting close and zooming out, which mostly negates the effect. SkinneePix is a US$0.99 app that un-bloats your selfie. Once you've snapped a photograph with the app, it does some face detection and gives you the option to take off anywhere from a notional 5-15 pounds. You can also change the photo to black and white or sepia. Of course if you are a bit overweight the app will help too. I tested the app on a few subjects and thought the results were quite good. There are several settings to try out, and the results can be saved to your camera roll or shared via email or iMessage. Some apps that purport to fix faces can get you looking pretty grotesque. I thought SkinneePix kept faces looking natural and un-manipulated. If you have photos that need more work, Perfect365 for iOS is worth a look. It can soften skin, highlight eyes, whiten teeth and more. SkineePix does what it claims to do at a low price. The app requires iOS 7 or later and it is optimized for the iPhone 5.
PhotoScissors for Mac is an easy way to cut out part of an image
Photoshop is the alpha and omega of photo editing apps, but every once in awhile someone comes up with a way to do a specific function even better than Adobe. A case in point is PhotoScissors, a US$19.99 Mac app that makes it easy to remove an object from a photo, then paste it in somewhere else. This can be done in Photoshop, and I marvel watching pros do this. It takes more than a few steps, and can involve the Photoshop Magic Wand or the Quick Selection Tool. PhotoScissors works differently. Take your photo, and paint some broad green strokes on what you want to preserve. A remove tool is used to paint red on objects you want to remove. You often want to remove a background, while you want to preserve a foreground object or person. The app does a quick smart analysis of what is highlighted, and quickly gets rid of the unwanted background. There are lots of reasons to have a tool like this: product photos, separating objects from a background, creating an isolated image with a new background, etc... I tried the app on a variety of photos, and it worked well. It's not always perfect, but with a little effort you can clean up anything that is missing in the cutout. PhotoScissors is often faster than any other method I've used, including Photoshop. PhotoScissors isn't a replacement for Photoshop or other high-end editors -- it just makes cutouts easy. There are tools to zoom, undo, and change background color, as well as controls to change the size of the brush. Help is built in, although it is pretty basic. On some objects, I found the Photoshop Quick Select tool just as effective and quicker, other times PhotoScissors was more efficient. If the foreground and background object have similar colors, PhotoScissors will confuse them, but it is easy to clean up and re-render. PhotoScissors is a tool for someone who spends a lot of time cutting out objects to separate them from a background. At $19.99 it is a lot cheaper than Photoshop, but of course the app is a one-trick pony. If it's a trick you need, PhotoScissors is a worthwhile investment. PhotoScissor is not in the Mac app store, but you can buy it direct online. You can also download a demo version and see if it works for you. The app requires an Intel Mac running OS X Lion or later, with a 1 GHz processor, and at least 256 MB of RAM.
Photo Popup for iOS lets you accent an item in your photo's background
Photo Popup is a US$0.99 app for iPhone that helps you separate an item in a photo from the background, letting you add a drop shadow, and even blur the background to bring attention to the subject. Photographers have been doing this kind of work in Photoshop for years, but here's a way to do it in iOS. You start by either shooting a photo or selecting one from your camera roll. With a masking tool, you cover the item by drawing on screen. Your selection turns red. If you make a mistake, there is an "undo" command that will take you to back to your first finger stroke if you need it. If you want to fine-tune the mask, you can use the unmask tool. To make the mask easier to draw, you can magnify your photo using two fingers. The virtual paint brush size stays the same, but as the picture enlarges, you can work in smaller areas. When you are done, you can preview the image, blur the background or reduce the saturation, then create a shadow with control over direction, offset, size and blur. Your finished photo can be saved out to your photo library, or emailed. Using the app is simple enough, and there is a built-in video tutorial. My only issue is that the brush should be offset from where your finger is so you can see where you are painting. This is a common issue with iOS apps that use a brush. On a Mac, there is no problem because you can see your brush on screen while you manipulate a mouse or trackpad. On iOS, your finger covers the very area you need to see. If you are careful, and zoom in quite a bit, you can draw an accurate mask, and then apply a drop shadow or work on the background. I looked at a similar app last summer called tadaa. It cost a little more, but I thought it provided better control when creating a mask. Photo Popup requires iOS 6 or later, and is optimized for the iPhone 5, but is not universal.
RotoView Photo Magnifier for iOS: Using gestures to examine images in detail
If you don't like the built-in photo viewer in the Photos app in iOS, RotoView has a free solution for magnifying your photos and easily scrolling around with gestures and phone movements. A double-tap on the screen zooms in. You can scroll by moving a finger and rotate an image by moving the phone. There's also something called "Throw and Glide." The Throw gesture rapidly scrolls enlarged photos in response to the way you tilt your phone at a rate much faster than the standard flick touch gesture. The Glide gesture follows the Throw gesture automatically with slower and more precise scrolling. The RotoView interface works well with touch gestures, providing a smooth transition between rotation and drag. Some of the moves are very complex, and certainly outstrip what you can do with a stock iOS photo viewer. Settings are also complete, and you can adjust the accelerometer and rotation thresholds, as well as the amount that an image rotates. Thankfully, you can also turn off the sound effects, which sound pretty obnoxious... If you have a lot of photos on your iPhone or iPad, and often find you need to examine them in more detail, the RotoView app is for you. The price of free is just right. Prepare to spend some time figuring out the gestures, and soon they will be second nature. RotoView Photo Magnifier is not a universal app, but runs on iPads at iPhone resolution or scaled up. The app requires iOS 6 or greater, and it's optimized for the iPhone 5.
Photoristic is a capable, but somewhat flawed iPad app for editing photos
Having just reviewed the updated Snapseed app, I was anxious to see Photoristic HD, a newly updated app (US $4.99) that offers similar, but enhanced features. Unlike Snapseed, Photoristic HD is an iPad-only app. It offers a wide variety of preset image "looks" and offers more precise control of several image parameters. It works in a similar way to Snapseed; you hold a finger down on the screen, and scroll up or down to see the image parameters, like saturation, clarity, vibrance and so on. Swiping left or right increases or decreases the effect you've selected. If you'd rather use the presets, you can see dozens of ways to present your image. With Snapseed, you can get the same result, but without presets and a lot more adjusting. I was particularly impressed with the black-and-white presets. As pro photographers know, taking a black-and-white photo through different colored filters results in very striking and different results. A red filter, for example, gives very high contrast with deep blacks. Blue or green filters render the photo differently, and can emphasize foliage or sky colors. Photoristic HD has a wide selection of B&W filters for one-click application, while Snapseed has you moving sliders back and forth. I also liked the clarity feature, which can enhance landscapes by sharpening the structure of rocks, plants and clouds. One thing Photoristic HD lacks is selective adjustments, and this is where Snapseed excels. With Photoristic HD, you'll adjust all of the image at once. That's fine for most image editing, but some iOS photographers will want more control of specific areas. The app is also sparse on other features that should be included, lacking cropping tools, straightening tools and image frames. Photorisitc HD is fast, accurate and easy to use. At $4.99, it's no bargain compared to a free app like Snapseed, but it does offer those quick presets which many photographers will appreciate. I'd like the app a lot more if it was priced around $1.99, because even with some of the excellent features, competing with free is hard. Photoristic HD requires an iPad running iOS 6 or later.
Intensify is a powerful image editor for Mac OS
Intensify is a new Mac app designed to dramatically enhance your images without requiring you to have deep knowledge of editing and adjustments. I would put it solidly between the iPhoto's editing tools and Photoshop. Open Intensify, then open an image and explore the presets designed by pro photographers. You'll find options that go way beyond iPhoto and other simple image editors, yet the changes are easy to apply. If you can't find a preset you like, there is a full range of adjustments that work in real time for things like contrast, exposure, vibrance, structure, details and shadow detail. Like all image editors, you can be as subtle or as far out as you like. Intensify opens both RAW and 16-bit images. I found the app and its adjustments best suited for landscapes, where editing can make a powerful difference. I tried some images taken on a recent trip to Bryce Canyon in Utah, and was pleased with the results. Supported file formats include RAW, TIFF 8- and 16-bit, PNG and JPEG. The app lets you see your changes side by side with the original as you work, and in every case I could really improve on my original. The structure slider gave the rocks more detail, and I painted a mask over the sky and reduced the exposure to bring out more sky colors without darkening the rest of the image. Intensify supports multiple layers so you can add effects on top of your original and easily enhance or remove them. Brushes are adjustable, and there is an undo command. The shadow-recovery tool can help give you an HDR look with only one exposure. In fact, in some cases I preferred the Intensify output to my three-exposure HDR combinations. There are two versions of Intensify. One is on sale for US$29.99 in the Mac app store. Intensify Pro adds the ability to function as a plug-in inside Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom or Elements. It also opens Adobe PSD files directly, and offers a few tools like micro-sharpness and a de-halo feature. The Pro version is only available through the MacPhun website and is on sale at $49.99. Both versions of the app worked fine under Mavericks and were stable in a couple hours of use. One can't compare the results of Intensify to Photoshop directly. Intensify certainly is easier, but it lacks some tools like spot or dust removal. It's not intended to be a Photoshop replacement. Yet it has tools that can enhance an image equally to what you can do in Photoshop with a lot less work and a lot less know-how. I have been impressed with Intensify, and I think the photographer who wants more out of his images without a large expenditure for software will like what Intensify achieves. Pros will appreciate the range of adjustments, while less-advanced photographers will love the variety of automatic settings. The feature set is deep enough that it can't be covered in a brief review, so check out the Intensify website where there are several videos that will give you an idea just how powerful this app is. Intensify requires Max OS X 10.7 or later, and a 64-bit processor.
Daily iPhone App: Curved
I have a soft spot for image editing apps that let me add some flair to the photos I take with my iPhone. One app that has made its way into my permanent tool bag is Curved. As its name implies, Curved Text on Photo lets you overlay multiple layers of curved text on your iPhone and iPad images. Curved lets you add text and then apply a variety of shapes to wrap the text around elements within your image. Curved shapes include a wave, arc, bell, full circle, semi-circle and others. You can even draw your own lines to wrap the text in the way that works best for your photo. Once your curved text is complete, you can further stylize the look with an artistic font. The app ships with a handful of fonts and extra fonts are available via an in-app purchase. Curved is more than just a text overlay app as it also has a basic photo editor that lets you tweak your image. Tools include contrast, brightness, crop, blemish remover, stickers and more. If you don't like the effects and stickers available by default in the app, you can purchase additional packs for 99-cents each. When you are done with your creation, you can export the image at full resolution to your photo album. You can also share it via email or send it to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr. Curved has another option that lets you send the image to other compatible apps that are installed on your iPhone. Curved is available in the iOS App Store for US$1.99.
Fotor Photo Editor for Mac is capable and free if you act quickly
Photo editing on a Mac presents a dilemma for budget-conscious consumers. Photoshop is high-end and expensive. iPhoto is affordable, but its editing tools are rudimentary. There are still plenty other apps to choose from, including Pixelmator and Acorn. Another good title to add to your list of photo editing apps is Fotor Photo Editor. It's not Photoshop, but it has a lot of strengths. Best of all, it is free for a limited time. The app has excellent editing tools, giving you control of the exposure, brightness, contrast, white balance, sharpening, blurring and much more. The app also features 13 different one click enhancement options, as well as a large selection of effects and frames. The app even lets you apply tilt-shift filters to your images, and supports most image formats including the all important raw import. It also lets you import multiple images for HDR treatment. Text can easily be added to photos, and you can pop up a panel with your EXIF data. I found Fotor to be simple and intuitive to use. All the operations are on a panel to the right of the main screen. You can see your original image with a click, then reapply the filters. One thing I didn't like is there is no history-based undo. There is a button bewilderingly called 'none,' which takes all the filters and optimizations off. I'd like the app to go backwards step by step through all the changes and undo them one at a time. With this version of Fotor, undoing a mistake is all or nothing. %Gallery-185514% I think many photographers will like Fotor Photo Editor. The same developers have done some excellent iOS apps and it's nice to see those skills brought to the Mac. I don't know how long Fotor will be free, so grab it as soon as you can. The app requires OS X 10.6 or later and a 64-bit processor. It has been optimized to work with Retina Display screens.
Diptic updates its iOS collage creation app
I took a look at Diptic a while ago and liked what I saw. The US$0.99 universal app allows you to select photos from your camera roll and create compelling collages that can be sent at various resolutions to family and friends. The new version 6, just released, has a great many new and enhanced features, including more than a 100 new layouts, textures on borders and the ability to add captions to photos. It offers much more control over frames and the arrangement of images. One welcome addition is improvement to the photo picker, and for the first time you can now select multiple images at once, rather than going back and forth to your camera roll. The app now supports the Retina display and is optimized for the iPhone 5. %Gallery-173946% Finished collages can be shared via email, Instagram, Flickr, Twitter (with iOS6 only) and other social media destinations. The company has also partnered with a third party so you can send physical postcards directly from your iPhone or iPad. I gave the app a try and really appreciated the new layouts and increased control. The old version gave you a numerical readout of frame thickness which is missing in this new version, and I don't see the ability to save a layout that you might want to use again. Those are the main negatives, which I hope will be remedied in a future version. Update: One of the Diptic folks tells me that it isn't clear how to save a layout in the app and it will be fixed. It can be done using the export function, where is is saved in the 'recent' tab. Besides those minor complaints, Diptic is a very solid update to an already useful app. The ability to create eye-catching collages without needed a laptop or desktop computer is very handy, and many will find it useful at capturing and sharing their holiday festivities. Diptic requires iOS5. I have some sample screens in the gallery above.
PhotoPath is a clever and complete iOS app for creating multi-photo images
There are so many photo-editing apps in the App Store it's hard to keep up, but I want to call PhotoPath to your attention. It's a free, universal app that can be, for many photographers, a one-stop solution for creating multi-photo presentations. The app starts with a series of frame layouts. Pick the one you like, then tap on each frame to either add a photo from your camera roll or shoot one with the camera. You can scale the photo and move it around until you are happy with the composition. Then add some filtering like black and white, sepia or intensify the colors. PhotoPath allows you to change the type of frame and borders, as well as adjust the size, color and border design. You can add a caption, which many photo apps don't include. It's a really nice app to have when you are sending images back from a vacation or party, because you get something "finished" and not just a series of photos. You can save the finished project to your camera roll, or email it. You can also print from your iPhone or iPad if you have a compatible printer. %Gallery-170700% The app is ad-supported, but I don't find the ads intrusive, and they come up only rarely. If you want to kill the ads, you can get the ad-free version for US$0.99. The app contains help, but I found it intuitive enough that I didn't need the hints. More layouts and filters would be welcome, but you can create some nice image sets with what is provided. I don't consider PhotoPath a complete photo-editing app. There aren't all the features people will want, like sharpening and curves, but that isn't the point. PhotoPath allows you to create multi-photo compositions with some minimal but effective tools like frames and filters. The app runs on any iOS device running iOS 6 or later, and is optimized for the iPhone 5. PhotoPath is a clever app, the price is right and the output looks great. I've added it to my permanent roster of photo apps. I have some sample screens in the gallery.
Vic Gundotra post hints Snapseed for Android may be close, bring Google+ integration
When Google bought Nik Software, there was some worry that Snapseed would go the proverbial dodo's route and fade into obscurity as part of a larger Google app. We won't see that ignominious end anytime soon if Senior Engineering VP Vic Gundotra's photography is as valid a clue as it looks. On an evening flight to Baltimore, Gundotra posted a view of the setting sun to Google+ using Snapseed -- a rather unique achievement given that the existing, iOS-only app doesn't know the social network exists. Knowing the executive's usual choice of smartphone, the public use could be the hint of the already planned Android port getting close to launch, even if there's no way to know exactly when and how the image editing app could arrive. Let's hope that Gundotra's post is more than just a fleeting glimpse of a product that gets shelved later on.
Google buys Snapseed developer Nik Software, raises the eyebrows of Instagram shutterbugs
Google makes a lot of acquisitions, some of them more important than others. Its latest purchase might skew towards the grander side, as it just bought imaging app developer Nik Software. While the company is known for pro photography apps like Capture NX and its Efex Pro series, the real prize might be Snapseed, Nik's simpler image tool for desktop and iOS users. Both Nik and Google's Senior Engineering VP Vic Gundotra are silent on the exact plans, but it doesn't take much to imagine a parallel between Facebook's buyout of Instagram and what Google is doing here: there's no direct, Google-run equivalent to Instagram's social photo service in Android or for Google+ users, and Nik's technology might bridge the gap. Whether or not Googlegram becomes a reality, the deal is likely to create waves among photographers of all kinds -- including those who've never bought a dedicated camera.
Layover for iOS offers sophisticated layering, blending to images
Layover is a neat photo app for iPhone and iPad (US$0.99, universal) that sounds like it might be a travel app. It's not, yet "Layover" is a pretty good name for what it does. The app lets you blend up to 5 photos. Masks and careful editing help you create a new, compelling image. This is the kind of sophistication you expect from pro apps like Photoshop, and it's interesting to see these features trickle down to the iPhone and iPad. %Gallery-162508% The blending modes are quite sophisticated, with options like a simple layer on top of another image. Layover also offers Addition, Difference layers, Lighten, Hue, Saturation, Luminosity, Soft Light, Hard Light, Color Dodge, and Color Burn. Each effect rather dramatically affects the result. You get some basic control of aspect ratio and you can also crop images. When you are done, share your masterwork via emai, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or Tumblr. You can see examples of the filters on the Layover website, as well as my gallery above. These effects are familiar to Photoshop users, but I doubt they will mean much to regular photo enthusiasts without some explanation, and that's where Layover is weak. There is some popup help, but not nearly enough to explain the power that the app possesses. Some users could have trouble figuring out how to make the most of Layover. The app would benefit from a library of examples. Still, if you know what you are doing, these advanced features are very welcome on iOS devices. The app developers also offer Diptic, an app for creating multi-panel images, which we were quite enthusiastic about. Layover requires iOS 5 or later.
Aviary launches photo editing application on iOS, turns Android plugin into an app
Last we heard, Aviary was being chosen to replace the deceased Picnik as the main photo editor on Flickr, and now the startup is getting ready to launch its first iOS app and give its previous Android offering a major boost. The Jeff Bezos-backed company has just announced its entry into the application game, giving iOS and Android folks access to an array of its image editing tools -- much like Apple's iPhoto on Cupertino devices or Photoshop Express on ones powered by Google's OS. Naturally, you'll be able to do run-of-the-mill tidbits such as cropping, rotating, sharpening and blurring, which are bundled alongside others like cosmetic tools, one-tap auto enhance and "gorgeous effects." It's also worth noting Aviary was once present on Google Play as a plugin, but has now made the change to a full-on, feature-packed application. Those interested in taking the fresh app for a spin can hit either of the source links below, where a mighty free download awaits you. %Gallery-158194%
