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Daily Mac App: Color Splash Studio
It's been interesting to see how many new non-Photoshop image applications have been coming out for the Mac. While Photoshop can apply just about any effect to an image, I'm seeing an increasing number of specialized, low cost apps that do one or two things exceedingly well and don't require a mega-investment in Photoshop. A case in point is Color Splash Studio. The app allows you to take a color image, turn it to grayscale, and then brush selected color back in. This isn't an effect you would use on every image, but it has its place and can look pretty amazing if the subject matter supports it. Color Splash Studio is easy to use. You start by importing any image, including camera raw photos, and the app displays a grayscale image on your screen. With a brush, you basically paint the color back in, perhaps highlighting a flower or a sunset. If you make a mistake, there is an undo command, or you can brush the grayscale back onto the image if you get a bit sloppy defining an edge. The app provides zoom to help in maintaining edge accuracy, as well as an inverse mode so you can make an object grayscale while everything else is in vivid color. You can set the opacity and size of the brush in addition to its softness. In the hybrid picture that results, you can adjust the grayscale or color parameters separately including exposure, blur, contrast and hue (if you are working with color). I've enclosed a couple of sample screens in the gallery. Color Splash Pro is normally US $4.99, but is being introduced at $1.99 in the Mac app store. If you have a need for this effect and don't have a high-end image editor, it's a very worthwhile purchase. %Gallery-134672%
TUAW's Daily Mac App: iSplash
It's great to have lots of options of apps, and today's Daily Mac App adds to the plethora of colorization apps. iSplash is a selective color app just like Colorize and ColorWash, which we've covered before. iSplash is probably the simplest of the colorization apps we've played with so far. It's got an "open from iPhoto" dialog (although it'll open photos using Finder too), simple "Splash" painting tools (a brush) and undo/redo. There aren't any fancy fill features, or even a simple fill tool for that matter, but you can do just the same manually with a resizable brush tool that's managed with the "Splash size" slider on the tool bar. You can zoom in for precision work, and when you're finished you can export the image as a PNG. There aren't any options to speak of (you can't change the output format for instance), but iSplash will accept photos from anywhere and in PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF and BMP formats. If you're looking for a load of features and output options, you should look elsewhere. In fact, feature for feature, ColorWash is a better pick, especially since they're both on sale for US$0.99. It's good to have options, though, and that's just what iSplash is: another option. It'll do the job, just not as well as some others.
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.
