More from the evil (Mac) enabler
A number of the Macphun photography apps are currently deeply discounted in the Appstore. Intensify, for instance, which retails for £45 through the website, is £3.99, so if you're looking at photo enhancement apps, this is the time to pounce. I've been using a number of their offerings for a couple of years now, and have been _very_ pleased with the results, to the degree that I've uninstalled various other apps I also own because I never use them anymore and when I try to, I find them cumbersome and unsatisfactory.
(The deal for Luminar is somewhat better on the Website because they give you additional materials.)
Ah, Luminar. I do not often fall in love with apps _that_ much - the last was Storyist - but this one hits all of my buttons.
- It's well designed. Everything works smoothly, the interface is smooth and slick and has a lot of useful settings and controls right where I expect them.
- It lets me create. Cool stuff happens when I use this app, I really like the results. There's a lot of 'oh, wow' coming from my direction at the moment.
- it makes me feel competent. I have another app, which gives me in its (much narrower) domain results of similar quality, but that one just has a list of presets to click, with no adjustments and no explanations. It's a good quick fix solution, particularly as there's much less cognitive load when you have only eight settings to choose from (instead of several dozens *plus* all of the individual filters). But 'apply this' is not very satisfying. I don't know why it works, I can't replicate the effect other than by using the exact same app, and I definitely cannot work out what's happening, and how I might tweak it to suit a different photo or solve a different problem.
- I'm learning *what* to apply and *how* to apply it. Twice this morning, after selecting a preset visually (they all give you previews of what your image will look like when they'e applied) I was able to apply an additional filter with not too much random moving of sliders to see what happens: I had a fair idea what effect I wanted, and which filter might be able to provide it. I'm still at the start of learning what all of these settings *really* do, but the app is set up in a way that completely cuts out the 'aaaargh, too many settings' bit and lets you go 'oh, combine filters a, b, and c, and you get this effect. Got it.'. I'm hoping that by the end of 2017 I have a much better handle on image processing - what *can* those tools do for me - but I feel that I am well on the way.
Also posted at http://green-knight.dreamwidth.org/1081183.html where it has gathered
comments. If you're reading at both sites, I'd prefer comments at DW.
(The deal for Luminar is somewhat better on the Website because they give you additional materials.)
Ah, Luminar. I do not often fall in love with apps _that_ much - the last was Storyist - but this one hits all of my buttons.
- It's well designed. Everything works smoothly, the interface is smooth and slick and has a lot of useful settings and controls right where I expect them.
- It lets me create. Cool stuff happens when I use this app, I really like the results. There's a lot of 'oh, wow' coming from my direction at the moment.
- it makes me feel competent. I have another app, which gives me in its (much narrower) domain results of similar quality, but that one just has a list of presets to click, with no adjustments and no explanations. It's a good quick fix solution, particularly as there's much less cognitive load when you have only eight settings to choose from (instead of several dozens *plus* all of the individual filters). But 'apply this' is not very satisfying. I don't know why it works, I can't replicate the effect other than by using the exact same app, and I definitely cannot work out what's happening, and how I might tweak it to suit a different photo or solve a different problem.
- I'm learning *what* to apply and *how* to apply it. Twice this morning, after selecting a preset visually (they all give you previews of what your image will look like when they'e applied) I was able to apply an additional filter with not too much random moving of sliders to see what happens: I had a fair idea what effect I wanted, and which filter might be able to provide it. I'm still at the start of learning what all of these settings *really* do, but the app is set up in a way that completely cuts out the 'aaaargh, too many settings' bit and lets you go 'oh, combine filters a, b, and c, and you get this effect. Got it.'. I'm hoping that by the end of 2017 I have a much better handle on image processing - what *can* those tools do for me - but I feel that I am well on the way.
Also posted at http://green-knight.dreamwidth.org/1081183.html where it has gathered
comments. If you're reading at both sites, I'd prefer comments at DW.