iRetouch: Half Of Photoshop In the Palm Of Your Hand

Posted by darnell on Mar 23rd, 2009 in Featured Articles, Photography Apps | Comments Off

iRetouch (dog sample)

Recession got you down? Unable to afford your Photoshop upgrade for $199?

What, you don’t have Photoshop? Neither do I! Instead of sending $699-$1,000 to Adobe, I decided to instead pay a mere $2 for a new photo editing app called iRetouch.

Created by iMapl (who developed Magic Touch), iRetouch allows you to edit a photo in detail whether it’s shading color images in black & white, toning, croping or even adjusting the image size.

But what makes iRetouch unique is that it allows you to edit specific regions of the image (instead of the entire photo) making the app very flexible for gurus as well as easy to use for newbies.

Since the “devil is in the details,” here is what I enjoyed about this app, as well as what I felt was lacking.

The Good

For those of you who are familiar with Magic Touch, you will notice a few major improvements, outside the fact that this app is a lot more stable than Magic Touch.

The first is the ability to change your “brush” shape (and not just its size) from a circle to a square. This might not seem like a big deal to photo buffs, until one has to adjust the color in a corner (something circle “brushes” are horrible at).

Another cool feature I loved was the ability to erase effects without distorting the image (note: you can adjust the size of the square/circle brush, which is really helpful).

Instead of creating a multiple redo/undo (which can become cumbersome, especially if you discover a mistake you made ten edits ago) you simply hit the eraser and erase the effect on the picture.

Last but not least was the ability to insert humerous “photicons” that can add some life to your image.

The Bad

While I enjoyed iRetouch overall, one thing I did not enjoy was the inability to switch from the Basic Tools editor to the Touch-up Tools mode (and vice versa) without closing the app.

Also I was dissappointed about the lack of camera mode, something I enjoyed in Magic Touch (and now Photogene which has it as well).

Hopefully iMapl can find a way of adding that back in, as taking pictures within the app is always a bonus.

Last but not least, I was not too thrilled with the clone stamp in iRetouch. While the feature is a lot more stable than Magic Touch, I felt it was not as useful, as it kept “doubleing up” whenever I attempted to select a specific region.

I also felt that an app this powerful should have some way where you can select a region to be highlighted, zoom somewhere else and “paste” your clone stamp elsewhere without having to drag the stamp zone across the screen.

Conclusion

Overall this is a great app, one I would recommend for photo gurus, especially bloggers (who often search for that perfect photo to accompany their post).