I‘ll admit it: I’m no Photoshop expert. I know the basics and sometimes I manage to learn something from the plethora of online Photoshop tutorials, but in the end, I still consider myself to be a dabbler at best. Nevertheless, I still want the images on macsteps.com and my other sites to look at least a bit pretty. While I have managed to acquire the skills needed to make Photoshop do most of what I want, not everybody will want to put in the effort. This is where Picturesque comes in handy.
One-click image beautifier
Picturesque makes enhancing images extremely easy. You can choose from a set of effects and tweak each effect’s settings to your liking. The effects you can use are:
- Perspective
- Reflection
- Shadow
- Curve
- Stroke
To add an effect to the image, simply click the effect’s icon and move the control sliders until you’re pleased. To turn an effect off again, click its caption.
Batch effects with presets
There’s no real batch processing feature built into Picturesque and it’s not scriptable. But the Presets feature comes pretty close. If you have a set of effects you want to apply to a number of images, you can save these effect settings to a preset and apply them to an image with a single click. That makes it easy to give all the images on your website an identical look and feel.
Conclusion
Picturesque is a nice little app that makes it extremely easy for even the most novice user to apply visually pleasing effects to images. The only downsides are the limited number of effects you can apply and the, at least in my opinion, price tag. Given the limited features $14.99 is slightly over the top. Overall, if you have absolutely no clue of Photoshop, Picturesque will give you the easiest possible way to apply some cool effects to your images.
Pros
- Very easy to use
- Great-looking effects with instant preview
- Handy presets for batch-editing of images
Cons
- Limited number of effects
- Overpriced
Picturesque is available at Picturesque. You can download a free trial version that adds a watermark to exported images and, if you like it, register the full version of Picturesque for $14.99 (US).