AAUG Reviews

by Guy Okada, AAUG Member
There are so many tools to help us create better digital images. Every serious photographer uses some form of image processing to improving their photos. However, just plopping a nice photo into a brochure or your website can appear plain. Acqualia Software’s Picturesque will dress your photo before you post them on a website or display them in a publication. Picturesque adds effects to your photo that will make it stand out and its hallmark is its simplicity.

Picturesque requires OS 10.4 or higher and installation is a snap. You can try Picturesque with all of its features but any saved images will have a watermark.

Picturesque is so simple to use: You start by dropping an image(s) into the small window that opens up when you launch the program, or by dropping an image(s) onto the Picturesque icon, or by clicking Command-O and finding the images that you want to add. Almost instantly your image will display the effects that were applied to previous image.

When you open an image in Picturesque a window called “Inspector” pops up. This is the control panel where effects are created and manipulated. The Inspector window has six ways to manipulate images: background, reflection, shadow and glow, curve, edges and resize. Most effects have sliders that allow you to adjust the effect. The background color can be also be changed into a myriad of colors but I preferred black as it showed the effects best. However, if you’re working with a webpage, using the same background color in Picturesque will allow you to create optimal images that will stand out. Picturesque effects are simple yet elegant. There aren’t fancy frames that detract from the photo itself but rather subtle effects that enhance photos to make them pop.

After you’ve played around with the effects for a half-hour or so, you’ll pretty much master what Picturesque is capable of doing. Whether you use reflections, soft glows, shadows, delicate curves, strokes or fades, Picturesque will quickly transform images from plain to stunning. The intensity of each effect can be adjusted by using the slider bars. If you have a collection of images that you’d like to apply the same effects to, Picturesque has a batch processing procedure which is as simple as dragging a folder of images into the Picturesque window and they’ll all have the same effect applied to them. You can resize one photo or a collection of photos just as easily. Picturesque is fully scriptable with Applescript. One warning is that Picturesque’s window is a low quality preview of the final image; the final image’s quality will be much better after saving. The last step is, of course, to Save. You can save photos in three formats: png, jpeg, or tiff. You can also adjust the quality by adjusting the slider bar.

Picturesque allows you to quickly create effects that will impress anyone without having to spend hours in Photoshop or buying plugins. Demo it first and see what it is capable of doing. With Picturesque you will take your photos to the next level with a minimum of effort. It is well worth $19.50!