May
10
By now, many of us are accustomed to photo editing software; these multimedia tools allow the average photographer to create above average photos with the use of easy editing tools. There are many choices available for us to choose from and sometimes that can be overwhelming.
Another issue seems to be that once you get the hang of one tool that started out free, they begin charging you and not everyone is willing to pay.
Well, there’s a new tool on the block and that is fotor.com.
ABOUT FOTOR
Fotor was launched in May, 2012 (happy birthday Fotor!) and has from the beginning brought powerful, easy to use photo editing tools into the hands of anyone and everyone with an internet connection.
Fotor uses cloud computing to provide a suite of image processing tools ranging from basic cropping to automatic photo enhancement to fun add-ons like frames and text. Fotor has made professional-level photo editing accessible to everyday users through an easy to use and understand interface.
FOTOR WALKTHRU
The best way to speak to fotor’s abilities is to walk you through a photo editing session.
Here’s a photo that could be really nice; a father and his daughter strolling in the woods on a beautiful, sunny day. Bad news is that the photographer (me) is just your average click-happy individual who visually can see a great shot, but can’t capture it with the lens.
After opening the photo, tools on the left show up with easy to understand icons that when hovered over, show what the icon is used for.
Basic Edits
From here you can do things such as 1-Tap Enhance which detects the correct settings for the photo and automatically enhances it. Alternatively, you can manually enhance the pictures with options like crop, curve, rotate, tone and colors. In basic mode you can also resize your image and straighten it if you’re like me and get the angle of slightly.
Effects
There are so many effects to choose from that I advise you to check them all out yourself. Some of my favourites for this photo are Mini-Oven, Sunlight Spots, Hot Fudge Sunday and Yellowish. Overall there are 57 effects to choose from, all free.
Frames
Adding frames to your photos can really make them stand out, especially for us bloggers. There are over 60 frames to choose from, as well as the ability to add your own border, shadow effect or gallery frame.
One item I miss here is the ability to use the eyedropper tool to select a custom colour from within your photo. This is a feature I use with other photo editing software that saves a ton of time on finding the perfect matching frame colour.
Clip Art
Now here is where it gets really fun! Adding clip art to your photos can be effective when using your photos to mark special occasions, as gift or as greeting cards. Clip Art in Fotor is really easy as you can search by ‘label’ for the prefect collection suited to your theme. You can choose from 50 different categories of clip art.
Text
A tool I use a lot for editing my photos for blogging is the text tool. I really like Fotor’s version of this feature. First you add your text into the text area and then you’re able to play around with it in terms of font style and colour. Again, I find I miss the eyedropper tool here to customize my colour choice. Hopefully this is something Fotor will carry out soon.
There are over 300 fonts to choose from for text editing. This is something that I have not seen in other photo editing software; almost every font imaginable. You can also scroll through the list with your text selected and watch it change as you scroll down. This is a big feature in my opinion as it save on a lot of trial and error time.
Brushes
There are three brush types to choose from; Color Splash, Mosaics and Big Aperture.
Color Splash
Allows you to bring focus to a particular part of the image by gray scaling everything except the area you select.
Mosaics
Turn selected parts of your photo into pixellated mosaics.
Big Aperture
Perhaps my favourite feature here, you can increase/decrease the aperture of the lens to change focus and sharpness.
Compare
The compare feature is definitely my favourite one. This is not something I have been able to find in other photo editing software and it is the key to good photo editing.
By selecting compare, you are able to see a side-by-side view of your original photo and the new state after you’ve applied edits. This way you are able to see if you’ve really improved your photo or not.
Save & Share
Now that you are finished creating a wonderful work of art you can save your photo in a few different ways. Save in .jpg or .png file format, or share directly to your favourite social networks.
PHOTO COLLAGE
Now here is perhaps where Fotor stands out the most; the ability to work with multiple photos. Check out all the different and fun ways to create photo collages.
Template
Photo Stitching
Montage
Shape Collage
PHOTO CARDS
Again, another priceless feature that you don’t find with other software out there; the ability to create custom-made greeting cards with your photos. And how timely for Mother’s Day.
HDR PHOTOGRAPHY
Fotor also offers HDR Photography, (High Dynamic Range) which takes three photos with different exposures and combines them into a single image to bring out the best light and tone in each part of the photo.
Fotor.com is the first photo editor offering HDR features online so you can capture highlights, shadows and striking details without the need to download software. This is not an area that I amvery skilled in working with so I encourage you to check it out yourself. It looks like it can do some amazing things!
OVERALL IMPRESSION
I love Fotor.com for editing my photos. There are so many extraordinary features that you can’t find anywhere else and because of this, it will likely be my one stop shop for my future image manipulation needs. There are a few items that I miss in fotor.com as mentioned above that I do hope to see implemented in future versions.
FOTOR APP
Fotor isn’t just for PC users, you can also download the fotor app from iTunes.
CONNECT WITH FOTOR
Get started today for free at fotor.com and follow along with the Fotor team on Facebook and Twitter.
I’d love to hear what you think of this tool as well! Happy editing!
Disclaimer: I was compensated for this post, however the opinions are 100% my own and are in no way influenced by fotor.com.
