Picktorial

A new photo-editing app with lots of tools and a clean interface

$39.99 Manufacturer Picktorial Innovations, picktorial.com Requirements OS X 10.9 or later

Photo editing apps tend to go one of two ways. You’ve got your one-shot filtering programs, such as Priime Styles, and your more Photoshop-like apps which offer in-depth tools to edit your photos in any way you like.

Picktorial has aspects of both, however. While there are no layers to work with, you do get non-destructive editing, skin-smoothing, raw image file support for a growing list of cameras, white balance adjustment, a curves adjustment histogram, and compatibility with existing Aperture catalog files – although it doesn’t feature that app’s organizational abilities.

The interface is clean and uncluttered, with editing tools in an “inspector” panel at the right, and file browsing to the left and below the main image window. Any of the side panels can be slid out of the way when you’re not using them.

Photo filters aren’t always to everyone’s taste, but happily Picktorial contains filmsimulation filters along with its more Instagramlike ones. They’re customizable, you can create your own, and there’s always the reset button nearby if things get out of hand. For some users that will be enough; this is a $40 app, however, so it’s gratifying it takes things further.

Head lower down the inspector and you’ll find cropping and rotating tools, more Lightroom- style sliders including exposure and white balance, and some clever color saturation settings that can alter the hue, saturation and luminosity of eight color channels, split between shadows and highlights. This is impressive stuff for such a newcomer to the imaging scene.

Retouching options include a Tone tool that only affects a pre-selected region of your photo, which you define by painting. You can then adjust color temperature, exposure, contrast and saturation over the defined area using a discrete set of sliders.

It’s a neat way of getting round the lack of a general selection tool such as Photoshop’s, and you can paint more than one region, flicking between them and fine-tuning your edits. It takes a steady hand if you want to be accurate in your selection, though. Overlays to add folds, cracks and frames to your images also feature, along with watermarking if you want to protect your creations with your copyright.

Picktorial is a very good image editing app. The developer has put a great deal of thought into its design and feature set, and it would make a fine alternative to Aperture if you’re still looking to upgrade.

the bottom line. A superb first release, and an app to watch in future. Ian Evenden