In today's world, the phenomenon of photography and video is a daily routine in our lives. Everybody owns a camera or at least a smartphone that can take a lot of photos every day. Of course, many times, non-professional needs to edit a photo to use it for various purposes. There are well-known brands such as Adobe with Photoshop on the market. But they are too complicated for a beginner and are expensive to buy. There are also alternative products to photoshop. These are not so hard to learn, and they are also much cheaper, yet they can fulfill the many useful functions we need when editing a photo.
Recently I was very impressed by an exciting product from Movavi, which is Movavi Photo editor. The manufacturer offers it for both Mac and Windows and is an excellent Photoshop alternative especially for newcomers. As I mentioned a significant advantage is a relatively favorable price (selling price 29.95 GBP) but still has an extensive range of features.
Movavi Photo Editor is a simple yet very powerful tool. Even a beginner can edit their photos for social networking purposes such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. Overall, the application is straightforward. Basically, you are moving within one page where there are obvious menu systems that automatically guide you to the various functions available.
Contents
Adjust
At the top of the screen is a list of effects and features you can apply to your photo. At the bottom is a well-arranged mini browser to select the photo you want to edit. On the right side of the screen are details of the selected editing function.
Magic Enhance
Let's look at the first function, Adjust. First, we find the Magic Enhance button. Lets you enhance the overall impression of your photo with a single click by improving its tonal contrast, color, and even add vignetting. Also, you can then fine-tune how strongly you want to apply this effect.
White Balance
White balance can adjust the white balance in your photo by clicking the dropper on the part of your image and adjusting the white balance accordingly. I much appreciate the preview box that shows you what the final effect will look like.
Standard editing options are also available. Here you can find standard functions like Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Sharpness, Details, Blur, Temperature, Tint, and Hue.
The available Undo, Before / After and View Original buttons are always helpful. Undo lets you instantly go back one step, Before / After divides the screen into two parts, where you can see the original image side by side and adjusted. When you click and hold View Original, you see the original image before editing.
Retouching.
Another item on the top menu is Retouching. It is a robust tool that allows detailed retouching of portrait photos. With Skin Smoothing, you can smooth the skin on the face or other parts of the portrait. You set the appropriate brush size, its softness, and intensity, and then you can start painting on the skin area you want to smooth. If the portrait subject has strong wrinkles, you can remove them with Wrinkle removal. Set a brush and paint right along the wrinkle you want to remove.
Blemish removal works similarly - with a suitably set brush size, click blemish, which is automatically removed.
Use other tools to make the portrait subject virtually complete makeup. You can remove Skin Shine, and apply Foundation as well as Blush. Change the color of the pupil and adjust its intensity. You can then also highlight your eyes with Eyeshadow, Mascara, and Eyebrow pencil.
You can apply Lipstick in the mouth area and set any color as well as whiten your teeth.
Interesting are also Reshaping tools, which in such a low price level category of software is a pleasant surprise.
Object Removal.
Very often, we encounter situations when we have unwanted objects in our photographs from our vacation or travel that we want to remove. The Object Removal function is beneficial in this case. First, you choose how to mark the object in the photo you want to delete. It can be Brush, Magic Wand Tool or Lasso tool. When you select a brush, you set its size and start painting the object you want to remove. When you are finished press, the Start Erasing button and the software will automatically remove that object from the image. Subsequently, you can fine-tune the resulting image using the Clone Stamp tool.
Change background.
Surely you have many times need to quickly and easily cut an object from a photo and place it on a new background. Or you don't like the sky in your landscape picture, and you'd like to replace it with another picture taken in another situation. Then you will undoubtedly welcome the Change background function. In general, you can use it in product photography, funny collages, and many other cases.
Click Change Background. Now you have to label foreground and background. There are two ways to do this. The first is a brush. Click Brush + and roughly highlight the foreground objects you want to keep. It is not necessary to color the entire object, but if this object contains many small details, you can refine this selection by multiple strokes. Then press Brush - to highlight the background you want to remove. If you make a mistake, use the Eraser tool to correct the selection or fine-tune it.
As soon as you mark the foreground and background area, Photo Editor will outline the foreground object with a line.
Sometimes it is necessary to do some advanced strokes with a green or red brush to add or remove a part of the image.
Similarly, you will select using the Green or Red Lasso Tool.
Click Next Step. Now you have the option of Refine Edges. Use Mask Brush to fine-tune the selected area and use the Hair selection tool to refine the selection of the hair in case you are editing a person or portrait.
Click the Next Step. You can now choose a new background. You can choose a transparent background or solid colors, or you can select a new image to serve as a new background. For example, you can change the sky with a landscape photo. It is essential to fine-tune the final combined picture, and sometimes we have to use Blur Edges to achieve a soft, continuous transition between foreground and background. We can also Shift Edges to move the contours of the foreground as needed to achieve a realistic effect. Also important is the Adjust colors to background function, which allows the colors between the foreground and background to be unified.
If you are finished, press Apply changes to perform the entire operation.
Denoise.
Surely you have a lot of photos that you took during the evening or at night. If you have taken a picture in auto mode many times, the camera automatically sets the highest ISO value to increase the sensitivity of the sensor to be able to capture also dark subjects or part of the image. Unfortunately, the secondary effect is the noise, which increases to the level that often depreciates the whole photo. Then the Denoise function comes in handy.
So press the Denoise button to open the next setting options. Choose one of the predefined options and apply it to your photo. In the next step, you can make additional settings using the button in the upper right corner of each preset. Here you can adjust Light noise, Color noise as well as Sharpness. It is convenient to save the new setting as a Custom Preset, which you can use later. Sometimes the Denoise function may be too strong and cause a significant blur. In this case, reduce the overall effect by using the slider.
Final thoughts.
Movavi also offers convenient bundles of several products. For example, there is currently running a promotion where you get the Photo Editor + Photo Manager + Slideshow Maker for the price of 59.95GBP.
Photo Manager is a tool that gives you a precise tool for managing and archiving and organizing your photos. Photo Manager supports all known image file formats like RAW, JPEG, PNG, etc. Handy features are Automatic Album Creation, Photo Tagging, Geolocation, and Similar Photos.
Use Slideshow Maker to create video from your photos in minutes. It includes Built-in effects, and you can choose from 150 filters, over 100 transitions. You can also add your favorite song or choose one of the default built-in tracks. When you're done, you can share your slideshow with friends or family on YouTube directly from this app.
