How To Do Perfect Photos On A Mac Even When The Photo Isn’t Perfect

The digital age has done wonders for photography. Yes, I miss my Pentax Spotmatic’s simple up and down needle to gauge exposure.

True, there was something special about the Kodachrome look that identified a generation of photographer wannabes. Times change. A decent quality digital camera and a few apps on your Mac make for a level of photographic enhancements unheard of just a generation ago.

Nearly perfect photos are a point and a click away with the right app.

Almost Perfect Photos

These days I set my digital camera on auto focus and point and shoot. While overall photo quality of point and shoots and low-end DSLRs are not equivalent to film of yesteryear, post production is more fun.

My latest professional wannabe app is Perfect365, an elegant Mac app that enhances portraits in ways the pros did just a few years ago.

First, Perfect365 comes with a bunch of one-click templates. Take a decent photo and enhance it to near Photoshop-like results with a click.

For example, take a head shot photo, drop it in, then select from one of the 21 Preset Makeup Styles, and click.

See? Point and click.

Nearly two dozen customization tools can be used on face, skin, eyes, mouth, and hair. The settings are built-in, and virtually infinite in the number of adjustments for each photo.

Perfect365 isn’t all point and click. Granular controls give you more options.

The key facial points can be adjusted on screen for faces that are off center or tilted.

Move the adjustment points to around the mouth, nose, eyes, and eyebrows for more precise enhancements.

Attractive photos with a professional touch should be shared. Perfect365 has built-in social networking capability.

Upload completed photos to Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter, or send a finished photo back to iPhoto for storage. I haven’t tried the Perfect365 versions for iPhone or iPad. It’s difficult to get excited about photo editing on a small screen.

On the Mac, though, seeing is believing. Perfect365 isn’t quite perfect, though. The intended usage is for head shots, especially the face. Some adjustments to the presets are mandatory as the default makeup styles may appear a bit cartoonish on some (but not all) photos.

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