This might come as a surprise, but I’m willing to wager that Mac and iPhone users have more photo apps than any other category.
iPhoto is pretty good for storing and managing photos, and does decent tweaks here and there, but it doesn’t take long to collect a bag of photo trick apps, including one with a funny name that produces wonderful photo collages.
56 Frames, 2-cents Each
What I like about a photo collage is the intrinsic value. Instead of a single photo, or even two or three photos sent to family and friends via email, a collage offers a bigger visual bang for the buck.
One of my favorite Mac apps for collage creation is Diptic. It’s a funny name, but a really decent value with a low price.
Diptic comes with 56 different collage frames, from a single photo layout to double photos, triple photos, or more, all laid out neatly, cleanly, and definitely left brain oriented.
Drop photos into Diptic from Aperture or iPhoto. Compose each photo within a frame, adjust the border width and color, and even change the aspect ratio using simple slider tools.
Start by selecting a frame, then the photo, then the adjustments.
Diptic’s Finish tools are easily mastered. Change border color and width as well as the corner radius.
The aspect ratio slider gives you controls over the canvas size.
And, of course, good photos need to be shared, and Diptic gives you options to email using Mail, send via iMessage, share to another Mac with AirDrop, or upload to Twitter or Flickr.
This really needs a Facebook option, though.
Diptic also lets you save projects and reuse the settings again.
Plus, it works in Fullscreen mode in OS X Lion and Mountain Lion so you can get a very detailed view of your collage creation.
Photos can be moved around, drag and drop style, between frames within a Diptic collage layout.
Diptic does have a few more color controls, but nothing to write home about. Adjust brightness, contrast, hue and color saturation.
What is nice is that the controls are tied to a single photo for a quick tweak, or use it on all photos in the collage to create an effect.
My Mac is home to four or five collage apps, some of which are more expensive than the 99-cents for Diptic, but none are as elegantly designed or as simple to use. A Facebook share option would be a good plus, though.






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