When it comes to taking photos the modern way, I’ve been intrigued by that crazy looking Lytro camera that keeps everything in the photo in focus.
Why? Because you can change the focus and depth of field after you take the photo. The Lytro camera starts at $400 but you can have a similar effect on photos from your digital camera with this neat Mac app.
Add Depth, Focus, And Effects
One of the benefits of a point and shoot camera, including the iPhone’s built-in camera, is the ability to take a photo quickly, without having to worry about settings.
It’s call point and shoot for a reason. Focus and exposure is automatic. It’s that automatic setup, though, that causes all photos to look about the same.
If you don’t want to dig through a thick DSLR manual to figure out how to use all the settings, use the Photo Focus Pro app instead.
It comes with 21 built-in effects, but that’s not the claim to fame. Every other Mac photo enhancement app has similar functionality.
Photo Focus Pro lets you add depth and focus to a subject in the photo by adding special effects to the image.
Use Photo Focus to zoom in and out of a photo, crop the image, pretty much like other apps.
What this does better than most is adding focus and blur to specific sections of a photo to sharpen focus and make an image stand out.
The Ring Focus tool is cool, but so is the image Splash feature, which lets color pop out while changing the image behind.
Photo Focus isn’t limited to ring focus or backgrounds, either.
The Parallel Focus tool uses sliders to adjust the blur and focus in an image.
Multiple pairs of focal lenses can be added to a photo, which gives you more tools than you’ll get in a typical DSLR camera.
The Color Effect editing is to die for. It does basics, including saturation, brightness, contrast, and hue, but you decide where within the photo to apply each.
The Custom Focus ring also uses an inside and outside ring which shows gradient focus. And, of course, everything you do is non-destructive to the original photo and has both Undo and Redo.
Photo Focus Pro has a few sharing options, and can export edited photos as JPG, PNG, TIF, BMP, and GIF files. This is fun and costs only a few dollars, but adds plenty of options to your photography without expensive equipment.
