Drag and drop images into the Picturesque window, and you can then crop them or add pseudo-3D perspective, reflections, curved edges, shadows, glows, and border strokes. Each of these effects is precisely configurable--for example, perspective is adjusted by specifying the rotation and elevation; reflection by specifying length, opacity, and offset; and so on.
And that’s about it: this is no Photoshop Lite; it’s more like Photoshop Weightless. The only other functionality of note is the ability to save preset effect specifications, and some good options for batch saving in PNG, TIFF, or JPEG formats, including auto-numbering of files.
One function that is blatantly missing (we reviewed version 2.4.0) is the ability to turn off batch processing. Picturesque will apply the effects you choose to all open photos. This will often be useful, of course, but it does mean that if you want different effects for each image, you have to spend a lot of time opening and closing files. We also had a few unexpected quits, though we can’t say this was the app’s fault.
The bottom line. Picturesque is worth a try if you regularly need to apply any of its built-in effects--most of them aren’t as easy to manage in standard image editors. It won’t, however, even begin to replace a full-featured editor for general-purpose photo manipulation.
Mac OS 10.6 or later
Easy to use. Precise control over effects.
Batch processing always on. Some signs of instability.
