Tuesday, November 29, 2011

FotoMorph 13.4.2 Portable

Digital imaging and graphic design software is often the victim of one of two problems: either it's too advanced for everyone but expert users, or it's too basic to do anything very useful. FotoMorph is one of the rare programs that manage to deliver impressive results with very little know-how. This fun application lets users create animations that morph one photo into another, no experience required.

The program's interface is attractive and intuitive. It does contain some advertising, but it's fairly unobtrusive. We appreciated the fact that the program comes with a sample project, allowing users to see exactly how a particular result was achieved. With FotoMorph, users can create animated sequences in which images morph, pan, and warp. For example, the sample project features a photo of a woman who morphs into the Mona Lisa, who then turns her head and winks. It sounds complex and difficult to achieve, but a bit of time spent playing with the program reveals that these types of effects aren't terribly challenging. The program's Help file is well-written and pretty thorough, although it would have benefited from the use of more screenshots to illustrate the features it describes. We did like the fact that there's a tutorial that explains the entire creation of the Mona Lisa sample project. Overall, we liked FotoMorph quite a bit. It does require a bit of experimentation, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy to use and a whole lot of fun.