MacFormat UK – June 2019

APPLE CHOICE iOS software

A near picture–perfect portrait

Free, offers in-app purchases FROM Leonard Pospichal,

bit.ly/fuzionapp NEEDS iOS 12

VERDICT

Fuzion

The app lets

you ‘cut out’

portraits

by applying

images and

textures as

masks and

overlays

96 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2019 macformat.com @macformat

F

ilters on apps like

Instagram modify

colours and light in

images to make them appear

more vivid. At the other end of

the scale are more advanced apps

like Photoshop for iOS. Fuzion is

a different kind of app, providing

a set of tools for customising

images in a very specific way.

The app takes portraits and

lets you ‘cut them out’, applying

images and textures as masks

and overlays. It’s the kind of

thing you can do in Photoshop

on the desktop, but here it’s

much easier to achieve.

The app itself is free to

download, with a £2.99 one-off

purchase unlocking the full set

of textures and picture overlays.

Although the App Store

compatibility text says

otherwise, it requires an iPhone

with a dual-lens camera system on the rear.

The developer told us that Apple doesn’t let it

specify this in the App Store notes. The reason

one of these models is required is that the app

uses the depth matte generated by Portrait

mode to separate your subject from the

background. Pics lacking that mode’s depth

data aren’t compatible and will show as such.

Fun and simpple

Once you are past those requirements, the app

is simple to use. Load up a compatible image

and there are several edit tools available. The

first section is Background, which lets you use

the camera, photo library, or an image from the

app as the background for your face. Features

remain, but areas of skin show the background

texture. Using the Face section, you can set

how much of the features show through.

The Fill section lets you set a colour for

the background of the whole image, the area

behind the head. Then the Overlay tool lets you

add dust or light effects to the whole canvas,

with sliders to set amounts. Finally, the Filter

tool lets you add colour halftoning to the face

area, again with sliders for hue.

Fuzion is fun to use and gives you a way to

create artistic, masked portrait images without

needing to understand anything about image

editing. It only really does that one thing, but it

does it well and is free to download, with the

attractive additional images an inexpensive

one-off purchase. HOLLIN JONES

Once you have a suitable portrait shot, you can then

choose a background and start experimenting.

Editing your portraits to an impressive standard really

is as simple as mastering these five useful tools.

A free app that lets

you create artistic

portrait effects.

++++++

Free to download

Easy to use

Results look professional

Only runs on iPhones

with dual-lens camera^ Im

age

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s:^ L

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