Fotor for Windows 8 Modern UI. Thoroughly

Fotor is an all-in-one application for photo editing, whose popularity is growing as it is available for several platforms (iPhone , Android, Windows 8 Modern UI, Mac, other versions of Windows and online version), being free (without), and offering a complete set of tools that make the editing process a playful activity within the reach of any user. In this article we are going to see the possibilities of Fotor for Windows 8 in Modern UI version

To get Fotor for Windows 8 we can go to the creator's website or directly to the app store. If you only want to try the product without installing anything, remember that it is possible to access the application online.

h2. Fotor for Windows 8 Modern UI, this is how it works.

h3. Running Fotor

Once the application is launched, we will be in front of a screen that you can see in the header image of the article. In it we have two options (Open a photo and Collage), and some images provided by the application , arranged in a mosaic. We are going to see in detail the two options offered by the program.

h3. Individual images (Open a photo)

To process images individually click on the Open a photo control. Once we have navigated to the directory where we have our favorite images (by default it is located in the images library), the thumbnails corresponding to each of them will appear. We will select one and press the “Open” control located in the lower right corner of the screen.

With this action we will display the Fotor main screen, whose organization you can see in the following screenshot. The selected image occupies the largest area, and to its right the actions that can be performed arranged in two columns.

The first of these, which contains the largest controls, includes all the possibilities present in each item of the plus icon column little ones. As you can see, by default it opens in “Scenes”, with the “None” option checked.

h4. Scenes

The first control, 1-Tap Enhance , can suffice in most cases. With it, the program will modify the image according to a series of optimization patterns that it has implemented.The result will depend on the original image and will not always be a noticeable improvement.

When photographing the Utah desert, for example, the “Sunset” filter enhances shadows more and adds more intensity to color than when using auto enhancement. This depends on personal taste and it is a matter of trying. In the current version of Fotor we have 13 filters in this section, in addition to automatic enhancement.

h4. Edit

This control enables the basic editing options: brightness, contrast, saturation, color temperature, tint, and blur/sharpening. As in the case of filters, we have to carry out tests with different values of the sliders until we obtain the desired result.

h4. Crop

The Crop option allows you to crop the images with a series of set sizes, as well as free cropping.You can adjust the size of the canvas numerically while maintaining or not the aspect ratio. Using the Straighten option we can also rotate the image with +/-15º inclination With the “Confirm” button we will effectively apply the changes made.

h4. Effects

The version of Fotor used for this article (27 March 2013 update), has a total of 56 effects yes I have not miscounted, distributed as follows: 11- Classic , 19- Lomo , 9-White&Black, 12- Artistic and 5- Dark Corners . Each of these effects allows detailed adjustment and the result can be saved as a favorite

h4. Borders

Fotor for Windows 8 Modern UI offers 23 types of frames to add to our images.

h4. Tilt-Shift Mode

This tool is used to make selective blurs, which can be longitudinal or radial. It has various aperture sizes and blur radius. The longitudinal ones can be rotated by means of handles that appear when we are manipulating an image with this tool.

h4. Text

Another of Fotor's features is the possibility of adding text to images, either directly or through five templates. Text editing is somewhat basic, though you can select font, bold, italics, underline, and font color, as well as text transparency and slant.

h3. Collage

The second option of the main menu allows us to make compositions with several images Here the possibilities are many, from templates to free composition (with random arrangement calculated by the program if we wish), up to horizontal and vertical strips.

In each modality there is an “extra”, either for the background color in the templates, or for the background of the composition free, either to assign frame size and rounded corners for filmstrips.

h3. Fotor and RAW

An invisible but very useful feature is the automatic conversion of the RAW format, with support for about 100 types of digital cameras. When we select an image with these characteristics, Fotor will automatically take care of the conversion.

h2. Fotor, conclusions

I believe, without fear of making a mistake, that Fotor is one of the best free applications for Windows 8 Modern UI. The user interface is well thought out, the program works smoothly and offers enough possibilities for any photography fan.

The only drawback that can be attributed to it is the dubious taste of some frames and backgrounds for the compositions, but this is a personal appreciation . Another issue that may be present in future revisions, but that for now can be considered a lack, are direct options to share on social networks.

Having released Adobe Photoshop Express, the comparison is almost inevitable. Apart from the indisputable quality of Adobe's algorithms, Fotor offers many more possibilities without pretending to charge a euro, the interface is less spartan and consumes slightly fewer resources than the Adobe program.