PhotoScissors 4.0

PhotoScissors can help you edit photographs in order to remove their background or specific objects.

One thing that characterizes the program is its ease of use. In this respect, it has a nice graphical user interface that responds to the specific workflow of selecting the regions to keep or erase, and then applying the desired effects. It supports importing most of the commonly used picture formats.

Attending to universally recognized color conventions, PhotoScissors uses green as foreground key to mark the areas to preserve while red works as the background key. The program works in two modes: auto and manual, which define the way the limits between the regions are set. Moreover, there is the alpha-mating tool, which lets you work with transparent or semi-transparent objects, like those made of glass. Then, it is possible to substitute the background with another picture or a solid color. You can also erase it altogether.

After these initial steps, you can smooth region boundaries by setting the desired degree. Likewise, you can configure offset levels. In this respect, it is excellent that it is possible to apply a feathering effect to help dissolve the dividing line so that the cutting looks more natural. On the contrary, if you want to highlight the edges, you can use shadows. Finally, there is the possibility to apply effects to the foreground and background regions, which include colorizing, grayscale, negative, pixelate and blur. Fortunately, the tool provides instant feedback on all the changes you make, so you can correct any problem in real time.

All in all, PhotoScissors maybe not as sophisticated and versatile as other tools of the same type; however, it is definitely easier to use than most of them. Still, I definitely missed some selection tools, like the Lasso and the Magic Wand. The product is shareware and its trial version has the limitations of not allowing you to save the resulting image.