When it comes to layering and masking on iPhone, most photo editing apps come up short. The tool is clunky, hard to use, or non-existent.
Superimpose is pretty much a single-purpose app that lets you mask, blend, layer, and composite two or more images on your iPhone. The new 4.6 update was released Tuesday that adds a new Smart Brush tool that helps you create better layer masks easier, as well as a slick new perspective correct tool.
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- Superimpose composite
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- Original background
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- Original foreground
Other than my big fingers getting in the way, the process was pretty painless. Load a background image. Load a foreground image. Mask out unwanted portion of the foreground image using wide range of masking tools. That’s pretty much it.
The new Smart Brush creates a mask on the foreground layer when there is a lot of contrast between the object and the background you wish to mask out. It’s similar to Photoshop’s Refine Edge tool. The tool is responsive and works the way you’d expect. For me, it was easier to use a stylus to get more precise results.
Both tools aren’t perfect, but you can get some pretty good results with a good foreground image. Otherwise, you can easily switch to the traditional masking brush with a couple of taps.
There’s also a new free-form perspective correct tool that you can use to help match the look of your foreground image to the perspective of your background. I’m surprised this tool hasn’t appeared in more apps yet — it’s pretty handy. here, it lets you grab corners of the plane in addition to the plane itself. It’s not designed as an image correction tool, but the free-form abilities make it more powerful than many of the dedicated apps available.
Superimpose is $0.99 and its toolset is pretty uncommon in the App Store. It’s fast, straightforward and makes fairly easy work of masking and compositing two images — even more if you flatten your work. Superimpose saves at a respectable 2048×1536 or 3.2 MP. That’s enough for good-sized enlargements.
It’s been on my iPhone for a while as part of my Franken-shop collection — a bunch of iPhone photo apps that collectively do a lot of what Photoshop for desktop does.
App Store link: Superimpose – Pankaj Goswami
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