Layers is a powerful, new iPhone app. The name says it all. Better yet, the screen shot below says it all. Take a look …
As you can see, the Layers Mode interface is elegant. There is no other way to describe it, so I’ll say it again. …. elegant! Except if you wanted to ALSO describe it as “instantly intuitive”, or “Fun”.
Tap a layer, it’s highlighted in blue, and now, your active layer. Use layers mode, to add, or subtract up to 5 layers. Paint or use an eraser on that layer, with variably transparent brushes.
This variability becomes more important, especially using the eraser, since there’s no way (yet) to control the overall transparency of each layer. You can quickly re-order the image’s layers with a tap, and a drag, then, tap the lower left icon to switch back to canvas mode to see results of the re-order. This feature allows for quick experimentation of multiple layers, as you change their position in the stack of layers.
The more button in this mode allows you to fill with current color, merge the layer down, or to duplicate the layer.
Brushes section has 8 preset brushes, with a size slider. Click on the Color tab, to reveal my favorite Apple color picker, with transparency slider. Click on eraser, and apply transparency and brush size to it. Old and new comparison boxes compare old and new color selections side-by-side, a real nice touch, in an App full of nice touches.
In the painting mode toolbar, first up, 30 levels of do and undo, via 2 arrows. A bulls-eye type color picker allows you to pick up any shade from any selected layer, and then paint with that color, or fill a new layer with it if you wish, Great feature!
The Brush icon takes you straight to brush pre-sets, and size slider. The eraser is one click away, the icon on the far right. There’s not that many areas to get lost here. It’s concise, but powerful.
Even the save dialog box has some pleasant surprises, email flatted jpeg, email PSD with layers, send to photos, or save as duplicate is a nice selection, for my phone.
Tomorrow, we continue this apps exploration with a review of its desktop remote features, recording brushstrokes, hi-rez output …
**** Note: There’s a problem with the app right now, if you bring images into the app using "Layer with Picture." ( in the app’s "Add layer " dialog box ) directly from the camera roll, the image comes in sideways, and severely cropped. Here is the work around: Process the image in Photogene, PhotoLab, Photonasis, and probably many other image editing apps out there.
Save the file back to your Camera Roll, and now try opening the image, and positioning it into a 512 x 512 workspace of "Layers". It works. ****
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