FotoMix: Manipulate, Mix Photos Easily
If you are more of the playful creative type of computer user, you sometimes may want to express your creativity with photo manipulations.
How about mixing pictures of your family, friends or colleagues with backgrounds of your last vacation, favorite movie scene or scenery?
Update: The website FotoMix was published on is no longer available. We have uploaded the latest release version of FotoMix to our own server. Note that we don't support the program in any way and that we have done so for archiving reasons only. You can download the program with a click on the following link: (Download Removed)
FotoMix
FotoMix is a surprisingly lightweight and advanced photo manipulation software for the Windows operating system, that can do that, and more.
The program enables you to mix background and foreground pictures to create new photos. Each picture that you add to the program can be manipulated in several ways, for example, by adding effects or text to it.
Here is how FotoMix works in detail. It all starts with a new project and a blank screen. You may then set a background and may pick any image for that, use artificial backgrounds or even make the background transparent if you prefer that option. Artificial backgrounds are textures basically that the program comes with.
Each selection displays its own set of manipulation options. Photos for instance can be resized, cropped, rotated, deformed or enhanced with effects.
Effects vary and include blurring the image, or making it look like an oil painting, rock, old paper photo or negative. Several sliders are provided to fine tune the results further.
The foreground image is the second image for the photo mix. Only photos can be selected as the foreground image. A similar set of image manipulation and enhancement options is provided.
Basically, all available options that are available in the background menu are also available in the foreground manipulation menu. From image manipulations like resizing or erasing to color tolerance, deformations, image tuning and effects.
Composition brings the photos together. In the beginning, only the foreground image is shown on the screen. Why? Because its transparency is set to 0. Sliders on the left edge can be used to change the transparency level and other parameters, like edge and circle fades, moving the foreground image around, and adding text to the image.
Touch up is the fourth and last tab of the program. Brushes are available here to manipulate the composition further. A total of five brushes are available, including a clone and blend brush, useful to fine tune the resulting image.
Finally, newly created images can be saved in various formats including jpg, png and gif.
Closing Words
FotoMix is a handy application for users who want to mix multiple images to create a merged image of sorts. While it is somewhat limited and not as powerful as using an image editor like Photoshop for that, it is easier to use and requires no image editing skills.
The program is completely free but ad driven, and compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.