Play with Pictures! *Updated* – Now Includes Play with Pictures Software Giveaway!

(*Updated* – This review has been upgraded to a giveaway, too!!! One lucky winner will receive a licensing key to permanently active your Play with Pictures software beyond the 15-day free trial. This is a $39.95 value! See the bottom of this post for details on how to win.)

I take photography seriously. I even held a Twitter survey today to determine the best crop for my iHeartFaces post this week. When I open Vertus’s new Play with Pictures program, however, it brings out my inner child.

An inner child who’s operating a pretty slick piece of software.

To kick off the release of Play with Pictures, there are four weeks worth of gadget giveaways through their blog. Still up for grabs are a Wacom Bamboo Tablet (this is a major wish-list item for me) and two iPod Nanos, one for the person who wins the fourth task and one for the person who referred them (don’t forget me if you win)!

Look at my compositions and then I’ll show you how it’s done:

Begin by selecting a background image. Next, select other pictures with elements that you would like to add to the original. Combining images is easy with Play with Pictures!

How It’s Done

Let’s try a new project. Here is the photo I’ve selected for the background:

I want to add a butterfly from a picture I took last summer. When I open additional pictures (not the background layer) in Play with Pictures, the photo is divided into smaller sections based on color, like this:

Next I will click and drag the mouse using the “flood erase” tool. It will erase all of any section it touches – you do not have to touch every bit of the image you want removed, just drag somewhere within the section. Don’t worry if you make a mistake; there are undo and restore features.

Here’s how it looks after I release the mouse:

It was a breeze to isolate the butterfly. Next I took a photo of my daughter swinging, erased the background, and added it to my composite image. Here’s the end result:

As you can see from the pictures on top, it’s easy to add text boxes and change the font and transparency, too.

Would this be a handy and fun program for a blogger? Heck, yeah. It has Alli Worthington (a.k.a. Mrs. Fussypants) written all over it.

And kids? Mine love it. Here is one from my twelve-year-old daughter:

Features:

• Amazingly simple and intuitive interface – pick it up in minutes!
• Drag pictures from anywhere onto Play With Pictures™
• Instantly cut out people and other objects from different pictures and add them to your composition
• No photo editing skills required, Play With Pictures™ does all the hard work for you
• No limits to the number of pictures you can use
• Add effects, speech bubbles and text
• Share via email, Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket and Flickr or print

Links:

• Download link
• Tutorials (be sure to watch this brief video before you begin)
• Play With Pictures Blog
• Facebook Page with fan pictures

Play with Pictures retails for $39.95 and can be purchased here. Try it free for 15 days, and I’m sure you’ll be hooked!

Win a copy right here! Here’s how:

• Leave a comment on this post.
• Post about this giveaway on your own blog and link back to this post to be eligible for a second chance (please leave a separate comment with the link to your post).
• Tweet about it for a third chance (leave another comment).

Contest ends midnight Saturday night and winner will be announced on Sunday. Non-bloggers are eligible, too, with valid email address.

Tagged as: Play with Pictures, Vertus