PhotoFiltre Studio 11.7.0

PhotoFiltre Studio is an image editor for Windows that retouches photographs, combines pictures and text, and creates graphics with transparent areas. It provides direct pixel adjustments, editable layers and drawing tools, with separate modules for processing batches of images and generating animated GIFs.

Selecting and adjusting image areas

A selection limits an operation to part of the image. Rectangle and ellipse tools create regular shapes; the polygon tool joins straight segments around a subject, while the lasso follows a freehand outline. Saved PFS selections can be loaded into another image.

The magic wand selects pixels by their similarity to a sampled color. Its tolerance controls the accepted color range, and a separate option includes matching pixels even when they are not adjacent. Inverting the selection switches the editable area, while feathering makes its boundary progressively transparent.

Tonal and color adjustments

PhotoFiltre Studio applies direct adjustments to the active bitmap layer in RGB or RGBA mode. With a selection active, only that area changes. Brightness and contrast can be adjusted across the image or through individual color channels. Saturation changes the intensity of the colors.

Gamma correction concentrates its changes on midtones. Color balance can work separately on shadows, midtones and highlights, and automatic levels readjusts the red, green and blue channels. Curves provide another way to shape tonal changes by moving points and handles; curve settings can be saved for reuse.

Filters and effect strength

Filters produce results such as oil-painting textures, watercolor treatments, blurred motion and drawn outlines. Their previews show the treatment on the image. Fade reduces the strength of the last operation by partially restoring the preceding state.

Sharpening and dust-reduction controls use gain, radius and threshold to determine the effect's strength, neighborhood and affected pixels. Filters operate on bitmap layers; a text layer must be converted to bitmap before filtering, ending its editable-text behavior.

Composing pictures and text with layers

Pasting or importing an image creates a bitmap layer above the active layer. Separate elements remain independent until merged. Layer controls change their position, visibility, opacity and locking, while transparent areas reveal the layers below.

PhotoFiltre Studio also provides color and adjustment layers. A color layer places a translucent color over the visible layers beneath it. An adjustment layer changes their brightness, contrast, hue, saturation or gamma without directly altering their stored pixels.

Editable text

Text layers retain their wording, font and appearance settings after other elements have been added. Controls include alignment, rotation, character spacing and line spacing. Text can use a solid color or an image pattern, with opacity and drop-shadow settings changing its appearance in the composition.

Masks and transparent borders

PhotoMasque uses a grayscale image to control the result's contour and opacity. White areas become transparent, black areas remain opaque, and intermediate shades produce partial transparency. Applied in transparent mode, the mask changes a layer's alpha channel rather than its color pixels.

Transparent gradients create a gradual fade in the alpha channel. Erasing on a layer exposes what lies beneath; erasing on an opaque background replaces pixels with the background color instead.

Drawing and retouching with brushes

Brushes draw onto the active bitmap layer using selected foreground and background colors. Their shape, size, pressure and spacing determine the stroke. The rainbow style changes color along the stroke, while nozzles place successive patterns from a series as the pointer moves.

Cloning image pixels

The clone stamp samples one part of an image and paints it elsewhere, including onto another layer or open image. Its normal mode keeps a constant offset between source and destination. Fixed mode repeatedly uses the initial sample instead.

Local retouching

Local retouching tools work through a chosen radius and pressure. They can change gamma, saturation or sharpness under the brush, correct red-eye areas, or soften existing retouching. An active selection acts as a stencil for these strokes.

The magic eraser fills an erased area from pixels around its boundary. Radial mode handles spots, while horizontal and vertical modes follow marks aligned in those directions. The artistic brush applies a selected filter along a painted stroke rather than across the whole image.

Processing a folder of images

The batch module accepts every matching file in a source folder or a manually selected subset. It writes results to a chosen export folder, keeping original names or applying a prefix and incrementing suffix. Output controls include JPEG compression and the color count for other supported formats.

Resize settings use maximum width and height, or a percentage of the original dimensions. Preserving proportions fits each image within the specified bounds. Optional operations add adjustments, filters, frames, rotations, PNG overlays or copyright text to the exported files.

Operations follow a fixed order: resizing precedes adjustments and filters, while overlays, frames, canvas changes and transformations precede final color reduction and saving. Settings can be retained for another batch, and the completion report lists processed files and errors.

Batch processing flattens visible PFI layers before applying operations and disables transparency when opening an image. It therefore produces rendered images rather than revised multilayer projects. Existing destination files with identical names and formats can be overwritten without a warning.

Saving projects and exporting images

PFI is PhotoFiltre Studio's native project format. It retains separate layers and transparency, with optional lossless compression. Standard image exports merge the visible layers when their format cannot store the layer structure.

PNG retains transparency, while JPEG exports an opaque photograph with adjustable compression. A JPEG preview helps compare its appearance before saving; original EXIF and IPTC metadata can also be retained. Transparent regions become white when exported to a format that does not support them.

GIF stores an indexed-color image and reduces images with more colors to its palette. BMP, TIFF, Targa and RLE provide further export choices. Choosing PFI for a working composition preserves the elements needed for later edits.

Building animated GIFs from layers

The animation module treats ordered layers as frames, with the background defining the canvas rather than becoming a frame. An existing animated GIF opens as layers, allowing its individual images to be edited. Frame duration can be set uniformly or separately, and looping controls repeated playback.

Background restoration inserts the background between frames. Palette settings choose a common web palette or optimized frame palettes, while dithering affects color reduction. Preview displays the animation before GIF export.

Hidden layers are included in generation, so hiding a layer does not remove its frame. Setting that frame's duration to zero skips it. Transparent animation uses each layer's transparency but ignores its overall opacity.

Studio and the layered freeware edition

The layered freeware edition shares selections, layers, basic adjustments, brushes and batch processing with PhotoFiltre Studio. Studio adds further editing and output functions:

The freeware edition permits private and nonprofit use; commercial or professional use requires a Studio licence. PhotoFiltre Studio has a trial, followed by a purchased registration key for continued use.