Tonality Pro Black-and-White Photo Editor for Mac

Tonality Pro is a black-and-white photo editor that can be used as a standalone application or a plug-in to Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, or Apple Aperture. Tonality has a histogram with a 10-zone system strip, the familiar Macphun tools for selective editing, and a large selection of presets.

Tonality pro features the usual tools, such as tone adjustments, color filters, a tone curve, and vignette, as well as structure, glow, lens blur, texture overlay, grain, and photo frames effects. I first tested Tonality to see if the presets were any good. I found the Film Emulation category the least attractive, with only some 20 films from which to choose, but overall the presets offer a balanced set of creative starting points.

The real fun comes from experimenting with the parameters. Without ever looking at the online user guides, I could create black-and-white images that were tuned exactly to my liking. What's more, I discovered you can selectively bring back a color. For example, in a photo of a housing block with a bright red traffic plate, I wanted to get the plate's red back. All I needed to do was crank up the red saturation, add a separate layer to block out the red brickwork from the houses, and I was done.

There were a couple filters that I had my doubts about. The glow effect could do with a few more configuration options, and the grain option isn't realistic enough, as it has no relation to film. With some slider settings, it looked more like I was adding dirt than grain.

With the opacity of each layer adjustable from not to fully effective—along with the presets, masking tools, and effects available in Tonality Pro—your creative options are virtually endless.

Company: Macphun Software
Price: $69.99
Web: www.macphun.com
Rating: 4
Hot: Selective color; layers; nice selection of presets
Not: Too few film presets; grain not realistic

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