Auto-Crop

Posterino 5 allows you to automatically crop a set of images to their subject. To the face, the upper body, or to the subject of the image. All this, with the click of a button. Or – using the new set of auto-crop enabled templates – with no click at all. Just drop your images onto a template and the crop is done.

Subject Masking (macOS 14+ only)

On top of the auto-crop feature you can add subject-masking to rid an image of its background. In the most simple case, this makes the background transparent.

Subject masking builds on a feature of macOS 14 and later. On previous versions of macOS, subject masking it not available.

Color Palettes

With the image background out of the way, there is room for something new. Something colorful. Posterino 5 now comes with a set of color palettes to choose from.

Template Power

The new features taken together – the auto-crop, the subject-masking and the color palettes – give Posterino templates a new level of power. Grab a bunch of images, one of the new templates and experience a new stage of Posterino automation and flexibility.

For example, to create a collage yearbook, you just need to drop a set of portrait images onto the right template and you are done. Done with crop, masking, background, placement and all. And in case your image file names correspond to the names of the students, you don’t even have to touch the captions.

Face-Mosaic

Finally, as the sugar on top, some fun.

Based on the beloved Mosaic-Crop action of Posterino, using the new features outlined above and a bit of algorithmic magic, you can create something really special in Posterino 5: A Face-Mosaic.

Transform a set of portrait images, into something really unique:

So, how does this work? Basically you take a set of portrait images – from one or from different persons – and you chose a layout for the images. Here, I used a random layout. Then you apply the Face-Mosaic action which will align the faces from the individual images to build one face stretching over all the images. The Face-Mosaic action can be controlled using a corresponding inspector panel.

Conclusion

My leitmotiv for Posterino 5 was: Make good use of the new features of macOS 14 and at the same time strengthen the existing Posterino themes of automatic image layout and flexibility. I think Posterino 5 has indeed become a step towards this direction.

Posterino 4.2 has just been released. The new version is all about improvements to the built-in media browser. For example, you can now add image folders to the browser. Furthermore, the media browser displays handy information, like the number of images in an album or highlights which images are already used in a document.

Image folders

One of the most requested features for Posterino 4 was: „I want to see my image folders from Finder in the built-in media browser“. Now you can. Add an image folder to the media browser via File > Import Images. Or by dragging a folder from the Finder to the album tree of the media browser. As a small bonus, the content of the image folder will automatically update if the images in the folder on disk change.

Album Tree

The number of images in an album is now displayed on the album tree. This information is very hand when you are about to determine the number of images you need for a new collage. You can show or hide the media count using the album tree context menu or via the main menu at View > Media Browser > Show Media Count.

Image Browser

The media browser now displays the number of times an image is used in your document. The number is displayed as a badge in the top-right corner of the images in question. This badge helps to answer the question: Which of the images in my album did I already use for my college? You can show or hide the media usage count using the context menu or via the main menu at View > Media Browser > Show Media Usage.

The number of selected images is now displayed in the bottom-left corner of the media browser.

You can now select an image in the image browser and show it in your document via a context menu command. If you think of a collage of, e.g., 50 or more images, the new command makes locating one or more image so much easier and faster.

And you can sort the images in the browser by creation date. To change the sort order, use the context menu or got to the main menu at View > Media Browser > Sort by.

General

If you don’t plan to use Photos at all, you can switch off Photos support entirely. This cleans up the album tree and just leaves your image folders in place. You are asked about your plan for using Photos on the very first start of Posterino. Later, you can alter this setting under Posterino > Settings > Media Browser.

The media browser now restores the last selected album. Say you are currently working with images from your „Vacation in Venice“ album. On the next document you open, Posterino will default to „Vacation in Venice“. This works even if you did quit Posterino and open again days later.