For quite some time I’ve been waiting for OnOne’s new “Perfect Layers.” See, I’m an OnOne user, I have the Perfect Photo Suite, and love all the tools included. Perfect Layers will be a free upgrade for me……
At first I’d heard Perfect Layers would be available at the start of this year. It pushed out a bit and the wondering faded into my mind. Then a few hours ago I got an e-mail. The public beta for Perfect Layers was finally available. 🙂 Hooray, a new toy.
I’ve barely started to scratch the surface of what I can do with Perfect Layers. Basically, it’s layers for Lightroom. This is going to be a game changer in my workflow. I can already see it. For a quickie example I selected a photo you’ve seen here before. From Hackberry along Route 66. I created a virtual copy of the original, desaturated it, punched the clarity, and threw the original and virtual copy together in Perfect Layers. Then I just did a quick overlay and called it done.
Now, could I do this in Photoshop? Yup. But here’s the fun. If you’re just a Lightroom user and you don’t have Photoshop, Perfect Layers is going to open up a whole new set of options. Layering for Lightroom only. A much lighter package than Photoshop, layer masking (OnOne style which I like), merging layers, etc. I have a feeling many photographers may find themselves using just Lightroom and Perfect Layers now.
I’ll update as I gain more experience and watch OnOne’s videos. I’m beyond excited about this one. Like I said….I think my workflow will be changing again!