Layers in Lightroom? Absolutely!

The number one draw for photographers to use Photoshop is Layers, at least according to those who would know.  Let's not kid ourselves, Layers is an awesome function but only barely touches the depths of design genius that Photoshop can unlock.  But, what if you only have Lightroom and REALLY NEED the functionality of Layers, but don't have the cash or time to get into Photoshop? It's all good.  Just click the graphic to the left and download Perfect Layers 2.  It's free.  It brings the power of Photoshop style Layers to Lightroom.  For free.  It's easy to use and plugs right into your workflow.  You call it as an external editor in Lightroom like any other plugin.  Did I mention the part about free?

It also works with Photoshop and Apple Aperture as well as in standalone mode.

Once you open an image in Perfect Layers, you can do all those cool layerly things that you want to do, like retouch, mask out section, control blend modes or add more layers with colour blends.  Heck it also comes with Perfect Effects 3, also at no charge so you leverage over 20 custom photo styling effects.  For free.

Now you are probably asking why the heck the nice people at OnOneSoftware would give these amazing tools away for free.  They aren't insane.  But the tools are so good, it might (should) encourage you to try out their full suite for 30 days to see if (how) it will make your post-processing workflow easier, richer and faster. There's a lot to like in the suite. The coming Perfect Photo Suite 7 has a number of modules including;

Perfect Layers 3 Perfect Portrait 2 Perfect Effects 4 Perfect Resize 7.5 Focal Point 2 Perfect Mask 5 and the brand new Perfect B&W

I like the way these tools integrate into Lightroom. I also like that OnOneSoftware make available a stack of USEFUL Lightroom presets at no charge. LR presets are available in lots of places but with rare exceptions, they're worth what you paid for them. The OnOne presets are usable, and provide a great starting point for your own creativity.

In fact you can order Perfect Photo Suite 6.1 by clicking the banner below and get Perfect Photo Suite 7 at no charge when it is released. So you can get to beautiful work today and be assured to get the new version as soon as it ships.

Give Perfect Layers 2 a shot. The photo you save may be your own.