A useful complement to Lightroom and Photoshop
I prefer to use Lightroom and Photoshop as much as possible, and I only buy a plugin if I cannot replicate its effects in LR or PS. Intensify is one of those few plugins. I ended up buying the App Store version that doesn’t run as a plugin because I can still set it up in Lightroom as an external editor, and because I discovered that the plugin version does not allow me to save my work (as a proprietary MPI file) and reopen it later to tweak the settings. Although a key feature of the plugin version is that it opens RAW files, Intensify does not have any lens correction or healing tools, so for me there is no benefit to opening RAW files directly, and instead I use Lightroom to correct an image before opening it in Intensify. The App Store version does everything I need it to do.
Intensify provides far more control of contrast than Lightroom or Photoshop, and it adjusts contrast without excessive halos or other artifacts. When I am adjusting an image in Lightroom that I plan to edit in Intensify, I do not apply any clarity or strong contrast, leaving that for Intensify. I also apply only a minimal amount of sharpening, as Intensify has its own sharpening function, and I have found that if I bring a pre-sharpened image into Intensify it can sometimes create artifacts along high-contrast edges.
The key adjustments in Intensify are “Pro Contrast,” “Structure” and “Detail.” Pro Contrast adjusts contrast separately for shadows, midtones and highlights, with an Offset slider that adjusts the median value for each tonal range. Structure enhances texture, particularly in areas of continuous contrast (a light-coloured wall, for example). It also provides separate adjustments for shadows, midtones and highlights. Detail is a sharpening function with separate adjustments for small, medium and large details (similar to using different radius settings in Photoshop) and separate adjustments for highlights and shadows. There’s a Masking slider that apparently works the same as the one in Lightroom, but there’s no ability to hold down the Option key while adjusting the Masking to see the black-and-white sharpening mask, so it’s a bit of a guessing game.
Layers are a great feature of Intensify. Adjustments are applied on layers (that can be renamed by double-clicking on them, which is a feature I haven’t seen described anywhere) that can optionally have a mask (and reduced opacity). The Brush and Eraser tools work well for creating a mask, but for some reason it’s not possible to set different brush parameters for each. For example, if I want to Erase with a soft brush at 50% and then paint back with a harder Brush at 100%, have to adjust the brush parameters every time I switch from the Brush to Eraser and back again. The Gradient tool works well, too, but unlike Lightroom it cannot be adjusted once it has been applied.
The online help for Intensify isn’t terribly useful, but fortunately there are several videos on Vimeo that do a good job of demonstrating how to use the app. Overall, Intensify is a great piece of software, and the price is right. I would rate it 4.5 stars if Apple allowed half star ratings as there are a few minor missing features, but as its a brand new version 1.0 release, I rounded up to 5 stars.
Drdul about
Intensify, v1.0.0