REVIEW: Bling! It Lets You Pimp Your Graphics

I had the opportunity to try out Bling! It, the image editing application by Vertus that’s designed to jazz up eBay product photos with colorful backgrounds and various effects. Vertus prides itself on making Bling! It both easy to use and able to make extraordinary changes quickly, and if you are an eBay seller or even a web graphics novice who has a particular need for background extraction or the like, Bling! It may be the right solution for you.

Windows only!

That’s right—Bling! It is only available to Windows users at the moment. But wait a few weeks, because I hear that Vertus will release a Mac version very soon—at least by the Macworld Expo in January.

The process

Because Bling! It has a very specific series of tasks, its structure is based around a specific workflow:

• Delete the background
• Compose the picture
• Add effects
• Save the image

Deleting the background may be the most complicated step in the workflow. When you open a graphic, Bling! It will draw edges around what it thinks are the objects, and then one uses a variety of masking tools to knock out the background. For some graphics this is an elegant solution: just click a few times and the background goes away completely. Bling! It’s targeted customers will be amazed by the speed and quality of the background removal. However, moderate or advanced Photoshop users will wish they had their Background Eraser tool handy, because I think it’s even better at this sort of work. The problem is the precision of the masking edges that Bling! It automatically generates: they are not precise or flexible enough. The edges have big problems wrapping around fine details and usually allow too much masking—I used the Wikipedia globe and text logo as a test image, and I couldn’t knock out the white around the text without taking most of the letters with it. There are a couple tools for tweaking the edges, the Edge Finding Options and Edge Blending Options, but they consist only of a few sliders that control the number of edges, their width and how they “blend in” with the mask. You can’t grab them or manually modify them—Bling! It does it automatically based on the control setting. Unfortunately, if Bling! It draws the edges poorly despite tweaking the controls, then you’ll just have to live with it. The edges will not be satisfactory for some graphics, but for eBay product shots they should be okay.

Composing the picture is very simple: select your background, then select your image size. There are four gradient- or color-based backgrounds but try using one of the 50 image backgrounds that ship with Bling! It. You can also upload your own image.

Add effects like sharpening, a drop shadow or some highlighting to create some added excitement. The drop shadow tool creates standing shadows or flat drop shadows, so it’s both flexible and powerful. There are only three sliders for length, intensity and fuzziness, which will make some Photoshop users groan: Photoshop’s own Drop Shadow layer style has many more controls. However, one thing Photoshop doesn’t have is the standing shadow ability.

Saving the image is exactly what it says: just click the button and save. It appears that JPEG is the only file format Bling! It will create, which will be fine in most cases (we are creating web graphics, after all). There are also some settings to compress the background for optimal file size as well as a Max File Size setting so you can keep an image’s size below a specific threshold.

Robustness is an issue

Bling! It is almost too simple sometimes. Manual modification of the masking edges is a great example: I think I could do a better job of placing the masking edges sometimes, but Bling! It doesn’t give me the tools to try. And what if I want to use a PNG file, or if I want a transparent background (perhaps I want my webpage background to show through)? I love applications that focus on specific tasks and do them extraordinarily well, but the tools must still be robust and flexible or frustration may result. Bling! It actually has very few tools, and I think if it wants to keep things simple it should actually do something like Photoshop’s Variations and show possible masking options.

If you need a more robust masking solution, Vertus also produces Fluid Mask, a Photoshop plug-in with beefed-up masking features. You can find a review here. It looks to be a good product, excellent if you are often faced with complex masking situation, but the review also says it is a complex piece of software and it comes with a $199 price tag. That won’t matter if you want the best masking results in the industry; look at both Bling! It and Fluid Mask 2.0 if you are in the market for a masking solution.

Conclusion

Bling! It really is a spiffy little program that accomplishes a particular set of tasks very well. If you are thinking of using this software, I would highly recommend downloading the trial and trying it out on some sample images. You may find that the application will save your sanity, or you may find that it doesn’t really contribute anything. Photoshop can do anything Bling! It can do, and many times it can do it better and with much more flexibility. However, Photoshop is getting a little bloated nowadays while Bling! It is lean and runs fast. Maybe it will be the one application you’ll use more than anything else.

Bling! It
Vertus
Price: $49.95
Rating: 8/10