Facetune’s Maker Debuts Enlight, A Comprehensive Mobile Image Editor

Lightricks, a company known best for its mobile application called Facetune, an image enhancer designed for the “selfie” generation that allows you to correct photos by removing blemishes, adding makeup, slimming your face, and more, is out this morning with its second iOS application – and its first step into the broader world of mobile photo editing. The new app, Enlight, is proposed to be a “Swiss Army Knife” for making changes to mobile photos, including not only image correction, but also filters, tools for decorating photos, and more advanced editing tools that let you do things like reshape the image, overlay images, reshape objects, and more.

The company’s first app, Facetune, to date has seen over 3 million downloads – notable given that it’s a paid application that sells for $2.99 to $3.99. That makes it the #6 best-selling paid iOS app in 2014. The app has also appeared on Apple and Google’s “Best of 2014” lists, as well as Apple’s “Best of 2013” list, and has been featured across both stores numerous times. It now averages a 4.8 user rating in the U.S. after thousands of reviews.

Now Lightricks wants to capitalize on that success by pointing its users to a new paid application, which will continue to allow the company to be self-supported on revenue. Unlike Facetune, however, the new app is for editing any photo, not just photos of someone’s face.

According to Itai Tsiddon, co-founder at Lightricks, Enlight is part of the company’s larger strategy to introduce a series of apps in this space.

“From day one, Lightricks has believed that there is a gap between state-of-the-art image processing technology and what’s available to users on mobile. We’ve never meant to limit ourselves to one or two apps,” he says. “Enlight is the most comprehensive offering of powerful image processing tools on mobile. But while we plan to continue working on it, we definitely have plans for future products, as well.”

[gallery ids="1131472,1131473,1131474,1131475,1131476"]

Enlight is jam-packed with a large number of features, ranging from image editing basics like the ability to crop, filter and decorate photos with word overlays and decals, plus filter images using a number of built-in presets, or even transform photos into what look like sketches or paintings.

There are also, of course, image correction tools included, too, like the ability to repair under or over-exposed photos, reduce noise, or bring out lost details with a swipe. And you can make interesting adjustments to your photos, like being able to bloat, shrink, or reshape objects; shift focus; mix multiple photos together; bring objects in a photo closer together using a refit tool; and adjust fine details like contrast, saturation, tone, curves, and much more.

But what makes Enlight interesting is not just the sum of its features, but how they’re packaged together. The app is simple enough for even novice mobile photographers as offers a clean and simple user interface that doesn’t immediately overwhelm you with options. And upon first accessing any new feature, the app gives a brief explanation and demo of what that button does, in case you’re not familiar with image editing terminology.

Completed images can be shared on social media, or you can save your progress to continue later. You can also choose to view before and afters of your changes, as with Facetune, and you can select the export quality you like, including lossless format.

The app is powered by Lightricks’ proprietary technology, including its LTEngine, which the company describes as an advanced visual processing engine for mobile.

The app is currently $3.99 on iTunes, though that price may increase in time.