Almost Perfect

First, lets be clear: for anyone who is remotely familiar with this app and used it with any regularity, this is the most well balanced, full featured update that its ever had. Period. When the developer says that its been "rewritten from scratch for iOS7," please believe him, because it shows. When he says "no features were dropped...many have been relocated," it may mean you might have to spend some time actually exploring the new workspace before firing off a bunch of glib, whiney, "OMG!! I ca---a-a-a--nt--fi--i-i-i--nd it" reviews.

Ive used this app since 2009 and came across it after a previous app I was using, simply called "Collage," proved to have disappointing export resolutions. Montage has always delivered on this front and continues to excel by now giving you the ability to export ANY part of your compositions at resolutions up to 4096 x4096, so Im not sure why the previous reviewer is having difficulty. The options for output are all there, very plainly under a menu item called, surprisingly, "Share." There you will find a wide variety of preset pixel dims and also the ability to enter a custom size, located under-you guessed it-"Custom."

One of the things that kept me using the previous app "Collage" I mentioned, in spite of its poor output, was that its interface was simple and straightforward. You tapped on bits of your collage and were able to move them. With this update, Im happy to see this feature included in Montage finally. Double tapping an item is the same as Photoshops "Auto Select Layer" option and gives you instant access to moving and resizing objects. The option to use the arrows to cycle through layers is still present if needed, though this has always seemed a little awkward to me. Theres also the addition of three finger panning around the composition instead of constantly switching to the "Canvas" tool. Theres an improved import workflow which bypasses the whole set of selection tools you were presented with in the previous version, and now just lets you bring in images and make selections later. A new set of filters has been introduced that allows a wide range of basic color adjustments, along with a few interesting screening effects. Blending modes are now available, though some are sort of cryptic as to their functions, working more like Illustrators "Minus Front"/"Minus Back" commands than the full range one may usually associate with Photoshops array. Finally, the ability to use text as shapes is not only introduced, but widely supported, giving you access to tons of glyph shapes in each font family. These are some of what I would say are the main improvements straight away that I noticed.

There are a few things that could be improved further: most notably theres no Undo and also the freeform selection tool. Having no Undo in an app like this (unless Ive missed it somewhere), to me, is almost a conscious decision. Not one that I like necessarily, but i get it. The poor options for making a clean freeform selection, however, are a little tougher to understand at this point. I should say though, theres an app called "Juxtaposer" that allows very fine control over developing selections (comparable to working with brushes on a layer mask in Photoshop), and then saving them as PNG files, which Montage then supports. So its possible to create really clean extractions in this way, and then import them for enhanced layering and manipulation. All in all, though, everything feels great about this update. Using the newest iOS 7 and iPhone 5S combination, it really feels fast and responsive. Please dont be put off by the generic icon and kind of crappy screenshots, they dont do the app justice (though they do illustrate the limitations of the apps freeform selection tool perfectly). I would recommend this highly to anyone looking for a serious graphic tool to do digital equivalents of photo based collages. If you think old school, magazine collage, and less Photoshop feathered edge compositing (though theres a lot of Photoshop in here) you wont be disappointed.

hand drawn about Montage, v5.0.0