Intensify Pro by Macphun | Software Review

Update August 7, 2018 – Macphun’s Creative Kit (including Intensify Pro) is now considered legacy software and is no longer available for purchase. However, most of the Creative Kit technology has been integrated into Luminar – available for both Mac and Windows. Try Luminar free for 14 days. If you love Luminar, click here to purchase and make sure you use coupon code ANGANDRIEUX to save $10 on your purchase!

Last month I was contacted by the folks at Macphun and was introduced to a couple of pieces of new (to me) photography software – one of which was Intensify Pro. After having a chance to test it out I can tell you that its another great tool to add to my post-processing toolbox.

As the name implies – Intensify Pro does a great job of adding intensity with detail and color to photos. It also provides in-depth controls that enable the user to tweak each setting to achieve their desired look.

To give you an idea of what this program can do I’ll walk you through how I used it on one of my images. I started with the RAW photo below in Lightroom and made adjustments for lens correction and cropping to straighten my horizon. I then exported directly into Intensify Pro. (Intensify Pro can run as a standalone app or as a plug-in to Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and Apple Aperture.)

Before Intensify Pro

Next, I clicked through a variety of presets within Intensify Pro to find a good starting point. I landed on “HDR Vivid”, liked the effect but it was a little over the top so I decreased the “amount” slider until the effect was more natural looking.

The photo was looking better but still needed some fine-tuning so I clicked over into the “adjust” tab and modified the sliders until I achieved the desired effect. When I was finished I clicked “apply” and the image was imported back into Lightroom. If the photo had needed it I could have created additional layers to apply different effects or used the masking tools to selectively adjust certain areas of the image.

Once I was back in Lightroom I zoomed in on my photo did a bit of “pixel-peeping.” I noticed that the processing applied in Intensify Pro had caused some undesirable artifacts – namely noise and striations. Luckily Lightroom is fairly adept at correcting those types of issues, however, it does soften the image somewhat. (see zoomed-in sample below)

Before & After Lightroom Noise Reduction

After making the noise reduction adjustments in Lightroom I had my final image. Intensify Pro brought out beautiful detail and color.

After Intensify Pro

Now that I’ve had a chance to learn more about Intensify Pro the things I love about it are:

• The ability to layer multiple effects
• The ability to change the amount or opacity of an individual effect
• The ability to fine-tune all aspects of a preset

Things I don’t love:

• Noise & striations (common in most software when you try to pull out a lot of detail)
• The preview can take a moment to load as you move the sliders (this could be due to my older, slower Mac but I don’t have that problem in Lightroom…)

So, who should buy Intensify Pro?

If you like to make your photos POP with color and detail then you’ll love this program. Intensify Pro can work as a standalone OR as a plug-in to Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop, etc. so just about ANYONE can benefit. The only catch is that it is for Mac only.