Fotor Pro Review for Advanced Graphic Design

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Learn about Fotor Pro, an advanced graphic design tool, and its many features in this comprehensive review. Not confident with your graphic design skills? Read on to see if Fotor Pro might be for you.

Table of Contents

My Fotor Pro Backstory

I was invited by the folks at Fotor to review their free photo editing and graphic design tool. I really had fun trying it out. As someone who is artistically and photographically challenged, the basic features of the free version of Fotor were surprisingly easy to use. If you would like a detailed look at what the free version offers, check out this review of the basic edition of this engaging technology tool. It’s important for me to note this is not a sponsored post. The kind people at Fotor offered to give me a free six-month subscription to the upgraded version, called Fotor Pro, solely for review purposes. Thanks, Fotor! Now, let’s look at the differences between the free edition and the paid subscription.

Basic Fotor Review

For those who would like just a brief overview of the Fotor basics without having to read my previous blog post, I’ll summarize. Site users may edit a photo, make a collage, or create a design, such as a Pinterest graphic. The free version supplies some great photo editing features, including interesting photo effects. My favorite was the tilt shift tool, which allows part of the photo to be blurred while keeping another area in focus. Some of the other features I discovered were included in the Beauty section. The Teeth Whitening feature was fun to use to lighten areas of my photo. If you want more details about the free version, I encourage you to read my review. I was impressed. So many editing features were offered for free!

Is There an App?

Yes, Fotor does make an app available. Whether you have a free version or Fotor Pro, the photo editing and collage features are available on the app. There is also a camera option, as you can see in the screenshot below. The little gift in the top right corner offers contests for photographers to enter. As I am not in the habit of taking contest-worthy photos, I didn’t linger on this feature for very long. The little bell icon alerts the user to notifications and messages.

The photo editing feature was handy for me recently when I needed to edit a photo of a coffee shop used in a travel post about a place called Wichita Falls. I wanted to feature a cute chalkboard sign from the shop, but it was crowded. There was no way I was going to be able to take the picture without including some people in it. Some of those fellow coffee shop visitors might not have wanted to have their face featured in my blog post. The answer? Using the focus feature, I blurred the edges of the photo while still keeping the sign in focus. Pretty cool!

The one feature the app is missing is the option to create a design. I was not able to create a design using my phone, and that was disappointing. Maybe the pro version would include the additional menu choice.

Advanced Features of the Graphic Design Tool

After I upgraded to the advanced photo editing and graphic design tool, Fotor Pro, I hoped to see the “create a design” feature appear on the app. It didn’t. However, there were some other graphic design features that appeared which I was happy about.

When on the Fotor website using Fotor Pro, I noticed all of the graphic design templates in the create a design feature were now available. Before, with the basic free version, many templates had watermarks. Only about 25% of the designs were included in the free version. Here is a Pinterest graphic I created for a previous blog post from a Fotor Pro template.

Another advantage to using Fotor Pro is that any stickers or frames which were previously unavailable with the free version were included. There were entire sections of stickers, including cool isometric shapes and hand-drawn images, which were not available to me before. There were no limits to the background images either. Were I a professional designer or photographer, I imagine I’d have a fabulous time experimenting with this graphic design tool.

Advanced Photo Editing Features

Nearly all of the basic photo editing features are available with the free version. The only additional basic feature included in Fotor Pro is a tool called Magic Clipper, which allows the user to erase and retain specific areas of a photo. If a user with a basic subscription tries this feature, a Fotor watermark across the photo is prominently displayed.

If the Effects menu is selected, only 15 out of 37 effects are available in the basic version. The Fotor Pro effects include many additional filters with names such as Filmatic and Funky. I have to admit, the advanced filters are probably wasted on me. However, to a professional, the variety of filters and effects would probably be amazing to choose from.

Moving on down the left menu bar to the Beauty menu, I noticed that the Pro version only offered three additional choices. The Smooth, Blush and Reshape options are fun to experiment with. I spent some time distorting a picture of my face with the Reshape tool. It wasn’t pretty, but for someone who really knows how to use the tool, amazing things might be created. In case you are curious about my distorted face experiment, here it is:

Another thing I noticed (I kept my experiment in the photo set to the free version to show you the watermark) was the Redo button was not available. If you want to Undo something in the free version, you may. If you want to Redo the marvelous effect you just created, then undid, you have to use Fotor Pro.

How Much Does This Graphic Design Tool Cost?

The cost for one year of Fotor Pro is $39.99. That means my free six-month subscription is worth about $20.00. I’m going to try to use as many of the features as I can before my subscription runs out. Since the word “Pro” is part of the name, maybe I’ll become a better designer. I can always hope. Thank you, Fotor!

Bottom Line

If I were a professional graphic designer or photographer, I’d be tempted to spring for a subscription to Fotor Pro. It’s called Fotor Pro for a reason. The graphic design tools are especially impressive. However, since I’m not a pro, a lot of the features in the paid version would be wasted on me. If you are a professional, you might consider a subscription to Fotor Pro.

One thing I hope Fotor adds to their app is the ability to create a design. Many people I know, including bloggers, use their phone for almost all digital tasks. If the folks at Fotor are reading this, perhaps they will consider this.

What About You?

Might Fotor Pro be a good fit for you? If you have any graphic design or photo editing advice, I’d value your input. I am always looking for graphic design tools for non-designers. Fotor Pro has many admirable features, as does the easy graphic design program, Crello. Maybe you have a favorite advanced graphic design tool. You might also like my eBook containing information about some excellent free media tools for bloggers.

Have a wonderful week, and may all of your design efforts meet with great success!

Lisa Mitchell is a school librarian who likes to use her job as an excuse to stay up far too late reading books and noodling around with tech tools.

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