Imerge Pro 2021: The bokeh king of image post-production

The most exciting image post-production tool on the market is back, and this time, it’s got bokeh.

London, UK (March 26th, 2021) – FXhome’s next-generation image production software – Imerge Pro – just gets better with every release. The first (and biggest) update of 2021 brings a whole suite of new organizational tools to photographers and artists looking to enhance their workflow, but FXhome has a little more up its sleeve than that.

Digital lens blurs are nothing new to the world of post-production, but they’ve never been particularly authentic to their real-world, optical counterparts. FXhome seeks to change that with a bespoke Lens Blur algorithm that bends light just like a real lens would.

The new Lens Blur adds to Imerge’s impressive arsenal of 71 creative effects that already includes volumetric light rays, chromatic aberration, and an intelligent shadow-generation tool. The effect gives users the ability to simulate realistic depth-of-field (complete with authentic bokeh balls), with options to adjust softness, bloom, and bokeh shape with basically endless possibilities. Users can even simulate the cinematic, ‘stretched’ look of pricey anamorphic lenses, or set custom bokeh shapes based on a source file.

Lens Blur isn’t the only new effect added in Imerge Pro 2021. The new release also features a ‘Leave Color’ effect – which can create striking ‘color splash’ effects by preserving a single color while desaturating everything else. Like many of Imerge’s other precision color tools, this effect includes options to preserve skin tones, greys, and black-and-white, or isolate based on the Lab color space for greater precision. A new ‘Magnify’ effect is also included for those always-fun ‘bulge’ and ‘pinch’ effects (it’s big brain time).

Effects aren’t all that Imerge 2021 brings to the table though. The software – which is the world’s first completely non-destructive RAW image compositor – now includes a ton of new workflow enhancements to help photographers keep their files organized. Hot Folders, expanded export options, and a new built-in EXIF/IPTC editor for keeping on top of metadata. It’s also easy to build tag-based, custom naming conventions for batch exports (something Imerge does incredibly well). Users have 32 tags at their disposal covering everything from layer names to dimensions, dates, and camera data.

Imerge Pro 2021 is available now at fxhome.com for $199 and comes with an inclusive 12-month update period as standard. A demo is also available to ‘try before you buy’.