Merge 4.7

Now that I'm thinking about it, it's surprising that there isn't a program like this already. To get an effect similar to this one, you usually need to drag two images into two different layers in some image editor and set the opacity down. Merge promises to be the type of program that does exactly that.

Unfortunately, it does it in a way that's incredibly unfriendly to you. The program's interface is unintuitive and ugly. The default background looks like crumpled paper that's duplicated in a way that's reminiscent of websites I designed for a class back in high school. The buttons on the interface have absolutely no text on them, instead using some obtuse icons. To find out what any of them do, you have to hover over them and read the description. The worst part is, the way the icons are designed to make it incredibly easy to forget what they stood for in the first place.

There are some other oddities that are really...well, to be unprofessional, dumb and annoying. In most programs, you'd select an area to move, then simply drag and click it away, right? No. In Merge, you have to hold right click, drag a line to its destination, and let go. These strange, annoying, and frankly pointless behaviors make using Merge a lot harder than it has to be.

If you can look past all that, though, this program has a lot of legitimately useful features. Images can be scaled and flipped individually, and there are brightness and contrast settings as well. If you're willing to struggle through all the nonsense, then Merge may be for you.