It's all about photo apps.

Review: Camera FX!

What does it do?

Camera FX! is a live photo application from xyster.com that lets you view 20 different filters, from black and white through to light tunnel in real time before making edits or saving your final image.

Pros

• There are 20 different lens effects, from those you’d usually expect, like black and white, color fade and sepia through to fish eye, light tunnel and mirrored.
• The effects are previewed on the main screen as a series of thumbnails, and although I prefer to preview images that take up the full screen, it’s good to see all the different effects side-by-side in case you can’t choose which would work best. 
• You can then select just one effect so it fills the full screen, so you can see everything in more detail and tweak the settings.

• The UI is very easy to use, simply swipe back and forth through the grid of effects and then save, make alterations or start again by using the little settings button in the bottom left hand corner.
• In the settings there are options to zoom in, change the intensity of the effect and if you’re an iPhone 4 user, switch between the front and the back cameras.
• Once you’ve chosen the filter you want and have tweaked the settings, you take the photo. You then have to go into your camera roll from within the app itself to be able to send it via email or to Facebook, Twitter, or even directly set it as your Twitter avatar, which is a nice touch!

Cons

• It’s a little irritating that you have to take a photo then reload your camera roll to be able to send it on anywhere, it would have been much slicker to have been able to take it and then share it simultaneously.
• Because Camera FX! is a live app, it’s probably not going to be the best option for if you’re taking a photo of something that is particularly time sensitive. 
• The filters are more focused on the ones that are a bit quirky and weird, like mirror image, rather than those that are of a high quality.

Do you need it?

I personally think there are better apps available when it comes to high quality filters and effects. However, the grid-like interface is actually really handy and if you’re looking for a live photo app that has a range of effects and is very easy-to-use, then Camera FX! would work well for you. 

Sample photos

Review: Lemon Cam

What does it do?

Lemon Cam is a simple app from TopoMobile, which produces images with a range of LOMO camera filters, coupled with heavy vignetting.

Pros

• Although they may not be everyone’s cup of tea, there’s an adequate range of different films and effects that all fit with the LOMO theme of the app, including LC-A original camera, Fisheye and X-Pro.
• You can flick through previews of each effect instantaneously, so there’s no waiting around for the next one to process. Previews are also the full size of the screen, which is a huge plus in my eyes, as I’m so sick of trying to look at filters and effects on a tiny thumbnail.

• The UI is very simple and reminds me of the CameraBag app in many ways, simply upload / take a photo and then swipe from left to right to see all of the available effects.
• The final results are of a high quality, even when I email them to my computer to edit them a little more.

Cons

• There aren’t any social sharing options, which is a shame as most apps now at least seem to have a share to Twitter and Facebook feature.
• Although I don’t like apps that are too cluttered, I can’t help but feel the choice of effects within Lemon Cam is a little limited. There are only two I can actually imagine using regularly, the rest just don’t seem to really stand out.
• Although I think the heavy vignetting does go well with many of the effects, it’d be good to be able to control its intensity a little, or even have the option to make it white instead of black.

Do you need it?

If you’re looking for a very simple app with just a bit of choice and like the LOMO look, then Lemon Cam could work for you, but at $1.99 there are much better, more comprehensive apps to chose from in that price range. For instance, CameraBag is very similar, produces better results and it’s free!

The LC-A filter is definitely my favourite effect and it makes me think that maybe TopoMobile has plans to improve Lemon Cam in the future, but right now the app itself just doesn’t seem worth it and nothing about it really makes it stand out amongst a lot of other really impressive apps on the market.

Sample photos

Better Photos Are On The Horizon

Horizon placement is a very simple idea that can make your mobile landscape photography much better. Correct horizon placement makes your photo more interesting and draws the viewers’ attention to the most important or featured areas of the image.  

Consider the following photos. Even though the images are all from the same landscape, you will notice a few interesting things when comparing the shots. 

• In the first shot, the horizon line is near the middle of the frame.  This image is pretty neutral and does not force the viewer to focus in on either the sky or the grass. 

• In this next shot, the horizon line is placed low in the frame.  This presents more of the sky and would be a good placement if the sky is a prominent feature in your photo. 

• In the last shot, you will notice that the horizon line is high in the frame, this forces the viewer to take in more of the foreground elements, in this case the grassy area. 

Tips for Good Horizon Placement

1. You can always use a crop tool in post-processing your image to correct horizon line placement in order to highlight certain features of your image
2. However, you will lose resolution and other information within your picture if you are cropping it. 
3. If you think about horizon placement before you take the image, you can save steps in post-processing
4. Horizon lines do not have to be parallel with the lower or upper edges of the frame, try taking the picture at an interesting angle



5. Horizon lines give the viewer context of where the photo was taken
6. Horizon lines are not always visible.  Mountains, hills and other man-made objects can create great edges and contrast for a horizon line and still establish context. 

If you think about these simple concepts when composing your shot or while you are post-processing your image, you are sure to create more interesting pictures.  It is true that better photos are on your horizon

REVIEW: COMICBOOK!

What does it do?

 ComicBook! by 3DTOPO Inc. is a nifty comic creator, that  transforms your photos into comics. Be it templates, captions, or stickers - all can be customized to your preference. A fun app that allows you to employ your creativity to the max.

Pros

• Very well designed UI which is both attractive and easy to navigate through.
• There’s plenty of choices of layouts, caption bubbles, font sizes/colours, and creative stickers to choose from - enough to keep you busy for hours!

                    

• You can even control the size of halftone (dots that make up the image) that you want on your picture.

• There is an undo feature, which means you can play around with different captions/stickers until you get the effect you like. 
• ComicBook! allows you to save your images to your camera roll, email, or even share to Facebook and Twitter.

Cons

• Although there isn’t much to criticize about this app, there are areas which could be improved on, namely:
• Speed - if the delay between adding effects could be reduced, it would make this app even easier to work with.
• More sharing options - currently ComicBook! lets you share to Facebook and Twitter. If more sharing options were available, such as to Tumblr, it would definitely improve the sharing experience for many users.

Do you need it?

ComicBook! is the epitome of creativity and fun. At a price of $1.99, I would say this app is definitely worth every cent. With minimal effort, you will be making your own comic strips out of ordinary pictures of yourself and your friends!

Sample photos

Review: Thumba Photo Editor

What does it do?

Thumba Photo Editor created by the Thumba Corporation is an all-inclusive photo editing application crammed full of basic functions, such as cropping and rotating as well as a range of filters and effects, like HDR and tilt shift.

Pros

• Thumba Photo Editor has a simple user interface with basic buttons and lots of small thumbnails after every option, so that you can see exactly what each will look like before you make a commitment.

• There’s a section for basic editing functions that focus on size and orientation, such as crop, flip and rotate.
• There’s also the option to apply plenty of adjustments such as black and white, vignetting, exposure and saturation that are all of a pretty high quality.
• The filters section has nine options including infrared, HDR and tilt shift.

• For every option there’s a slider to make the effects more or less intense. You can then press the tick or cross buttons in the bottom corners of the screen in order to make the changes or start all over again. 

Cons

• The filters section could do with a few more options, but in the same vein as PhotoForge, Thumba hasn’t been created as a filters app, but for making plenty of changes yourself.

Do you need it?

In many ways, the Thumba Photo Editor app is very similar to a lot of others available on the market at the moment, such as iDarkRoom and PhotoForge. In my eyes, the wide variety of choices, the basic editing functionality and the intensity slider all make Thumba a good choice, it’s also fairly cheap at $0.99.

Sample photos

REVIEW: PHOTO STAR

What does it do?

Photo Star by Sednia Labs is a minimalist app which purely lets you add filters and a simple border to your pictures.

Pros

• Very simple UI and easy to use.
• Basic filters which add a pleasant effect to your pictures without changing them too much.
• Fast saving, great for users who are short of time and want to add some simple effects quickly.
• Overall, Photo Star a no-frills app, just load/take a photo, add filter and/or border, then save.

                 

Cons

• The filters aren’t spectacular. If you’re looking to create fancy artistic pictures, then this app might not satisfy you (or at least the free filters won’t).
• The lack of social sharing options makes it really inconvenient for users who usually share their work via social networks.

Do you really need it?

I would recommend it for its speed and simplicity, but that’s about it. This app could be handy, but there are other photo filters apps out there that I personally prefer over this.

I also noticed that the app description on iTunes is a bit misleading as it states that you can “choose from 35 photo filter effects”, but in fact only 8 filters are free and the rest have to be purchased.

Sample photos

Photo Recipe: Sky Silk Pie

If you want to try this recipe, please hashtag it #SkySilkPie. If you have your own photo recipe, you can let us know using the contact form.

If you have followed our photo recipe series, you may have noticed that one of the most versatile ingredients in your photo cupboard is the sky.  In recent recipes, we used sky in both a zesty appetizer Tasty Sky Shots (#tastyskyshots) as well as using it as one of the main ingredients in our Cheesy Rainbow (#cheesyrainbow).

Sky is a great ingredient, because it acts as nature’s canvas.  And a clear sky is a wonderful place to feature photo fx, flares and color gradients.  Today we will uncover the sweet side of sky with our dessert Sky Silk Pie. In this recipe, we will whip up a clear sky into a silky sweet mousse filling. 

Ingredients:

• a clear, evenly colored sky 
• trees or other natural elements for crust
• Photo FX
  
• Lenslight
• iDarkroom

Preparation:

Snap a picture of a large clear sky. Try to get the sky color even as this will be the area for the silk texture later. Consider framing your sky with trees, mountains, hills or even houses or buildings for a tasty crust.

Cooking:

What is unique about Sky Silk Pie is that you never really cook your image, you merely use tools such as Photo fx and Lenslight to whip the image into a silky billow and serve cold.

1. Begin by cross-processing your image with the first preset within iDarkroom.  This will soften your foreground elements (nature, trees, etc.) and create a higher contrast between the sky filling and the crust.



2. Once you have your cross processed image, use Photo fx add a three-color gradient with such as twilight to create a dramatic color effect

   

3. Change the gradient colors to your personal tastes



4. For more dramatic sky, consider applying the twilight gradient a second time
5. Now you are ready to whip that sky into a sweet silky mousse filling.  Open up your image within Lenslight and use the “Cloud Rays” light.  This will create a billowy texture across the sky that will create the silken effect.





6. Finally, you can present your pie with a slim vignette.  My favorite is the slim black vignette that is in iDarkroom.

Sky Silk Pie is a wonderful dish that can be served any time you have a day with a  bright clear sky.  It is a great dessert that is very easy to prepare.

Sample Photos:

  

Review: LensLight - Add sparkle to your photos

What does it do?

LensLight by BrainFeverMedia is a fairly new photo editing application which specialises in adding a range of light effects to your images, such as light leaks, bokeh and sparkles.

The developer’s website says LensLight has been made with the LensFlare engine, its other popular app offering, and they’ve both been designed to complement one another.

Pros

• LensLight has a very simple and intuitive UI without any fuss. This is to be expected considering that the developers created it on top of the LensFlare template, which means any issues would already have been ironed out from the previous app.

• There’s a huge choice of lighting effects, including light leaks, sparkle, spotlights, even lightening and more!
• I’ve come across plenty of these effects within other applications before, but what really makes LensLight stand out is that the user can have complete control over how the effects look, adjusting density, size, location, etc.
• All effects can be previewed in real-time on a full sized image, I’m definitely sick of the apps that only let you see a small thumbnail preview, they take so much longer to use and just don’t seem to be made with the user in mind.

• You’re able to layer the light effects if you render one and then add another on top, although this can look a little too much, it’s good to have the option.

Cons

• There isn’t an undo feature, which is a shame with so many features and the ability to adjust things yourself. Obviously if you’ve only applied one light effect you just select another, but if you’ve already rendered one and want to get rid of it you’d have to start again.
• Like most niche photo applications, I would like to see some basic editing functions in there as well, like crop and contrast, but if you’re really into editing your photos chances are you’ll be using LensLight alongside another app anyway.

Do you need it?

It all obviously depends on what you think of these kinds of light effects, I know some people love them and add them to most of their images, whereas others think it makes photos look a little too contrived.

I don’t personally like the effects very much when they’re layered on top of one another, but LensLight can’t be beaten for good quality lighting effects which I think look really effective when they’re applied very subtly.

There are plenty of great lighting effects within other apps, like iDarkRoom, but none provide as much choice as LensLight or allow you to make quite so many adjustments. So, if you’re looking for a simple application with plenty of bright and sparkly lighting effects then LensLight is definitely worth it.

Sample Photos

REVIEW: HALFTONE

What does it do?

Halftone by Juicy Bits gives your photos a vintage, pulpy, comic-like, effect. You can customize the paper, dot size, and even add captions, speech bubbles and stamps to produce an authentic and interesting-looking halftone picture.

 

Pros

• Simple and clean UI; easy to navigate.
• You’re given the option to customize the layout and even how the dots look, add in the captions and speech bubbles - and you’ve created a comic-book illustration!

                

• Or, you can choose to not have captions or speech bubbles, and keeping your picture as a simple vintage one.
• You can then share with your friends the pictures you’ve created on Facebook and Twitter.

                                    

• An attractive library of papers to chose from.

                                    

• The effect of the resulting image does look quite convincing.

Cons

• Pictures are not of high resolution (but this perhaps suits the old comic print effect)
•  Each time you make a change of paper, it takes a while to load.
• More sharing options would be better.

Do you need it?

This is a simple app that will add some creativity to your pictures. If you’re the type who likes playing around with your photos, then this app will be a good addition to your photo apps kit. It isn’t spectacular, but it does what it’s designed to do pretty well.

UPDATE: In response to the review, Marty from JuicyBits has kindly explained the ‘not high resolution’ comment we made - “ if you enable the “Full Size” setting (which it looks like you did), the resolution/dimensions aren’t changed. As a matter of fact, Halftone is one of the few photo apps that allow you to work with full resolution photos. If your comment intended to say that the photos aren’t as sharp or detailed, you’re correct…it’s the result of the halftoning process. This can be improved by reducing the dot size.”

Sample photos

 

Photo Recipe: FusionSilo

If you use this recipe, please tag your photo with #FusionSilo

Everyone loves silhouettes, whether it is a shadow or yourself or object. However, it’s great to be able to create a silhouette with a lovely texture. Here is a quick, 1 app recipe for creating textured silhouettes.

Ingredients: 

• Bright Light, e.g. the sun
• Interestingly shaped object
• Fusioncam to create a texture and to blend the photos

Preparation:

You can create a texture in advance. Using Fusioncam, take a photo of an intetresting texture. In my photo I used a wall. You can use a piece of wood, a table, anything that has an interesting texture.

Cooking :

1. Take a picture of a texture, ensure that the colour is uniform, you can use any object that makes for an interesting texture, experiment with different objects, skies, water, to get that interesting texture
2. Select the object to want to use to create a silhouette. In my example, I picked a lampost with a bit of architecture behind it. Ensure that the background of the object is clear, e.g. clear bright blue skies
3. Switch the multi-exposure switch on so that the texture is displayed with the camera view finder.
4. Aim the camera at your desired object and snap the photo.

Serving :

Share to Steply by pressing the Share button. Easy way to share this delicious photo dish. 

One scrumptious textured silhouette served and ready to be consumed.

Bonus: You can reuse the texture to create more photos.

If you want to try this recipe, please hashtag it #FusionSilo. If you have your own photo recipe, you can let us know using the contact form.