Archive for Reviews
Take Fisheye to the Next Level with Snappr iPhone App
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It is no mystery that you can get almost any effect or filter that you could imagine for your iPhone camera. And if you read these reviews very often, it shouldn’t be a mystery that I love the retro effects that I can get through a number of the iPhone apps that I have reviewed. Further, you should not be surprised that there is a good deal of duplication when it comes to iPhone photo effects. But sometimes you see something a little different–perhaps unique–that catches your eye. Such is the case with Snappr by Revolver.
Snappr is an app that simulates the use of five different fisheye lenses. Choices include Sunk It, Orca Liber, 4Skin, Bvlgaria 75, and Nemo. The app is simple to use. You have a large viewfinder in which you touch to take a photo. When I tested this app I expected more to happen when I took a photo but found out that only something that resembled one of those old pull down blinds that said Mike Kennamer’s iPhone showed that I had just taken a photo. In retrospect, that seems to be plenty but I can’t explain why I took some many photos of my knees while learning to use the app. Maybe I was touching it in an effort to get the camera to focus and didn’t realize that the camera would focus on its own and that I was taking pics of my knees. Anyway, it is a functional camera with flash and automatic focus that works quite well. A simple touch is all that is required to take the photo.
The fun, however, comes in the lens selection which allows you to get a number of different looks in your photos. You will see some of my test shots here and how each lens impacts the effect. Once you finish taking your photos you can view them, save them to your camera roll, and/or export them to email, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Instagram. Depending upon which apps you have loaded on your camera, you may also export to PhotoStudio, Dropbox, Camera+, and more.
This is a fun little app, and reasonably priced at $1.99. It is definitely worth checking out if you like cool, vintage effects.
OSXcellence – Inpaint Review
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“DAMN!” – you’ve taken a world-beating image, but just as you’re about to Google “Wanderlust photo competition,” a terrible reality dawns on you. There is some pesky passer-by’s blurred head in the bottom corner. What are you going to do?
Teorex, the makers of Inpaint, would no doubt suggest that you head for their app.
Inpaint (temporarily on special offer at £0.69/$0.99) is an app specialising in removing unwanted objects from your image.
The name implies Inpaint’s method of operation – paint a red overlay onto the objects you wish to remove, and hit the “Inpaint” button to get the app working. The cloning is reasonably snappy, only taking 20 seconds or so, and the results, at first glance, are respectable. Areas in the image around the objects to be cloned are copied, in a manner not unlike Photoshop’s dust cloning tool.
Sign Now iPhone App Lets You Sign Documents Online
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So you receive a document that needs to be signed. You fill in the blanks using your computer and print it. You now sign the hard copy, scan it into your computer, and then email the file to whomever needed your signature in the first place. Whew! That was pretty complicated just to sign a simple electronic form. Digitize. Kill a tree. Redigitize. It really should be easier than that!
Okay, it’s not that complicated and you really didn’t kill a whole tree when you printed it, but you did waste some valuable time going through all those steps. What if you had an app within which you could sign the form and save it or email it to yourself or someone else?
The Sign Now iPhone and iPad app allows you to do just that. It is very easy to use. Simply tap on the document icon to open a document. You may then import from email, take a photo, select a photo, or open a sample document. Once you do that you may click on the area in which you wish to sign or insert text. To insert a signature, I click on “Insert Signature” and use your finger to write your signature. Click “Done” when you are finished. You will then be taken back to the original document. Click where you would like to have your signature inserted. Use the slider to adjust the size of the signature. Read More→
Rain? Snow? Sunshine? Find Out Now with the Weather Underground iPhone App
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Photographers, especially those who shoot outdoors, need reliable weather information. There are lots of weather apps out there. Actually, there is a pretty good one that comes preloaded on your device. But sometimes you need a little more data than the default application provides. Now I have been a Wunderground fan for a long time. That is my go-to weather website when I am sitting in front of a computer. But I missed having the same level of service on my iPhone.
My wish came true in December 2011. That is when Weather Underground (Wunderground) launched their iPhone and iPad app.
The application, which is free from Weather Underground, is easy to navigate and provides a wealth of information. The “Home” button provides a snapshot of the weather at your location. Available data includes the current temperature, “feels like” temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity, a 6-day forecast, and a radar map.
More information can be located when you click on the “Hourly” tab. Here you can find sunrise and sunset data as well as hourly temperatures, conditions, windspeed, and precipitation.
The “Map” tab gives you a weather map complete with radar, satellite, and severe weather overlays; icons for temperature, wind and precipitation, and access to personal weather stations and webcams in your area. Read More→
OSXcellence – PhotoZoom Pro 4 Review
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For some photographers, the need to enlarge an image comes before uploading to a stock library. For others, it’s before a large print is made of the image. But sure enough, for whatever reason, all photographers at some point need to play around with digital image sizing. Photoshop is often used, mostly due to its already prominent place in most photographers’ workflows, whilst hardcore upscalers invest in Genuine Fractals (now known as Perfect Resize). BenaVista hopes that some may turn to their own contender in this market, PhotoZoom Pro, which (as a package) can be used both as a standalone app and photoshop plug-in resizer.
PhotoZoom Pro 4 claims to beat all of the standard resizing methods mentioned above, aided by its “patented S-Spline algorithm” – no, I don’t know what that means either (anyone brave enough can view the basics on Wikipedia). First impressions suggest that whatever S-Spline may be, it helps – this app certainly holds its own compared to other resizers. Small enlargements seem to have no discernible effect on image quality, whilst the results when an image is enlarged to 150% are respectable; stock library standard? Maybe.
Large print of your Grandmother’s dog for her
wall standard? Certainly. Read More→
Hollywood Style Video Effects for iPhone: Action Movie FX
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“Hey, Dad! Check this out!” When these words come from the mouth of your 15-year-old son you never know what will follow. Sometimes it is good; sometimes it requires X-rays. This time Lane showed me a new app on his iPhone, and I must say, I am impressed.
As part of their promotion for Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Bad Robot Interactive has developed a new iPhone and iPad app called Action Movie FX. This is good stuff! All you do is select your scene. The free version offers ‘Missile Attack’ and ‘Car Smash’. Additional two-packs which include ‘Chopper Down’ and ‘Tornado’ or ‘Air Strike’ and ‘Fire Fight’ may be purchased within the app for 99 cents each.
Once your scene is selected, you simply press ‘Start’ and point your phone’s camera at the scene for at least five seconds. Once your background is recorded you select how much lead in you want before the effect starts. Then click ‘OK’. The app does the rest. The effects are pretty amazing.
You may then share your video to Facebook, via email, or you may save it to your camera roll. Here is the one that Lane showed me. Rest assured that Abby was not injured during the filming of this sequence. But I laughed so much it hurt (if that counts). Check out this link to see Lane’s video.
Download this free app and see what kind of fun you can have. Read More→
Grab Some Friends and Check Out Hipstamatic Disposable
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Remember disposable cameras? Some people still use them, I suppose, but since everyone now has a camera on their phone we don’t see them used like we once did. Some of those photos are still framed and on display in our house. Have you ever been to a wedding where each guest was given a disposable camera to capture the moments of the event? Just before my wife and I left on our first cruise my mom gave me a panoramic disposable that we had a lot of fun with. Some of those photos are still displayed in our home.
Hipstamatic has brought us a taste of disposable camera magic with Hipstamatic Disposable. Here’s the scoop. There are two types of cameras in the free version of the app. Additional cameras may be purchased within the app. You simply select from the D-Fault or D-Lite options. You can then select a color sticker and add a descriptive label on the camera. Here’s the fun part. You can connect with your friends on Facebook and share the roll of film. If you don’t use Facebook (like me and about four other people), then you are out of luck on the sharing part, but you can still use the app and keep it all to yourself. The advantage to connecting on Facebook is that it allows you to unlock another free camera.
The camera itself is refreshingly simple. Two buttons: a big shutter release button and a smaller flash button. The only other control is a slider that adjusts the amount of Hipstamatic effect. The limiting effect of 24 frames might prompt us to take more time and effort in composing our shots. And the ability to share with friends is another cool option. Too bad you have to be a member of Facebook to take advantage of it. Read More→
OSXcellence – Pixlr-o-matic
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For some time now, I have admired and used Pixlr-o-matic for adding style to my images. Only now, however, can I feature it in this column, as a Mac version has recently been released.
Pixlr-o-matic doesn’t have the largest range of styles; in fact, it has very few in comparison to other more popular filter apps. The reason I believe Pixlr-o-matic stands out from the crowd is due to the attractiveness, and careful selection, of the filters installed. As a result, when I want one-click stylising of an image, I rarely need to venture further than this app.
Pixlr-o-matic’s interface is very simple, with a live preview illustrating the current effects applied. Filters come on a “film-strip” which is dragged sideways to scroll through the options. The simplicity of this app’s system is refreshing, with a maximum of three effects applicable on any single image – a colour/exposure/sharpness layer, a texture/damage/artistic layer, and a frame layer. None is obligatory, and that’s a good thing, considering that most of the middle stage’s filters range from bizarre to ugly to pointless. The other two layers by themselves, however, provide truly stunning results which replicate great film effects of the past.
Know Your Rights with Photographer’s Rights App for iPhone
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Have you ever been out away from home and wondered about the laws and customs in the country in which you are visiting? Perhaps you want the quick and dirty facts on copyright laws? Or maybe you need to know how to ask in Japanese if you may take a photograph? Fear not. There is an app for that!
The Photographer’s Rights iPhone and iPad app by Pietro Zuco provides the user with a wealth of information. The main menu includes links for Countries, Your Rights, Copyright, Privacy, Contracts, Questions, and Info. Digging deeper, the user will find specific rules and laws regarding photographing in public places and private places in specific countries. It tells you what you can and cannot photograph. It provides tips related to your conduct, your looks, and dealing with police or security. The app also contains a number of model and property/location releases.
I am neither an attorney nor a travel expert so I cannot validate all the content of this app. I can, however, tell you that it is put together well and is a convenient reference. This is one that I will have on my iPhone for a long time. Read More→
Flipboard iPhone and iPad App: A New Way to See The World
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What if you could create your own magazine? Not just a magazine that you’d like, but a magazine that consists of content that you want…that you need? What if you could view your Twitter messages, your Instagram photos, and articles from your favorite magazines? What if you wanted to be sure to see the photos your friend posts on Facebook or Smugmug? Or all the articles posted on Current Photographer? Or RSS notifications of when the next episode of the Digital Photography Cafe is available online?
Okay…you get the picture. 
According to its company’s advertising copy, Flipboard was named the top iPad app of the year and one of Time Magazine’s Top 50 Innovations. So what can you do with Flipboard? Perhaps it would be easier to describe what you can’t do with Flipboard.
The free app itself seems simple enough. You can select from a good variety of newsfeeds within the app or customize “Your Flipboard” by selecting your own Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, LinkedIn, 500px, Google Reader and Tumblr accounts. Further you can search for particular topics or people and find their Instagram, Facebook and other feeds. In short, you can customize your Flipboard account to include just about anything you want!
But wait! There’s more…
The more is the beauty with which Flipboard shares photos. They’re big, bold and beautiful! Okay, some photos you find online aren’t beautiful, but you must admit, this is an excellent way to view photos. Depending on the native size of the photo, they will fill your screen and let you view them in the largest size possible. Read More→
