The original CameraBag was one of the first style and edit apps, not only on Mac, but on iPhone too. It was well built, and performed well, but since then it has been trumped by FX Photo Studio Pro (see my review) in this category. Now, however, the folks at NeverCenter have come back fighting, with their new offering, CameraBag 2.

“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.

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…

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.

MacPhun have been pretty prolific recently, and not to the detriment of app quality – FX Photo Studio and Color Splash Studio were both highly polished releases. Now, they have a new offering, SnapHeal.

I, for one, am a fan of the tilt-shift effect. From miniaturisation of objects in images taken from on high, to Lensbaby-style artistic focus targeting, the results are always interesting. The only problem is that tilt-shift lenses are very difficult to operate. Many photographers have turned to Photoshop to recreate the tilt-shift effect digitally. The “does-what-it-says-on-the-tin” TiltShift (for Mac) tries to persuade that it is a better option.

Colour or monochrome? Always a tough decision, but sometimes you don’t need to make that call – you can have a bit of both. Colour-popping – the retention of colour saturation in one part of a monochrome image – is becoming more and more popular. Recently, a number of colour-popping specialist apps, particularly on touch-screen devices, have emerged, and the newest kid on the block is Color Splash Studio

The charm of grain and of other imperfections adding to an image’s character is but a distant memory. Now, grain, dirt, burnt-out whites and blacks, and an inaccurate white balance seem to be a staple part of the photographic experience of most iPhone users. Grungetastic for Mac aims for cater to those who like this type of stylising in particular, and who either don’t have an iPhone or don’t want their iPhone to be part of the process.

The concept of CloudApp is one of seamless sharing of virtually any file, and from a photographer’s point of view, is a quick and simple method of sharing images online.

There are many simplistic collage apps out there, allowing for images to be slung onto an imaginary piece of paper. Many of these produce results that are less than attractive. Posterino tries to raise the bar in this genre.

Many swear by the grain-combating qualities of Noise Ninja, but this isn’t the only app that does a fine job of reducing noise – Neat Image should also be considered as an option.

I have reviewed a few effects apps for Mac in this series, and used many more. Some have been good, some limited, some very average. Having used FX Photo Studio Pro, however, I can say that anyone who purchases this app may never need another effects app again.

Back in the heyday of film photography, the effects of light leaking, blue flash and print yellowing were often bemoaned by many photographers striving for the best quality. As digital camera image quality has become exemplary, however, many people are using phone cameras and apps to recreate these effects to reignite their creativity – an example app being Lo-Fi.

Most Mac users use iPhoto to organise and view pictures, or an alternative such as Picasa. These work beautifully with jpegs and other similarly small files. If you want to shoot in RAW, however, these apps start to struggle when you want to flick through your latest uploads. Does Photon provide the solution?

Instagram, and Hipstamatic before it, made both the stylizing and sharing of photos on iOS devices easy. What the Mac needs is a unique photo-styling app of its own; enter Poladroid.

Often, the simple and humble slideshow is overlooked in these days of Instagram and Flickr, which is criminal given how great they are for sharing a group of pictures. One of a growing field of apps that aids the building of slideshows is ePic.

I came across the app PhotoEffectsLite at the top of the free photography downloads. As I often do, I decided to download and try it, in the full knowledge that it may be another tacky technicolour-adding photo app.

ImageConvert is a simple app that allows drag-and-drop file conversions. ImageConvert is probably one of the simplest apps available in any genre, providing the user with just two options – preferences or quit.

HDRtist is freeware, and as you might expect, doesn’t come with that many options; this is very much a “plug & play” app. But for occasional or first-time HDR users, the results are reasonably impressive.

Anyone who shares their images online does so at the risk of their images being downloaded and used by pesky image thieves. Professionals, of course, aim to prevent this by watermarking their images, but considering it is such a routine thing, there are only a few Mac applications that deal with this task well.

There are innumerable iOS apps that calculate hyperfocal distance – the distance where the focus must be in order to achieve the maximum depth of field. OptiCalc provides this service on OSX, as well as calculating the size (in meters) of the depth of field, and the minimum shutter speed needed to prevent blur.

My quest when writing my Mac App reviews is to clarify the selection process for those who want an App that ‘just works.’