Tuesday, 6 March 2012
MOBILE --> 4 PoWeRfuL iPhonE pHoTo EdiTing ApPs
4 Powerful iPhone Photo Editing Apps ~~>
Yes, it is possible to take good photos on your iPhone without shoving it through a lo-fi photography app. And as cool as it may seem to make your party photos look like they were taken in 1976, one can't help wonder what we will think of them in retrospect.
"iGranny," your offspring will ask in 2050, "why is that photo of you from 2011 so tattered and old?"
"Well, listen close, Hansolo," you say as you take him on your
cyborg knee. "In 2011, we had our hands on some incredibly advanced
mobile phone and camera technology. And instead of using it to properly
record our moment in history, we took photos in applications that
destroyed all of the detail to apply an antique effect because we didn't
feel like our generation had enough cultural credibility."
Now you made little Hansolo cry. Are you happy?
Lo-fi apps have their place, but for photographers who want to use
their iPhone for higher-quality image capture and editing, here are some
useful and fun apps. Click any screenshot for a larger image.
[Don't Miss: 9 Apps to Transform Your Android Phone into a High-End Camera]
PhotoForge 2
PhotoForge 2 has all of the basic options that you have come to
expect from iOS editing apps, with the added muscle of more serious
photo software. PhotoForge 2 can open almost any image type, including
RAW formats and files as large as 20 megapixels. It edits images at full
resolution so you can see exactly what your final photo will look like
at any stage during the editing process.
The
sequel to the popular PhotoForge app, PhotoForge 2 has most of the
features from its predecessor as well as some new updates to prevent
crashes when editing large-format files. Curves, levels, brightness and
contrast, shadows and highlights, and auto white balance are all
available and the app also has over 30 customizable filters that range
from sepia toning to vintage 3D. At any time during the editing process,
you can access a visual history feature that allows you to see your
photo at various stages of the editing process.
When you are done editing, you can choose an image size and export
your photo directly to social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook,
Flickr, Dropbox, Picasa, and Tumblr. The app has complete layer
functionality and masks that allows for cool effects, such as color
emphasis a-la Color Splash. The layers option also allows for watermarking your images by importing your watermark on a new layer.
Photoforge; $3 (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad)
Camera+
If
you are looking to download just one app to suit all of your basic
photographic needs, look no further than Taptaptap's Camera+. It does
everything-you can take, edit, and export your photos all within the
app. The coolest part about Camera+, though, is definitely its capture
options. When you are composing your shot, use two fingers to lock the
separate focus and exposure points before taking a photo using the
normal, stabilizer, timer, or burst mode. The capture feature also gives
you a grid overlay so you can obey the ever-important rule of thirds.
After you have taken the photo, pull it up in Camera+'s lightbox
where you can add filters, digital flash, crop (using its built-in
"golden ratio" tool) and put a border on it. In the Scene modes feature,
you can choose from different options like Sunset, Portrait, and
Backlit to automatically adjust settings for better photos. From there,
share it on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr. See our full review of Camera+ here.
Taptaptap; $2 (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad)
ComicBook
Create
a comic book about your life complete with text and flashy
onomatopoeias with 3DTopo's ComicBook app. First, import your existing
photos into one of the 30 pre-made layouts. The layouts come in both
portrait and landscape mode and can fit up to seven different photos.
After you have added a photo and sized it to your liking in the
layout, choose one of the nine photo filters like sketch, vibrant, or
manga to make your photos look more animated. Once you have found the
right effect, add captions and exclamations. You can change the fonts,
size, angle, and source of the speech bubbles as well as add some of the
55 different classic comic book graphics. Then *POW!* upload it to
Twitter or Facebook!
3DTopo; $2 (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad)
Filterstorm
Available
on both iPhone and iPad, Filterstorm is an excellent program for
editing and enhancing your images. Filterstorm makes good editing
extremely easy. To make the blown-out sky in your landscape photo more
dramatic, you can curve out the highlights and apply it using a mask
brush. There are brightness and contrast options as well as a saturation
control. More advanced options include a clone tool, a multi-exposure
tool, and border effects. And if you want to see your progress, the app
features a 10-step visual history.
Once you are done, you can save your edits as automatons so you can
quickly apply them to other images to give batches of photos the same
unique look. Export your new and improved photos (you can size them up
to 3072-by-2200 pixels) and send them to friends over Email, FTP,
Flickr, and Dropbox.
Filterstorm; $4 (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad)
MOBILE --> 11 TiPs To EnsurE gReAt SmArtpHonE PHOtogRaphy
11 Tips to Ensure Great Smartphone Photography ~~>
A phone is designed to make calls, but for many people it's also their primary camera. Here are our tips on how to make phone photos look great.
You probably don't carry your fancy-pants DSLR camera with you all the
time, but your smartphone--along with its built-in camera--is in your
pocket everywhere you go. That's why these days the most popular camera
used to upload photos to Flickr isn't a camera at all, but the iPhone.
The challenge, of course, is getting great-looking photos from a gadget
primarily designed for chatting. If you keep a few tips in mind, you can
take some pretty sharp pictures with either an iPhone or an Android
phone. Here is what you need to know (click all photos to enlarge).
1. Let the sun shine in: Your phone can handle a lot of
situations with aplomb, but it can't shoot every scene you encounter.
The teeny image sensor craves light, and does best outdoors, in
daylight. For the best exposures, follow the same advice that
photographers have kept in mind for decades:
Let sunlight help your photography.Try
to put the sun behind you or over one of your shoulders. Avoid shooting
directly into the sun, or you'll radically underexpose your subject. If
you're shooting indoors, put your back to the window and turn on the
lights.
2. Compose your photos: Capturing a good photo isn't
merely about knowing the right settings. Compose your photos as the pros
do. Divide the frame into thirds--imagine a tic-tac-toe board--and put
your subject on one of those lines, rather than in the middle of the
screen.
Divide your frame into thirds.Be
careful to keep the camera level, too; nothing ruins a photo like a
tilted horizon. Keep an eye on the background to be sure that nothing is
"growing" out of the top of someone's head.
3. Start the camera faster: Some phones make it so hard
to get to the camera that you might think they're, well,
camera-shy--which could mean losing out on many a great photo
opportunity. If you have a smartphone and the operating system allows
it, move the camera app to a more convenient location.
Make sure you can access your camera quickly.On
the iPhone, for example, ensure that the camera app is on the first
screen, or put it in the quick-access area at the bottom of the screen.
Some phones even let you reassign buttons to launch the camera.
4. Keep the phone steady: One reason you tend to get
blurry photos with your phone is that it's light and thin, and awkward
to hold compared with a full-size camera. Grip the phone as still as you
can, with both hands, and keep your elbows tucked in to your sides for
support. Take a deep breath and then let out a slow, steady exhale as
you gently trigger the phone's shutter release.
5. Know when the shutter clicks: If the shutter lags,
you'll need to account for that. Some phones have a surprising delay
after you press the shutter release. And if the shutter release is on a
touchscreen (as it is on the Apple iPhone), the shutter probably trips
after you lift your finger, not when you press down. Either way, hold
the camera steady while the picture is being exposed. And don't jab at
the screen, or the shake will blur your photo.
6. Optimize the settings: If your camera has a white
balance control, you'll often get the best results leaving it on
automatic. But if the colors come out wrong, try setting the balance to
reflect the ambient light, such as fluorescent, daylight, or sunset.
Just be sure to reset it to automatic when you're done, or future photos
will look weird.
Make full use of any settings that your camera offers.If
the camera offers an ISO setting (usually under Settings or Camera on
an Android device, and under the gear icon on Windows Phone), take that
off Auto. When you're outdoors in daylight, set the ISO to its lowest
value to minimize the digital noise in your picture. In low-light
situations, bump the ISO up as high as it will go.
7. Widen the dynamic range: Some phones (such as the
iPhone 4 and Windows Phone 7 handsets, to name a few), provide a High
Dynamic Range mode that captures an impressive amount of detail and a
range of tones and colors in a single exposure.
If your phone has a High Dynamic Range option, learn to use it.The
effect is similar to the way HDR software can combine multiple photos
to create one rich, dynamic photo. If you have an HDR option (it might
also be called Wide Dynamic Range, or some similar variation), try it
instead of the flash when faced with tricky lighting.
8. Turn your camera into a photo lab: Most phones offer
relatively few options for enhancing photos. That's what Photoshop and
other editing apps are for. But some cameras include a veritable
treasure trove of ways to tweak your shots, so check the camera settings
for adjustments such as contrast, saturation, and image effects. You
can use most of these controls as if you were adding spices to a soup:
Experiment and apply the ones you like to taste. The saturation control,
for example, adjusts the intensity of colors in your photos.
Experiment with your camera settings.It's
usually best to stick with low or medium, since high saturation levels
tend to make everyone look like an overcooked turkey. Image effects like
negative, sepia, and black and white can help you take charming photos.
But remember that if you shoot a photo in sepia, for instance, it will
be tinted that way forever--there's no going back to the real colors.
You might be better off ignoring such controls and adding a similar
effect on your PC with a free program like Windows Live Photo Gallery, so you can always revert to the original color if you prefer.
9. Use the flash to reveal daytime details: It's
counterintuitive, but in daylight, a fill flash can be your secret
weapon. It provides a burst to reduce the shadows that bright sunlight
causes. Although the flash won't be powerful enough to fill every
shadow, if you're close enough to your subject, it can provide pleasant,
even lighting on your subject's face. Of course, the tiny flash on most
cameras works only at very close range, so don't expect it to help
unless you're within a few feet of your subject.
10. Don't use digital zoom: Your camera phone can't
magnify the image by moving its lens. Instead, it has a digital zoom,
which merely makes the pixels big and blocky, obliterating fine detail.
Want to fill the frame? Walk closer to your subject. If you really need
to zoom, you can always produce the same effect on your PC with an image
editor later.
11. Stock up on software: One of the best reasons to
carry a smartphone is for the scores of apps you can install to enhance
every aspect of the phone, and photography is no different. Check out
your phone's app store for programs that can improve the way the camera
works, as well for apps that can enhance the photos you take.
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