Photogene is a photo genius for your iPhone

In my recent review of AutoStitch I mentioned Photogene [App Store] which is kind of like a miniature Photoshop for the digital pictures you take on your iPhone.

It has a boatload of functions, which will let you fix and enhance your digital images without having to offload them to another image editor on a Mac or PC.

Here's some of the functionality:

• Enhance photos with color adjustment and sharpen tools

• Crop and straighten photos

• Add text balloons

• Create a variety of frames

• Adjust Histogram

• Correct Gamma

• Increase/decrease saturation

• Adjust color temperature

• Multiple undo and redo

The latest version, released earlier this month, includes support for OS 3.0, adds some new effects, and updates the GUI. Of course no iPhone app is going to replace Photoshop, but Photogene has seemed to capture the features that people really want in getting their iPhone photos in tip top shape for emailing or saving elsewhere. With the new 3 megapixel camera in the new iPhone hardware, Photogene will be even more indispensable.

Some of the icons are not obvious in function, but they are quickly learned. I would have liked to see noise reduction among the features, but the developer has created a separate app called NoiseBlaster [App Store] that removes noise from iPhone images. It's an additional $0.99, but I would have liked it included in Photogene.

Photogene works on the iPod touch as well, but you'll have to import images since the touch has no built in camera, at least not yet.

At US$2.99 it's hard to go wrong if you use your iPhone camera as much as I do.