Afterlight
Latest
Vibrance Photo Filter Creator doesn't shine so brightly
Vibrance is an app for iOS (compatible with all devices running iOS 4.3 and later) that lets you create your own photo filters using a combination of colors, contrast, opacity and a few other tools. It's free, but for the app to be at all useful to anyone requires an upgrade to Vibrance Premium currently available for US$0.99. When you open the app for the first time, it asks if you want to view a help tutorial. I wouldn't skip this because the UI is mediocre at best so you're better off learning the basics with a guide. After you're finished with the tutorial, it's time to start exploring the free version of the app. At the top is the image you're currently editing, which in the free version of the app is a sample image of a woman sitting in a field. Here's the catch: unless you upgrade the app to Vibrance Premium, that's the only image available for edit. Photo import -- a basic feature in any photo editing app -- requires a paid upgrade. Now that you've come to the realization that the free version of Vibrance is really more of a demo than a functional app, it's at least worth toying around with for a bit. Underneath the photo is an opacity slider which adjusts the transparency of the filter overlaying the photo. Slide all the way to the left and you have your original photo. All the way to the right and you have the filter applied in full effect. This comes in handy as sometimes the colors are a bit too strong. Toward the bottom is where you create your filter. The app presents a full color wheel (or literally a color rectangle in this case) plus some preset colors to choose from, but they're so small to tap in the iPhone app that you're better off ignoring them. It's a bit easier in the iPad app which is just a scaled up version. The gradient bar is where you add the colors you select to blend them together and create the filter. In my experience, it wasn't easy picking a combination of colors that looked decent for the photo even when I turned down the opacity. I resorted to using my favorite feature in Vibrance, the Shuffle button floating at the top right. When enabled, shake your iPhone or iPad to apply a randomly generated filter and most of them do look pretty good. I suppose it's also worth mentioning the app includes some finer controls for saturation, contrast, brightness and hue but with the inability to import your own photos for free, these don't matter very much. What Vibrance comes down to is this: to apply and save professional pre-made filters or create your own for your own photos, upgrading to Vibrance Premium for $0.99 is your only option. For free, Vibrance is, quite frankly, useless. That said, if you are going to spend money, you're better off with apps like Afterlight ($0.99) or Camera+ ($1.99) which have far more features for perfecting your photos and include a multitude of adjustable filters, too. Compared to these, Vibrance isn't all that vibrant. UPDATE 8/20/14: The developer has reached out after this review was published to announce that version 1.0.2 of Vibrance is now live in the App Store and adds photo importing to the free version of the app, dramatically improving its usability. That's one negative now effectively null and void.
One iPhone photographer's workflow
One great way to learn how to take and process better photographs is to learn from professionals, and for many of us time and circumstance precludes dropping everything to do an internship with a professional photographer. Fortunately, there are pros like Jessie Webster -- who runs the "Sweet Thing" blog -- who are kind enough to share their photography workflows with the world and help make our photographs better. In a classic post from July 30, 2013, Jessie outlined her photo editing process for Instagram. Yeah, I know -- I was thinking "a process for an Instagram photo?" too. But that's what spells out the difference between a professional photographer and someone taking snapshots with an iPhone. Jessie started with a self-portrait taken with TimerCam (free or US$1.99 for the pro version) and then ran it through VSCO Cam (free) to add a filter, lighten, straighten and crop the photo. Next, she moved the photo to Afterlight ($0.99) to add clarity and sharpen the image. Finally, the image passed into Touch Retouch ($0.99) to remove some distracting foreground rocks and sticks before being uploaded to Instagram (free). Be sure to check out Jessie's tutorial on Sweet Thing for more details.
