Photo Factory for iOS devices is powerful (and, for today, free)

I love passing on tips about free stuff. Today I'll give you a quick alert on Photo Factory. The app is free today only, and it has a lot of good features for the photo hobbyist.

There's a large collection of preset filters that you can modify to taste and see the results instantly. You also get the ability to create a variety of frames. Effects are additive, so you could create a frame, vary the color and add a soft matte with color control of the frame and the matte effect.

I was most impressed with some of the black and white filters. For example, Photo Factory can find the sky in the photo and turn it into black and white, even if some parts of the image extend into the sky. Normally this would take some time consuming masking, but Photo Factory figures it out. It will also leave the sky in color and make the rest of the image black and white.

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You can export the photo back to your library, to the clipboard or email. You can also use AirPrint if you are equipped to use it. The app supports multiple undo and redo, and you can revert back to the original. No, Photo Factory is not Photoshop, but it's very clever and worth grabbing for free. It's free until midnight EST, so give it a whirl and let us know if you are impressed. I've put a few samples in the gallery, or you can see some demos at the developer website. Photo Factory runs on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, requires iOS 3.0 or greater and supports 45 languages. The freebie today celebrates AppEvent, which wants to give recognition to Dutch and Belgian developers.