FxPhotoStudioPro
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FX Photo Studio for iPhone reaches 10 million downloads; special deal for Mac version
We're used to hearing about the huge numbers of downloads that are produced by the App Store, but it's rare when TUAW gets news about a specific app. MacPhun, the company that develops FX Photo Studio and a host of other iOS and Mac apps, recently decided to make FX Photo Studio for iPhone a free download after selling the app for US$1.99 for four years. The goal? To see if they could reach 10,000,000 downloads of the app. They were able to do so in 45 days, an incredible feat for any app, but surprising for an app that has been around since May of 2009. To celebrate, MacPhun came up with a unique deal: Every third person who sends a confirmation that they own FX Photo Studio for iPhone and iPad (two separate apps) gets the $19.99 FX Photo Studio Pro for Mac absolutely free. Send screenshots showing your proof of ownership of those two apps to gift@macphun.com, and you've got a one in three chance of picking up a Mac app for free. Congratulations to MacPhun on achieving the download goal!
TUAW Best of 2011: Vote for the best Mac photo and video apps
The nominations are in, and the poll is ready to go! The TUAW Best of 2011 awards are all about you -- the readers -- and what you think is the cream of the crop of Apple or third-party products and software. To vote, select one entry from the top nominations made by readers. We'll be announcing the winner in just a few days. Vote early and often! Today TUAW is asking for your vote for the best Mac photo and video apps of 2011. While we received relatively few nominations in this area, there were several apps that stood out as potential winners in this category. Rather than have video and photo apps punching it out for the Best of 2011 title, I've decided to split the voting into both categories. In the video realm the new Camtasia 2 ($99.99) app pulled in the most nominations, while Apple's Final Cut Pro X ($299.99) was popular despite all the complaining when it was released earlier this year. ScreenFlow ($99.99), another screencasting app for Mac, will fight it out with Camtasia 2 for the honors. For photo apps, FX Photo Studio Pro ($39.99) grabbed the attention of readers, along with Sketcher ($14.99), Flickery ($9.99), and effect / texture app Flare ($9.99). Be sure to vote for one of each below -- one Mac photo app and one Mac video app. I'll announce the winners in a few days. %Poll-72024% %Poll-72020%
FX Photo Studio now for Mac OS X
I took a look at FX Photo Studio on the iPad earlier this year and gave it a positive review. Now the app has migrated to the Mac App Store, so that users who want to work on a desktop or laptop Mac can modify, adjust and remake their images using similar tools to the iOS versions. I've been using FX Photo Studio Pro for about a week and imported many of my images to see how it worked. The app is no substitute for Photoshop, but for the casual photographer who wants to explore filters, do basic sharpening, level adjustments, color balance, crop, rotate and change the color saturation of images, I think the app is worthwhile. With 159 filters, you can dramatically change your image. As with all filters, you are more likely to mess the image up rather than improve it, but if you are after a big collection of effects, you'll find them here. I thought the black and white conversion was nice and clean, and some of the vignette effects were also good. Things like night vision effects and some color glows that look like LSD-induced nightmares aren't my cup of tea, but some people will love them. That's the strength of having lots of filters. Use what you want and forget the rest. You can also create your own variations on the filters and save them for re-use. Images can be shared from within the app via Twitter, Facebook, email, Tumblr and Flickr. The app has a handy split screen mode, so you can see before and after your changes, and of course, there is undo. %Gallery-123727%
