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Fuzel Collage creator goes universal and adds many features
I was enthusiastic about Fuzel Collage last year when I looked at it. It's been updated to version 3 now, and it has finally become a universal app so iPad users can get in on the creative collage-making fun. The new version is a complete redesign, and it looks appealing. Fuzel Collage is very free form -- you can have as many photos in a collage as you like, something that many similar apps don't offer. There are some dynamic templates, or you can modify any template to meet your needs. Once a photo is in place, it can be dragged to change the composition, or enlarged or reduced to fit the space. Animated collages can be created, with attractive transitions and using your own music. Although the app is free (ad supported), there are a number of in-app purchases offering more advanced animations and new layouts. You can also remove the ads for US$1.99. I think most users will get along fine with the free version, but this is an app you should be glad to support. Your collages can have stickers, text, a variety of frames and frame shapes, and many color options. Once you select your frame, it can be easily modified with thicker or thinner lines, and shadows can be added. If you need more variety, you can download more frames as in-app purchases. The new version of Fuzel Collage is easy to use, and you can just start to work straight away. There is an introductory guide, but most people will find the app intuitive enough to bypass those instructions. Any collage you create is saved in the app and can be completely re-edited later. Of course, once it is saved to the camera roll, the changes are permanent. Animated collages are nice, but as in the old version, the app leaves a prominent watermark on your video which I would like to see banished for all time. Fuzel Collage can create some really artistic and memorable collages that you will be happy to share with friends and family. Collages can be emailed, or sent via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Fuzel Collage requires iOS 7 or later. It was stable when used with iOS 8 beta 5. It works on all iPads except the original iPad 1.
Fuzel updates its collage maker with animation and music
I looked at the Fuzel app last year and found it a nice way to make some striking collages on iOS. A new update puts your images in motion with tasteful zooms, and lets you add music from your iTunes library or use the music contained in the app. You can also select frames and the arrangement of photos or make static collages. You can create your own photo arrangement instead of relying on the provided templates. Variations can easily number in the hundreds. The app lets you determine the length of your video, and changes can reflect the beats in the music. Making an attractive collage is easy, with intuitive commands and an undo feature. Once your collage is done, it can be saved to your photo roll, or shared via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Tumblr. The app works well, but it is not universal. I saw a couple of crashes using it scaled up on my third-generation iPad. It was rock solid on my iPhone 5s. While the app is free, there are a variety of in-app purchases that range from US$0.99 to $4.99. The purchases get you more frames and other graphic elements. When you save your work in the free version, you get a Fuzel logo at the lower-right corner, and it can be removed with an in-app purchase. I would have preferred there be no logo, and the non-animated older version did not have one. Fuzel requires iOS 7 or later, and it is optimized for the iPhone 5. I can only vouch for the app stability on an iPhone, but you may have better luck on your iPad. As the app is free, it is easy to check.
Fuzel is a standout collage creator for your iPhone
I've seen a lot of collage software come and go. Some are quite powerful and keep growing, such as Diptic. Others don't really have interesting templates or don't allow you enough creative freedom to let you make the collage that fits your mood or your personality. The last few days, I've been playing with a free app called Fuzel, and it helped me create some striking collages. Best of all, it gave me the flexibility to move and transform the elements without being restricted to stiff templates. Fuzel starts off with a quick tutorial, then it's time to open your camera roll and select some photos. There are plenty of templates, but the best ones are the ones that aren't just a bunch of rectangles bolted together. You can cut and divide the frames into smaller ones; you can merge frames into a single frame; and you can drag the borders around as you please. I was happy to see my new collage was saved at full resolution, but there are smaller options when you are mailing them or sending them to social networks. Swiping the screen will undo your last change, and a collage can be saved to edit later. I tried the app with some of my landscape photos, and the results were excellent. This was the first collage app that made me want to print poster-size versions of these collages for hanging on my walls. The app also features in-app purchases, which it calls credit packs. They are themed objects and labels to further customize your collage, but I didn't feel the need for them. They might be handy if I wanted holiday elements for a collage, but I let the photos speak for themselves. Fuzel is a very impressive app. It's not universal, so you'll get the best results on an iPhone or an iPod touch. The app requires iOS 7 or later, and it's optimized for the iPhone 5. With the holidays here, most of us will be taking more pictures than ever. Fuzel can give your photos a fresh look, and you'll enjoy sharing the results with family and friends.
Diptic Video lets you create video collages on your iPhone or iPad
There are plenty of collage apps for iOS. One of the best is Diptic from Peak Systems. It allows you to grab photos from your camera roll and combine them into attractive, framed presentations for sharing. Now there's something new called Diptic Video, which is US$1.99 from the App Store. You can still use it to create photo collages, but it adds video to the mix. The process is similar. Select some videos that are thematically related, load them into Diptic Video, arrange them how you like and pick a presentation (there are 35 templates to choose from). You can have four windows all with video, or three, or two or one. Once the videos are loaded, you can play them sequentially, loop the clips so they repeat and stop after the shortest or longest clip. You can also add music that you have on your device. Videos can be played forward and backward. It's a nice idea for creating some novel mementos of the holiday season. When you are done, you can save your creation to the camera roll or upload via email or SMS. I gave the app a test flight with stills and videos. Using the app is straightforward, but using stills doesn't really go beyond what the original app does. Since the new app is video-capable, how about programming in some moves and little animations with the stills to bring them to life? Or have multiple stills appear in each frame one after the other? The video part of the app is quite good, but when you add music, there is no way to adjust the level, or to balance between the video sounds and the music. It would also be good to allow the raw sound to be turned off. Perhaps that is asking a lot of an app that runs on iOS, but I think it is possible. I like what Diptic Video does, and it is reasonably priced. I do think the feature set could be more ambitious, and that's where I'd like to see the app go. Diptic Video requires iOS 7 or later, and runs on any iOS device that can run the latest OS. The app is optimized for the iPhone 5 series.
Vacation Coming? Here are my favorite iOS photo apps
It's that time of year. Vacations are likely in your future, and there has never been a bigger choice in apps and utilities to make and share great still photos from your iPhone. Among the multitude of apps I've tested over the years, I have some favorites, so I'm sharing those treasures with you. I'll miss some great apps, but these are the apps that have never let me down under a variety of conditions. Let me state that the majority of my photography is done with a Canon DSLR. It has great quality and unparalleled reliability, but there is nothing like the iPhone for a quick good quality photo or panorama, and there are plenty of great tools to edit that photo before you share it. I find I'm always using both cameras; the DSLR for the keepers I may print and frame, the iPhone for all the rest. Let's get started. I'm going to deal primarily with landscape or location photography. The built-in Apple camera app is fine for taking shots of people, and if you use the built-in HDR mode you can rescue photos from blow-out due to bright sky backgrounds. For landscapes, HDR is just the ticket. HDR gives you a wider dynamic range, so detail shows up in the shadows and bright skies won't overpower your image. The above-mentioned HDR feature from Apple is OK for landscapes, but won't give you the best quality your iPhone camera can provide. I've had the best results from three apps. Pro HDR (U.S. $1.99), Tru HDR($1.99), and Fotor ($2.99). Fotor is also a capable photo editor and camera app. %Gallery-192680% Non-HDR apps, for taking family pictures or photos where there is motion present, are also abundant. Among those I like are the already mentioned built-in camera controls from Apple. I'm also a fan of the popular free Instagram app that provides camera control and a variety of editing options and filters, and Camera + which is both very popular and a well performing $1.99 app. It contains granular camera control, and a host of features for both taking and editing photos. Let's not forget panoramas. Apple added a very good panorama feature in iOS 6, and it works great. (You need an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5.) Put the camera in Panorama mode, and slowly move it from side to side while the camera captures and instantly assembles a high-resolution horizontal image. Editing There are hundreds of apps that let you edit photos. Fotor and Camera + do a nice job, and both have a variety of filters if you want to apply them to your photos. I think the standout app is the free Snapseed app. It has an easy to use GUI, and best of all gives you a tremendous amount of control over several parameters that can make your images compelling. Even if Snapseed had a price tag associated with, it would still be my recommendation -- being free, it is a terrific choice. Apple's camera app does have some on-board tools like cropping and simple enhancing, but Snapseed is far superior. I also like to create collages and send them to friends while I am still traveling. My favorites in this area are Diptic ($0.99) and ProCollage ($1.99). Sharing You're on your trip, and want to share those photos before you get home. Again, there are plenty of options, including services like Flickr, Amazon Cloud Drive and Instagram, but I really like the free app Photoset. This universal app lets you select photos, upload them to a website, and send the url to friends. You don't need to sign up to anything, the photos look great, and unlike Apple's PhotoStream option, the pictures will never go away. My only wish for Photoset is that you could select multiple photos instead of selecting them one at a time before uploading. Where and When to take pictures Just like in real estate, location is everything. Sometimes you are taking pictures wherever you happen to be, while others look for the best places to visit specifically for photography. If you are in the US National Parks, the Chimani guides are indispensable. This series of free apps provides information like hours of operation, best photo spots, and travel tips for the major National Parks. The time of day that you take that picture is really important too, with the best lighting occurring during the so-called "golden time" just before sunrise and just before sunset. Magic Hour is just the ticket for figuring out the best time to take those wonderful pix. The app is free, uses GPS to figure out where you are, and then tells you the best time to grab those beautiful landscape photos. How about figuring out the best nearby photo locations? If you have an iPad, grab the free Stuck on Earth app. It shows your current location on a map, and scours the web for photos taken at that location. It gives you a great idea about what to expect and is also handy for trip planning before you ever leave on your vacation. Sadly, this app is not available for the iPhone, and there isn't an iPhone app that is comparable. Summing Up The apps mentioned here will go a long way toward making your vacation photos memorable and worth sharing. I still am amazed that such great technology can be stuffed in a smartphone, but there it is. Have a safe trip, and may you get lots of great photos.
Diptic updates its iOS collage creation app
I took a look at Diptic a while ago and liked what I saw. The US$0.99 universal app allows you to select photos from your camera roll and create compelling collages that can be sent at various resolutions to family and friends. The new version 6, just released, has a great many new and enhanced features, including more than a 100 new layouts, textures on borders and the ability to add captions to photos. It offers much more control over frames and the arrangement of images. One welcome addition is improvement to the photo picker, and for the first time you can now select multiple images at once, rather than going back and forth to your camera roll. The app now supports the Retina display and is optimized for the iPhone 5. %Gallery-173946% Finished collages can be shared via email, Instagram, Flickr, Twitter (with iOS6 only) and other social media destinations. The company has also partnered with a third party so you can send physical postcards directly from your iPhone or iPad. I gave the app a try and really appreciated the new layouts and increased control. The old version gave you a numerical readout of frame thickness which is missing in this new version, and I don't see the ability to save a layout that you might want to use again. Those are the main negatives, which I hope will be remedied in a future version. Update: One of the Diptic folks tells me that it isn't clear how to save a layout in the app and it will be fixed. It can be done using the export function, where is is saved in the 'recent' tab. Besides those minor complaints, Diptic is a very solid update to an already useful app. The ability to create eye-catching collages without needed a laptop or desktop computer is very handy, and many will find it useful at capturing and sharing their holiday festivities. Diptic requires iOS5. I have some sample screens in the gallery above.
Photoboard is updated and upscaled for the iPad
If you always wanted a 'magic wall' for your iPad, Photoboard HD (US$2.99) is probably as close as your are going to get. This app originally appeared on the iPhone and iPod touch and lets you manipulate photos by scaling and rotating them to create interesting collages. The new iPad version has higher resolution (natch) and photos look pretty stunning on it. Obviously inspired by the breakthrough work of Jeff Han, and widely seen on CNN, Photoboard HD is fun to play with, but I'm searching hard for a practical use. Certainly you can re-arrange photos and make for some interesting groupings, but beyond that you're pretty much done. It would be nice to see more options for framing the pictures, and more backgrounds, including ones I choose myself. As it is, the app is a nice demo of the graphic power of the iPad, but most photographers would probably rather create their collages in Photoshop. I liked the idea of this app, but it needs more customizable features, and a definite purpose. There are some screen shots in the gallery below, but at a reduced size the screen shots don't do justice to the quality of the images: %Gallery-90093%
