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iOS 8 Camera app: Photo filters and editing
Today I'm here with another look at changes to the iOS Camera and Photos apps that will be coming your way when iOS 8 is released later this month. Photo filters have changed the least of most of the features in the iOS photography apps. When you edit a photo in the Photos app there are still eight filters, all quite good without being over the top. The behavior for saving edited photos has changed, at least in the latest iOS 8 beta, and I personally don't think the change is an improvement. If you added a filter to an image in iOS 7 and then saved it, the photo went to your camera roll as a new photo, while the original image remained unchanged. When I tried this in iOS 8 beta 5, the original had the filter applied. To me, that's a no-no. You can get back the original by bringing it up in the editor and tapping 'revert', but some people may miss that option. In fact, in iOS 8 the concept of the 'camera roll' is gone. You won't find it at all. All your photos are in the Photos app in collections sorted by date with photos grouped by location. If you save an image from the web with no EXIF date data, it is saved with the date and time that you saved it. I liked the old way better, but unfortunately I think the change is permanent. One could argue that the changes are better or worse, but they will certainly confuse people who expect the iOS 7 behavior and now get something else. I expect a lot of "where's my camera roll?" questions when the update comes out. Users will also see the iCloud Photo Library replace Photo Stream. That means that every photo you take goes to the cloud at original resolution and is available on every device you have. The feature can be turned off in settings. Another change is that third-party developers of editing tools and filters are now able to integrate their software into the Apple Photos app editing process. That could be a big deal for people who want more flexibility in adding tools and filters but feel more comfortable with the familiar Apple tools. I haven't personally seen any of these third-party tools working in the iOS 8 beta, but I think it is an important enhancement. Still, the overall Apple Photos editing package is much improved. Third party filters, adjustments for light and color, and auto-straightening of photos are an improvement. These changes allow users to stay in the Apple-supplied apps for a lot of their photo editing, but rest assured that third parties will continue to bring more sophisticated tools to the App Store. Some will be included through Apple's extension architecture, while others will still require separate apps.
Camu is a unique way to take and edit your photos and videos
After reviewing hundreds of camera apps it's hard to not get jaded. They are often endless variations on a theme, all doing the work of shooting and editing OK, but not bringing much new to the game. Camu (free) hits the ground with a fresh approach and some new features. For example, its filters can be applied before and after you take a photo or video. You swipe the screen to get a new filter, and you swipe up or down to increase the effect or decrease it. The filters are never over the top, and really can make your photo or video more interesting. Speaking of video, you hold the photo button down to shoot video, and release when you are done. Filters work both before (for a preview) and after as it is with stills. Real-time collage is an interesting idea. You split the screen and take a picture, then your next picture goes on the other side of the split. It's faster than going to another photo editor and creating a collage after the fact. You can use your finger to drag the split marker around so it can be vertical, horizontal or at an angle. There's an auto mode for selfies. As you hold the camera still, the camera will take the picture. Any movement and it will wait until things settle down. A text mode lets you add captions or titles in a variety of colors and styles, then you can drag the text to any position. A so-called Super Focus mode lets you zoom in to your subject and set focus more precisely. Finally, the app features a way to send photos privately to others, or via Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. A couple of things missing. First, it would be nice to use the excellent filters on photos already in my photo library, but only photos you take with the app can be edited that way. Edit: An alert reader points out that you can edit a library photo by tapping on the small picture icon and then tap 'photos' on the top. I'd also like a few more finishing tools like crop, and maybe frames. The app is not completely intuitive. You press a button and see what happens. Camu is a very interesting app. The collage feature is particularly innovative. Camu requires iOS 7 or greater but it is not universal. It's optimized for the iPhone 5.
Effects Studio for iOS takes photo effects to the max
There are so many apps for editing and adding special effects that it's pretty hard to keep track of them all. I've reviewed so many that they can become a misty blur. Effects Studio (US$0.99) takes adding effects to your photos way beyond where most apps go but still manages to offer the basics, so it does stand out from the crowd. You get the expected filters, including all sorts of wild colors and polarization effects, as well as common adjustments of luminosity, color and contrast. There are focus and blur tools, as well as tone and curve tools. Where Effects Studio steps up with something beyond the basics is additions like horror masks and hair pieces. Now I realize most people won't want to add grotesque teeth to their photos of family and friends, but Effects Studio does this in such a way that it doesn't look like something pasted on a photo. You can re-size and blend the effect onto your image, so it looks as 'natural' as something like this can look. There are 30 frames to choose from, and most generate masks so the frames can be more ornate than a simple rectangle. A resize command lets you change the size of your photo to any of several pre-sets, or to a custom size that can be upscaled or downscaled from your original. There are brushes for adding to your photo, in addition to text and cropping tools. Effects Studio seems to work both ends of the editing spectrum. There are pro tools like curves, while there are also some wild effects that can make your images pretty bizarre. Effects Studio is a nice package for $0.99, and it only requires iOS 6 or later. It's not a universal app, and it should be. It will work on any iOS device, but not at native screen resolution on iPads.
GlassCamera for iOS lets you take photos through customized lenses
GlassCamera (US$0.99) gives you the ability to shoot your photos and movies through a variety of simulated glass lenses. It's sort of like imaging through church windows or distorted glass. The app provides 21 glass lenses, and each has a slider control you can use to change the degree of distortion. There is also a set of embossing filters. You can view the effects in real time, either in the still or video mode. The app also lets you apply effects to existing photos or movies. While you are in camera mode, you can touch to focus, choose the front or back camera, and turn on the LED flash as needed. I gave the app a tryout today, and it worked without surprises. I noted that video was not recording at full resolution, but the developer says full 720p HD recording is coming in an update. Stills are also not at full resolution, as my samples came out at 1136 x 640. I think it should be a high priority for the developer to match the output of this app to the capabilities of the camera. The effects are not the kind you are going to use for every photo or video, but when you want something unique, this app will do nicely. While the glass effects are unique, the embossing effects are available in many other apps, so don't get this app for the 3D embossing effect. I consider it a nice bonus on top of the glass effects, which are quite interesting. With full resolution output this app would be exemplary. As it is, it's very interesting, but can't give you the highest quality output. GlassCamera requires iOS 4.3 or later. It's a universal app and it is optimized for the iPhone 5. You can see some examples of the filters at the iTunes Store GlassCamera page.
InstaCRT puts all other photo filter apps to shame (video)
To hell with Instagram. Seriously. It's not that we don't understand the appeal of the photo filter standard bearer, it's just that it lacks a cleverness and visceral quality that InstaCRT has in spades. See, rather than simply recreate retro effect with some software trickery, InstaCRT actually uses the aging titular tech to achieve its goals. The concept, while clever, is actually pretty simple: you take a photo on your iPhone using the InstaCRT app, it's then uploaded to the developer where all the magic happens. Your image is displayed on a tiny 1-inch CRT (harvested from an old-school VHS camcorder) in the company's office, a picture of your photo is then taken with a fancy DSLR, and the resulting image is sent back to you. The results are monochrome, loaded with scanlines and just slightly distorted -- offering a sense of physicality that other photo filter apps just can't match. However, as clever as the concept is, it's equally inefficient and, as more people start using the app, the wait between snapping a pic and getting the finished product back, gets longer and longer. (We had to wait almost four minutes for the image above.) Still, we can't help but fall in love with InstaCRT... at least until the next photo filter app hits the market. Don't miss the video after the break, and hit up the source link to buy it now for $1.99 and see how fast we can crash the developer's servers.
Facebook sets sights on Instagram users with photo filter integration
What now Instagram? You wouldn't sell to Facebook and now ol' Zucks is moving on without you. That's right, friends... the social network genius himself is scheming alongside his engineers to integrate photo filters within the company's mobile application. The CEO hopes to lure users away from the popular photography app and keep them tethered to his site via mobile handset. Apparently the tech has been ready for a bit, but the boss wants his team to add more editing options before the feature is released into the wild.
FX Photo Studio HD for iPad adds more filters and printing
FX Photo Studio HD, was already a comprehensive collection of photo filters for the iPad. Version 3.0, priced at US$2.99 for a limited time, adds 53 new effects, bringing the total number of filters to 181. Effects can be combined and modified, and changes can be saved. If you have compatible printers, you can print directly from the app and share photos via email, Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler or Flickr. An innovative feature is the ability to share your creations with friends who are also running the app. FX Photo Studio HD can save your photos in the photo album on your iPad, copy images to the clipboard, or even save to a document folder so that you can move the images to your computer or other iOS device. There are filters for just about any mood. Images can be blurred, turned into black and white or sepia. Textures can be added, and even lightning bolts can be generated. You can simulate tilt-shift lenses, to make parts of your photos look like miniatures. %Gallery-116897%
CameraBag makes the trek over to the iPad
CameraBag (U.S. $2.99) is a popular little utility that has had life on both the Mac and PC platforms, as well as the iPhone. Now it's made it onto the iPad, where it will be welcomed by photographers. CameraBag is a photographic cropping, framing, and filter tool. The app comes with some preset filters like "Helga," which gives you a square format image with washed out highlights and some vignetting. "1962" provides dynamic black and white images, and "Magazine" delivers saturated tones to your photos. There are other presets as well, plus a button that generates a random variation of an existing preset. If you don't like what you see, you just keep hitting the button until you get something you like. What are the downsides of CameraBag? Well, there's no control of the cropping, so you can't move the object in the frame. The frames are pretty basic, and there's no choice for the color of the frames. Basically, you get white, except for the cinema frame that consists of black bars. CameraBag preserves the resolution of your originals, and it's possible to scale them down if you'd rather have a smaller size for posting or sending photos via mail. Finished images are saved back to the iPad library or can be emailed. Some people will say that without a built-in iPad camera, there's no reason to even bother with photo apps on the platform. That viewpoint is short-sighted. Through a USB connection, you can import photos from iPhoto. With the pending iPad camera kit, you'll be able to pull in photo files (even RAW format) from your digital camera, and then modify the images at your pleasure. This app and Photogene, which I reviewed a few days ago, aren't really Photoshop on the iPad, but they do go a long way toward providing a way to edit your photos for either improvement or fun. Be sure to visit the CameraBag website for more examples of what the app can do. Here are a few of my own samples: %Gallery-90421%
CameraBag makes it to the desktop
We took a look at CameraBag for the iPhone in June. It's a nifty little app that applies several pre-set filters to your photos. Now, the developers have released an almost identical app for the desktop. Users got hooked on the ease of adding filters and altering photos, and they wanted it on their desktops and laptops too, so now it's a reality.CameraBag Desktop for the Mac gives you 9 basic filters, 7 vary the color to match various films, and 2 filters provide gray scale filters. The filters can be layered one on top of the other if you desire, and with the 'reprocess' command. Every time you press it you get a variation on the original filter.As on the iPhone app, you can choose a border for your picture, and then output the picture at the original size or you can scale it down.The filters mimic the look of old instant camera films, and a host of other camera, film and lens combinations. CameraBag is not for the advanced digital photographer, but if you want to take an image and quickly apply a filter and a border this is a welcome tool. I'd like to see some more things added, like saturation controls and sliders for color temperature and sharpness. Adding those features combined with the filters would give a user almost unlimited control of the look of the images. As it is, your starting point is always what the designer of the filter had in mind. While you can reprocess, you have no control, and the parameters change at random. In the gallery I've included some variations on a single photo to show you some of the possibilities. You can also visit a web page to see how customers have used the CameraBag technology.CameraBag is US$19.00 and can be ordered direct from the developer. %Gallery-73929%
Photo filters galore for your iPhone pix
CameraBag [App Store link] joins the club of iPhone apps that offers filters for your photos to change the style or color balance of what you have snapped. The app sells for US$2.99.This app offers filters that mimic old film emulsions of the past, as well as offering fish eye views and infrared simulation.Here's the complete list:Helga - A square-format toy camera with washed-out highlights and old-school vignetting.1974 - This is your father's camera. Faded, tinted, and hip.Magazine - Emulates effects used in fashion magazinesLolo - Shoot from the hip and take life as it comes with vibrant, colorful shots.Cinema - Dramatic, moody, wide-screen stills from the movie of your life.1962 - Dynamic black and whites from the photojournalists of a bygone era.Mono - Smooth gradation from black to white.Infrared - Simulation of the popular landscape photography technique.Fisheye - Popular fish eye lens effect - try it in combination with other filters.Instant-emulates the old Polaroid lookOriginal - The unaltered image.Some of the filters are subtle. Some are pretty dramatic. I didn't find any of them to be horrible. The app gets good reviews from users, except due to some legal issues from Polaroid, the borders of the images were changed and don't really look like the old Polaroid prints, so users are unhappy with the new filter. The developer is working that out, and is referring users to the US$0.99 version of the app, CameraBag Lite retro, [App Store] which still has the older filter. The app was stable in my use, and allows you to email the finished images, or save them to your camera roll. The developer is also working on a desktop version of the app for both the Mac and PC. There are lots of apps offered that do similar effects. Ultimately, you need to choose the one that best fits your needs. I think the CameraBag filters do a nice job, and are easy to use. They are certainly worth a look.Here are filters I applied on a landscape photo, along with the original for comparison:%Gallery-65364%
