People tend to thing that mobile phone cameras are crappy. I guess they tend to think like that because they instinctively compare them with cameras like Nikons or Canons. But Nikons and Canons, besides of not being comparable with mobile phone cameras, are a bit expensive, and for snapshots, the iPhone camera actually does the job.
Now, talking about the iPhone camera... sometimes it takes pixelated photos, with saturated colors and stuff like that, but the truth is that it's not the camera's fault. It's our fault, because, most of the times, we forget one very important thing in photography: LIGHT.
If you take photos with low light conditions you can't expect to have great images. Many people use the iPhone mainly to take photos at home, with inappropriate lighting. But if you use the iPhone outdoors in a sunny day, you'll be able to take awesome photos!
The only thing that could be better is the resolution. Bigger images give you the ability to crop parts without sacrificing the resolution too much. But that's what the iPhone has, and believe it or not, I've had several mobile phones, like Nokias, Sony Ericssons, Samsungs, Qteks and HTCs, and I find the iPhone camera to be better than most of those phone cameras.
On the App Store, there are lots of photo apps to help you achive nice results with the iPhone camera. I've used a few, and picked up five I consider worth buying. They give you nice results and allow your creativity to flourish!
My top five photo apps for the iPhone are:
Now, talking about the iPhone camera... sometimes it takes pixelated photos, with saturated colors and stuff like that, but the truth is that it's not the camera's fault. It's our fault, because, most of the times, we forget one very important thing in photography: LIGHT.
If you take photos with low light conditions you can't expect to have great images. Many people use the iPhone mainly to take photos at home, with inappropriate lighting. But if you use the iPhone outdoors in a sunny day, you'll be able to take awesome photos!
The only thing that could be better is the resolution. Bigger images give you the ability to crop parts without sacrificing the resolution too much. But that's what the iPhone has, and believe it or not, I've had several mobile phones, like Nokias, Sony Ericssons, Samsungs, Qteks and HTCs, and I find the iPhone camera to be better than most of those phone cameras.
On the App Store, there are lots of photo apps to help you achive nice results with the iPhone camera. I've used a few, and picked up five I consider worth buying. They give you nice results and allow your creativity to flourish!
My top five photo apps for the iPhone are:
- Night Camera, by Sudobility
- Picoli, by Alazar GmbH & Co. KG
- CameraBag, by Nevercenter Ltd. Co.
- ColorSplash, by Hendrik Kueck
- QuadCamera – Multi shot cam, by Takayuki Fukatsu
Now, lets go through a quick review of each one of them, and finally, I'm going to show you how they can complement each other, giving you endless creative possibilities.
Night Camera
This little app will really help you take steady shots. I think its name might mislead you, since it is not just for night use. In fact I use it all the time now. It almost completely eliminates shaky photos simply using the iPhone accelerometer.
You can use this app in one of three modes: standard, stable and timer.
To use it as a standard point and shoot camera, you just have to go to settings and choose standard. Then, on camera mode you'll have a button at the bottom center of the screen. Touch it and the photo is taken.
You can also use it in stable mode, which is the best mode to achive super steady shots. Once you select it on the settings, you'll get additional parameters such as sensitivity and auto shutter. You can then choose the sensitivity level you prefer and if you want to have the auto shutter or not. When the auto shutter is off, you'll still have the button at the bottom screen, on camera mode, but if you touch it the photo is not automatically taken. Instead, the app starts to use the accelerometer to detect movement, taking the photo once the iPhone is steady.
If you prefer to have the auto shutter on, two additional settings will appear: delay and timer beep. The delay is the time, in seconds, that will pass by before the app starts to detect movement, so, you won't have any button to start the movement detection.
If you choose to use the app in timer mode, you must also choose the delay in seconds. In this mode you will still have a button to touch, and when you do so, the countdown starts, according to the chosen delay. When it ends, the photo is taken, without any prior movement detection.
On settings you can also choose to have the whole screen area as a shutter button. Also whether you want the iPhone to vibrate or not when a photo is taken, and finally if you want the photo to be automatically saved, or you prefer instead to preview it and choose whether you want
to save it or not.
Picoli
Picoli is a very useful app. One of the most useful apps when it comes to photo “tweaking”. And when I say “tweaking” I mean changing parameters like brightness, sharpness, saturation, illumination, contrast and color balance. Picoli does all that, and even more!
With this app you can change your photo color scheme. You can use tools such as sepia, color dither, grey dither, night vision, posterize and sunburn.
And finally, you can rotate your photo or flip it, either vertically or horizontally.
After applying the changes you want, you can save your photo. Rest assured that the original photo will not be deleted. Picoli will instead create a new file.
Picoli loads photos from two sources:
Night Camera
This little app will really help you take steady shots. I think its name might mislead you, since it is not just for night use. In fact I use it all the time now. It almost completely eliminates shaky photos simply using the iPhone accelerometer.You can use this app in one of three modes: standard, stable and timer.
To use it as a standard point and shoot camera, you just have to go to settings and choose standard. Then, on camera mode you'll have a button at the bottom center of the screen. Touch it and the photo is taken.
You can also use it in stable mode, which is the best mode to achive super steady shots. Once you select it on the settings, you'll get additional parameters such as sensitivity and auto shutter. You can then choose the sensitivity level you prefer and if you want to have the auto shutter or not. When the auto shutter is off, you'll still have the button at the bottom screen, on camera mode, but if you touch it the photo is not automatically taken. Instead, the app starts to use the accelerometer to detect movement, taking the photo once the iPhone is steady.If you prefer to have the auto shutter on, two additional settings will appear: delay and timer beep. The delay is the time, in seconds, that will pass by before the app starts to detect movement, so, you won't have any button to start the movement detection.
If you choose to use the app in timer mode, you must also choose the delay in seconds. In this mode you will still have a button to touch, and when you do so, the countdown starts, according to the chosen delay. When it ends, the photo is taken, without any prior movement detection.
On settings you can also choose to have the whole screen area as a shutter button. Also whether you want the iPhone to vibrate or not when a photo is taken, and finally if you want the photo to be automatically saved, or you prefer instead to preview it and choose whether you wantto save it or not.
Picoli
Picoli is a very useful app. One of the most useful apps when it comes to photo “tweaking”. And when I say “tweaking” I mean changing parameters like brightness, sharpness, saturation, illumination, contrast and color balance. Picoli does all that, and even more!
With this app you can change your photo color scheme. You can use tools such as sepia, color dither, grey dither, night vision, posterize and sunburn.And finally, you can rotate your photo or flip it, either vertically or horizontally.
After applying the changes you want, you can save your photo. Rest assured that the original photo will not be deleted. Picoli will instead create a new file.
Picoli loads photos from two sources:- The iPhone foto album, for previously taken photos;
- The camera, for photos taken on that moment.
CameraBag
CameraBag is a very cool app. It simply changes the colors, effects and framing of your photos, so they resemble famous photo styles, old and new.First of all, on photo style mode, you have four buttons:
Use an image captured at that moment.
Directly email your currently displayed photo.
Save your photo using the currently displayed style (you can also save the original).
Use an image from your iPhone image library.
The styles CameraBag mimics are:- Helga: crops the photo to make it square, applies a soft filter, which brightens it a bit, and adds some vignetting;
Instant: creates a polaroid photo style. Used colors are in the pastel range, and a soft vignetting is added;
Mono: turns the photo black and white with a narrow white strip frame;
1962: like Mono, but darker and without frame;
Fisheye: creates a fisheye lens effect;
Infrared: transforms the color scheme, to infrared tonality;
Lolo: crops the photo to make it square, applies color saturation, brightens the photo and adds a white frame;
Cinema: crops the top and bottom to create a panoramic styled photo. Contrasts are enhanced and the photo tends to become darker;
1974: the framing is similar to Mono style, but the colors are in the pastel range, without vignetting.
The app settings allow you to specify whether you want, or not, to:- Immediatly save your original photo;
- Immediatly save your photo using the current selected style;
- Use borders;
- Use cropping.
You can also set what output size you prefer. CameraBag gives you four options for size: 400, 600, 800 and 1200.
You can select which filters you want to see applied when you run across your styles by sliding your finger on the screen. You can always apply a non selected style, by touching the style name, on photo style mode, and choosing it from the list (see next image).
Finally, you must enter your email settings if you want to send photos directly from CameraBag.
ColorSplash
The concept is really simple: ColorSplash converts photos to black and white, but preserves in memory their original colors. You can then use your finger to remove or bring back the original colors. With this technique you can create fantastic cutouts.
It will only take a while for you to get used to the interface, but once you get it, it's a walk in the park.
You can choose from four brushes: opaque hard edged, opaque soft edged, transparent hard edged, transparent soft edged.
Then you slide your finger and, if you're on color mode, the color will appear, if you're on gray mode, de color will disappear. If you wish to bring back color, or remove color from small details, you just have to zoom in using two fingers. This is a clever trick because the brush is always the same size, since it is your finger! Zooming in is the same as if the brush gets smaller, and by zooming out is as if the brush gets larger. Nice feature!
You have also a Pan & Zoom mode. In this mode, you can safely pan and zoom, knowing that you won't apply or remove color.
There is also another awesome feature: a red mask you can use to see where the colors are still present. This can be used to check, and adjust, the boundaries between colored and black and white areas.
If you accidentally do a brush stroke, you can undo it. In fact, you can undo any number of accidental brush strokes.
Some other features are:
You can select which filters you want to see applied when you run across your styles by sliding your finger on the screen. You can always apply a non selected style, by touching the style name, on photo style mode, and choosing it from the list (see next image).
Finally, you must enter your email settings if you want to send photos directly from CameraBag.ColorSplash
The concept is really simple: ColorSplash converts photos to black and white, but preserves in memory their original colors. You can then use your finger to remove or bring back the original colors. With this technique you can create fantastic cutouts.It will only take a while for you to get used to the interface, but once you get it, it's a walk in the park.
You can choose from four brushes: opaque hard edged, opaque soft edged, transparent hard edged, transparent soft edged.
Then you slide your finger and, if you're on color mode, the color will appear, if you're on gray mode, de color will disappear. If you wish to bring back color, or remove color from small details, you just have to zoom in using two fingers. This is a clever trick because the brush is always the same size, since it is your finger! Zooming in is the same as if the brush gets smaller, and by zooming out is as if the brush gets larger. Nice feature!You have also a Pan & Zoom mode. In this mode, you can safely pan and zoom, knowing that you won't apply or remove color.
There is also another awesome feature: a red mask you can use to see where the colors are still present. This can be used to check, and adjust, the boundaries between colored and black and white areas.
If you accidentally do a brush stroke, you can undo it. In fact, you can undo any number of accidental brush strokes.
Some other features are:- Save/load multiple sessions;
- Save the image;
- Take a photo from the iPhone camera or load one already stored on the iPhone;
- Help within the program;
- Landscape or portrait mode;
- Hide or show the toolbars.
QuadCamera - Multi shot
This app is so simple, and yet so wonderful! It takes four or eight serial shots and creates an image with six selectable effects (bright, vivid, dull, hi-con, black & white, and no effect). The results are great when you photograph a moving object, or, generally speaking, a scene where there is some movement.
Besides the effects, on the settings:- The time between shots can be adjusted, from 0,1 seconds to 3 seconds;
- You can choose one of four layouts: 2x2, 4x1, 4x2 and 8x1;
- If you want to preview the photo you’ve just taken, or not.
On the iPhone default settings, you can also choose:- Whether you want a border line on your photo, or not;
- Whether you want vignetting on your photo, or not;
- Whether you want to tap anywhere to take the shots or on the bottom screen button;
- Whether you want the shutter sound to be on or off.
Finally, the photo has a resolution of 800x600 pixels.Some examples of interaction between apps
Now I'm showing you an example on how you can use some of these apps together, boosting your creativity to achive some nice results.
First of all I took a set of four pictures using QuadCamera:
Then, I gave it more brightness using Picoli:
After that, I isolated the colors of the baby and his toy, using ColorSplash:
Gave it more contrast with Picoli:
Also with Picoli, gave it more sharpness:
Again with Picoli, enhanced the colors:
And finally, once again using Picoli, adjusted brightness and contrast to reach pastel tonalities. This is the final photo:
So, as you can see, there are endless possibilities for your creativity with these awesome apps. Wish you guys may achieve some great photos too! Cheers!
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