Paint and Pixels: Iphone photo apps

My friend, Nikki Kelly, just wrote a blog post about iphone photo apps, which has inspired me to do the same thing. Read mine first, then read hers.

It's sortof come to the point where I prefer my iphone camera to my SLR camera. I like the convenience of it, and I like being able to immediately edit and play with the pictures (instead of waiting until I get home to use photoshop). These are some of my favorite apps to play with my pictures:

1. Camera+ ($1.99)

I downloaded this app a long time ago, but just recently started realizing how wonderful it is. I particularly like it's "clarify" function. Below I'll show some "before and after" shots of original pictures, and then the same picture put through the "clarify" filter:

Before:

After (really brought out detail in the sky)

Before (Matt sleeping this morning)

After (Matt still sleeping)

Before (Roxanne happy about the snow day last Friday)

After (now you can see better how happy she is)

2. HDR Pro ($1.99)
This app is fun, and is especially useful outdoors. While a lot of picture apps have an "HDR" filter, this app truly takes an HDR photo, by taking two pictures (about a second apart from each other) at a low and high exposure and then combines the two images. That way, the darker sections of the photo become more highlighted, and the lighter sections don't get washed out. However, since it takes two pictures, the camera and subject must remain still (although it does its best to "align" the two images). Here are some examples:

This picture demonstrates how well the app works with a sky background. Normally, this image would have had a pure white sky and the silhouette of the chairs. The app under exposes the sky and over exposes the chairs, bringing out the color and detail in both.

This picture shows the downfall of the app. Between the taking of the two images, I moved, and that's why you see the double image of me bending down taking the picture of Leonard, and then also standing up looking at my picture. (An iphone picture of me using my SLR).

3. PhotoStudio (.99)
This app has tons and tons of filters and options. Almost too many. But if you have a lot of time to play around and edit, and can be fun. In the following picture, I used a firey overlay to make the fire in the photo seem even more firey. It's not really cool to admit that I do things like this to my pictures, because it's kind of deceiving people into thinking that my life is more awesome (and more firey) than it really is.

4. LensFlare (.99)

I love lens flares. They make it seem like something magical or spiritual is happening. This app lets you add a variety of lens flares so that your pictures seem magical even when they weren't. I know you've already seen most of these pictures before. I'm just reshowing them to illustrate the function of the apps.

This picture was taken with the HDR pro app (thus the blue sky). Then the lens flare was added.

This is a hexagon lens flare (there is all kinds, even hearts).

This lens flare is supposed to look like the sun... or God.

5. Lenslight (.99)
Lenslight is Lensflare's counterpart app. It has things that are like lens flares, but are different.
Added a spectrum ring around the cross of salvation mountain:

I added little magical light orbs to this picture of Roxanne in church this morning:

This picture of Roxanne's eye has rainbow light radiating from it:

6. Percalator ($2.99)
I know... the price is steep for this one. BUT, if you are passionate about circles, it's worth it. It works best with pictures that are high in vibrancy and low in detail.

This is my painting of Roxanne put through the percolator: