Blue Tint Cleaner whiteboard sample image. Click to enlarge.
.
Blue Tint Cleaner
Version 1.0.0
Price: $0.99
Bottom Line: Works well. It’s quick, easy and fixes a problem many iPhone 4 owners didn’t know they had.
Blue Tint Cleaner by Tandem Systems removes the blue tint in the center of a photo when the picture is taken under fluorescent lights on an iPhone 4. I suspect other iPhones may experience the same tinting issue as well. It’s a standalone version of the feature from their camera replacement app, FinderCam. The app is fast and easy to use, and helps balance the color of an image when this problem occurs. While I’ve never used FinderCam, The blue tint removal feature works very well on its own with this app.
I’ve experienced interference issues from some types of lighting in the past. For instance, I found that transformers in some halogen lighting can cause interference and static bands on the iPhone camera. While I don’t know the exact science behind Blue Tint Cleaner, I suspect that the blue and red tints from fluorescent lighting are caused by the frequency of the fluorescent bulb not always meshing with the scan frequency of the CCD of the iPhone 4’s camera.
I had never realized that a blue tint under these conditions was a problem before. To test the app, I photographed white presentation board under fluorescent light. Please forgive the quality of my test image above. No flash was used and the whiteboard was placed on the floor of my kitchen directly below a big fluorescent light.
Sure enough, there was a blueish hot spot in the middle of the images. Also, there was a reddish tint — almost a vignette — around the edges of the images. Blue Tint Cleaner did a very good job of balancing and smoothing out the red and blue hints without hosing the overall colors in the image. It’s not a dramatic difference, but it is visible. I used several other Dynamic Range Correction apps and photo editors and none of them corrected this problem as well as Blue Tint Cleaner.
Original image. Click to enlarge.
Processed image. Click to enlarge
The app appears to be selective in its application. A completely white test image created in Photoshop showed no change. Another test image taken under warmer incandescent lights went from natural looking to noticeably redder in the center of the image and noticeably bluer around the edges. This app really is for fluorescent lights, for the most part.
The app is easy to use. Simply load the image and apply one of the three presets. Save. The app saves the image at its original resolution. There is no undo and there is no preview toggle. Both would be welcome features in a future update.
If you do a lot of critical shooting under fluorescent lights, this is a highly recommended purchase and well worth one dollar. You will notice visible improvements in the color of your images. Blue Tint Cleaner will bring these raw photos closer to a natural appearance. If the blue and red tints haven’t been a problem for you, then you won’t miss this app.
It’s not an app I’ll use often like Perfectly Clear, Photogene or Iris, but there will be times when I’ll need it and I’ll be glad I have it. Not everyone needs this app, but for me Blue Tint Cleaner is a worthwhile utility and a valuable addition to my toolbox.
Blue Tint Cleaner is compatible with iPhones and iPod Touch devices running iOS 4.0 or newer.
=M=
~~~~
