One of my go-to utilities since my original iPhone 2G days is Perfectly Clear. It’s a Dynamic Range Correction (DRC) app that automatically performs lab-quality corrections that help improve the contrast, exposure and vibrance of an image. It’s also the best software fix currently available for the iPhone 5 “purple haze” problem.
It’s just been updated. Find out what’s new and read why you should still have this great app even if you’ve got one of the spiffy new iPhones.
The new update doesn’t bring any killer new features to the app, but improves the features the app currently has. The new features include:
– Improved interface for saving and sharing
– Perfectly Clear photos now saved to new “Perfectly Clear” Album
– Email photo size limit removed, you can email photos at maximum resolution application can handle
– Increased max size of images for iPhone5 and iPad3 to 24.5 MP
With more and more photographers using their iPads to process and share images in the field, the last improvement is actually a very important one and now Perfectly Clear should handle just about any image you throw at it without downsampling it or hiccuping.
Just for laughs, I opened and processed a 4948×4948 px image — the maximum the app will handle. Perfectly Clear worked smoothly on my iPhone 5. It processed and saved the image quickly, without crashing, and with no problems at all. Nice.
Not to cannibalize the developer’s sales, but this is the same image processing engine behind their Photoshop plugin, which costs a heluva lot more than $3.
“Why do I need Perfectly Clear?”
Perfectly Clear has been in My Camera Bag post since I bought it years ago and will still be there when the post gets updated soon. Even with the great camera in the iPhone 5, I still use Perfectly Clear often to clean up photos and get them ready for any other processing I may do.
Even an iPhone 5 or 4S will occasionally take pictures that need help. With one click, it corrects color balance, punches up the vibrance, sharpens images, and helps enhance and balance shadow areas. The built-in Noise Reduction is among the best I’ve found on the iOS platform. UPDATED: Noise reduction is now included in the price of the app. No additional in-app purchase needed since the 3.0 update. Even better! Apologies for any confusion. =M=
Perfectly Clear also reduces — often dramatically — or fixes “Purple Haze,” the purple tint effect found sometimes with the iPhone 5 camera.
“Purple Haze” reduction in Perfectly Clear
With newer iPhones, you may not always see noticeable results, but many times the results are better overall balance and more visually pleasing color. Perfectly Clear is a quick and easy fix to add punch to flat images and get photos looking like you expect them to.
I still recommend Perfectly Clear to owners of new iPhones. For older iPhones, it’s a highly recommended, even essential, purchase.
Perfectly Clear is $2.99 in the App Store. It’s a Universal app that’s designed to run great on both iPhone and iPad. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.
=M=
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