UPDATE 02.03.12: After about a day in the App Store, Instagrunge has disappeared. No reasons were given in the dev’s Twitter stream and the app’s Facebook page is offline as well. There is a short explanation at the bottom of the Instagrunge website:

“But the app isn’t quite finished yet, so you will have to wait a little longer before you can start dirtying up your images. Stay tuned…”

New iPhone photo app Instagrunge recently hit the App Store. As the name implies, Instagrunge quickly and easily scuffs, fades, scratches, damages and stains your photo quickly and easily.

Currently, it’s free through February, making it fairly easy to download and try out. Even while free, though, it’s got a lot of problems, though, before it finds a place on my iPhone. >>>

Instagrunge isn’t an app for fine-tuning an image. There are almost no controls or sliders. The app has two buttons — one to “grungify” a photo, the other to toggle between color and black & white. The app cycles through thousands of grunge combinations. You can share to the Instagrunge social photo network and to Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. The image automatically saves to to your camera roll. It’s very easy to use.

The effects combine grunge overlays, color and saturation adjustments. There are some interesting light leaks and damage effects in Instagrunge’s seemingly endless number of effects. I found a good percentage of effects that I liked — some a very nice, unique combination of overlays and color, but had to click through a lot that I didn’t to find them. Despite the nostalgic and emotional App Store description, Instagrunge can go really heavy on the grunge effects rather than adding more subtle (or even not so subtle) vintage retro effects. There’s no way to adjust the intensity of each effect and many of the effects “go to eleven.”

The app saves and shares at a low 612×612 pixels resolution, which is unusable for nearly all purposes. Even Instagram supports high res and Flickr prefers higher resolutions for viewing onscreen.

When first using the app, the interface was frustratingly broken all over. There were stray lines of visible code and stray text fields throughout the app. The link to the app’s settings window was broken and I was unable to open it. Once inside the app, the Register button didn’t work for me, either. If this happens to you, a reboot of my iPhone took care of the problem for me and the app behaved better.

The app weighs in at 121 megabytes. That’s a HUGE download for an app. That’s about the same space as 20 photo apps combined. In contrast, Hipstamatic, which is not known to be light on the bandwidth, is only an 18.2 megabyte download. You won’t be able to download or update Instagrunge unless you’re on WiFi. It’s one of the largest files I’ve ever downloaded to my iPhone by far. If you have a 16 GB iPhone, this app will take up a lot of space you could use for other purposes.

I really don’t recommend Instagrunge, even though it’s currently free. It’s only worth a free download if you have the time and bandwidth — not necessarily to use, but to get into the update path in case the app’s problems are fixed. Otherwise, it’s a low-resolution app with many overdone effects that uses too much space on my iPhone for what it does.

There are other grungifiers available, such as ScratchCam FX and Pic Grunger, that are as easy to use, create good looking effects, and support usable, high resolutions.

Instagrunge is currently free through February. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later.

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A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed new iPhone photo app AnalogColor. The app has a new update that addresses a couple of the issues I had with the 1.0 release. The new 1.1 update makes it a better app — definitely more usable for iPhoneographers — and also indicates that the developer will be pushing out more of these incremental updates which address user requests.

AnalogColor is another retro photo app. It’s got a clean and straightforward interface. There are several easy to use one-click presets as well as tools to make adjustments. The effects include expired film, cross process, simulated film grain, and light leaks.

AnalogColor 1.1 now supports original resolution — up to 8 MP on an iPhone 4S. You can now make some pretty serious enlargements and sharp prints. The lower resolutions are still available on save, which make better use of your bandwidth if you’re only planning on sharing online.

The developer had also hinted that frames would be added to the app. Two of them are included in this update — a basic white frame and a simple but nice film-positive black border.

All of the things I liked about the first release of AnalogColor still apply, including the quality and richness of the analog effects and the addition of subtle noise to simulate film grain.

The app is still not on par with its desktop counterpart, ToyCamera AnalogColor. Hopefully, we’ll get more frames in future updates. The app is still missing “lenses” and the complete set of slider adjustments found in the desktop version of the app. The Blur and Dodge tools would be cool.

I like the color and subtle texture effects of this app. AnalogColor 1.1 is an improvement over the original release and makes this version a more usable app.

AnalogColor is $1.99 (on sale through the end of January for $0.99). Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.1 or later.

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The lineage of Photogene2 is one of the oldest photo apps on the iPhone. Photogene was probably one of the first apps many early iPhoneographers had in their camera bag.

Photogene2, the app’s successor, recently received a big update with several new features, including several new tools and the ability to order photo products in-app.

One of the more compelling features for me is the new “Clarity” tool, made popular by all-in-one camera app Camera+. I thought I’d compare the two side by side. See how Photogene2 fared after the jump.

The complete list of new features in the new 1.20 update is below.

The new Clone tool is well-implemented and easy to use. The source is easily adjustable hand has an easy to see target onscreen. An easy tap and hold lets you drag the target elsewhere on your image. Two fingers lets you zoom and pan without painting or leaving the tool.

Like the Clarity tool in Camera+ by tap tap tap, Photogene2′s Clarity tool is part single-image HDR, part Dynamic Range Correction. They’re designed to be a one-click tool to enhance your photo and make it “pop.” the Photogene2 Clarity tool also has a slider you can use to adjust the intensity of the effect.

The tool basically performs the same functions in both apps, but the algorithms are visibly different and yield different results. Here are some sample images. The first in each series is the original, unaltered exposure. The Photogene2 Clarity effect has been cranked up to 100% in these samples.

Original image

Camera+ Clarity tool

Photogene's Clarity tool at 100%

Original image

Camera+ Clarity tool

Photogene2's Clarity tool at 100%

Your preference may vary. The Photogene2 Clarity effect is more subtle to my eye, even at 100%. The Camera+ Clarity effect tends to look more like a High Dynamic Range app photo. It also tends to brighten up 3/4 tones and shadows a bit more — that may not always be what you want. Both enhance color and details in the photo that were not as pronounced in the original.

There are several other high-end image editors for iPhone, including PhotoForge2 and my favorite Filterstorm. Photogene2 1.20 is definitely a good update with some great new features that will please current users.

Here’s all that’s new in Photogene 1.20:

New: order directly from Photogene real photo products that will be delivered to you by mail. Service by tap2print.

Major new features:
- Device-to-device: transfer photos directly to another iPad/iPhone (requires Photogene to be installed on the other device).
- Clarity slider.
- Clone tool.
- Create your own presets! Long tap on a photo in the editor to save it as a preset.

More stuff:
- Add date-stamp to your exported photos.
- Copy edit operations from one photo and apply the same edits on another photo. Long tap on a photo in the editor to bring up the copy&paste menu.
- Can now upload directly to Evernote and Tumblr.
- Now it’s possible to preserve the original file names when uploading to Dropbox, FTP or mail (requires iOS 5).

Photogene2 is $0.99. There are also several in-app purchases available. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.2 or later.

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misskiwi’s Squara photo app is another very good square format app that integrates nicely with Instagram, but also makes a great shooter on its own. Squara is on sale now for a limited time for only $0.99 — a savings of $1.00.

Click past the jump for info on Squara and my thoughts on the app. >>>

I’m a huge fan of misskiwi’s line of ClassicCAMERA apps, including ClassicTOY, ClassicPAN and others. Squara is similar to these apps, but has some pretty big differences in many ways to distinguish it from the ClassicCAM line.

Squara is a multi-lens, SuperSampler-style square format app with 19 special effects, 6 adjustment effects, 12 borders and 11 light-leaks for a total of over 10,000 combination. The effects range from classic toy cameras to other analog effects to a really cool oversaturated printed halftone effect. I think it’s a slightly broader range of effects than are found in the rest of the Classic series. The effects have the color, textural and tonal quality found in misskiwi’s other apps. I like the consistency and the quality of misskiwi’s effects across the entire line of apps.

Squara lets you shoot in-app or import single images from your camera roll. The app has several lens options from single, to multi-lens to double exposure. It has vignetting and tilt-shift tools. If all of this is a little overwhelming, there’s always the Random button to generate a full set of effects to an image. Check out the App Store description for all of the app’s features. There are a lot.

Squara has built-in Send To Instagram support as well as Apple’s “Open In…” support. You can import your photo directly into a number of other photo apps to continue processing, including FX Photo Studio, Filterstorm, Camera+, PicFX and a bunch more.

The app creates great-looking effects. Where Squara differs from the ClassicCAMERA line is in the naming convention of the filters. Here, the filters are named loosely after cameras in many cases, not the Classic film names I expected from a misskiwi app. I suspect it’s because there’s so much more being applied here than just film effects. Also, on my iPhone 4S, Squara outputs a single frame image at a usable 1440×1440 pixels. Multi-frame images are saved at the full square resolution of the 4S — 2448×2448.

If you’re not already maxed out on square-format apps, Squara is another good addition to your toolbox, especially for the multi-lens options. Grab it now while it’s on sale.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G.Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

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With the update you’ll note that the zoomed-in (aka fullscreen) view now features a textured overlay reminiscent of looking through a dirty plastic lens. Don’t worry, this won’t show up on your photos. When you tap and hold on a spot to focus the overlay rotates, simulating the experience of manually focusing through a physical lens. Traditionalist fans argued against the idea of selective focus, pointing out it wasn’t available in the original Hipstamatic. But Synthetic’s implementation feels in line with the spirit of the plastic Hipstamatic, if not the real limitations.

Adding a favorite combination is as simple as tapping the little star underneath the viewfinder while using the setup you want to preserve. Accessing stored faves is done through the same star icon, which allows you to scroll between visual representations of your various setups.

So what, you say? These new features are no good if you can’t use them because Hipstamatic got flustered and stalled out “Winding Film”? No more! This update also promises to deliver improved stability, fixing the /facepalm-worth “Winding Film” freeze along with a bug that sometimes caused a crash on start-up (on iOS 4.3).

Additionally 235 adds “Hipstasave technology” which they claim will help recover photos that were being processed if the app does crash.

So, what combos are you going to start with? Let us know in the comments.

Fisheye Camera
Version reviewed: 2.8
Price: $0.99

Bottom Line: The image quality — or lack of — is reason enough to avoid Fisheye Camera.

The only reason I’m reviewing Fisheye Camera by Zhong is because it’s now number 23 in the Top Paid iPhone Photo apps. This is a horrible photo app that I wouldn’t ordinarily want to draw attention to, even negative. This is one of the worst apps I’ve ever reviewed and is only as high as it is on the charts because of possible App Store shill reviews.

I recommend that you avoid this app. Read past the jump to find out why. >>>

Fisheye Camera isn’t a true fisheye effect. None of the fisheye apps are. The real fisheye lenses for iPhone are external attachments with a much wider field of view than the iPhone’s camera — typically 160 to 180 degrees around. The lens distorts the image with the classic fisheye effect.

Fisheye Camera (and other fisheye apps) can’t capture that extra image, but they recreate the fisheye effect by bulging out the center of the photograph. Some iPhoneographers call these “fishbowl” apps.

Most fisheye apps don’t support the iPhone’s full resolution because of the processing needed to create the distortion. I understand and don’t really have a problem with that. But Fisheye Camera has HORRIBLY LOW resolution — 316×338 pixels on an iPhone 4S. That’s unusably low. It’s less than half the resolution of a screenshot on an iPhone 4. This postage stamp sized resolution has never been acceptable on an iPhone, even the original 2 megapixel iPhone 2G. The resolution of this app is among the poorest of any app I’ve ever reviewed. Fisheye Camera is now at version 2.8 — there has been a lot of time to fix the problem.

The app has two frames. Both of them are terrible. The edges are harsh and pixelated. You can even see the hard edges in the developer’s own screenshots.

Even by fisheye effect camera standards, the output from Fisheye Camera is horrible and unusable for anything other than sending by text message to a very old mobile phone.

Fisheye Camera has a couple of good features. The interface is clean and fairly workable. There are Brightness and Contrast sliders to perform very basic adjustments in app. Fisheye Camera allows you to import previously shot images from your camera roll. But anything good about this app is overshadowed by the extremely poor image quality.

The reason that this app ranks so high in the App Store may have something to do with possible App Store shill reviews. I’ve previously reviewed another photo app by this same developer. Like this app, the image quality was very bad. That app had a large number of five-star reviews, all with the trademarks of App Store shill reviews.

As of this writing, there are 58 user reviews for Fisheye Camera. 50 of them are five-star and of those 50, a sampling of the reviews shows that those reviewers have only reviewed this app or other apps by this developer and none by any other developer.

I don’t think that Fisheye Camera is worth all the five-star reviews it’s getting in the App Store. I think this may be a case of fake reviews artificially inflating the app’s ranking to trick unsuspecting buyers into purchasing the app.

I am not saying for certain that this developer is engaging in this practice, but I have to admit that the the sheer number of these five-star reviews is a little bit suspicious to me, especially given the fact the history of this developer’s other apps and user reviews.

I don’t have anything against this developer personally. I simply think they create very crappy photo apps. I also suspect that there are questionable user review tactics used to promote their apps which this developer at the very least does not seem to discourage.

There are many other fisheye apps in the App Store. Almost all of them have higher resolution and better-looking effects than this one. For fake-fisheye effects, check out the much better Snappr by REVOLVER Studios or misskiwi’s FishEye Toy Camera. Both are also a dollar. Not only do both save at much higher resolutions, the misskiwi app shares directly to a number of social networks including Send To Instagram support.

Even if there are no fake user review shenanigans going on with this developers apps, the image quality — or lack of — is reason enough to avoid Fisheye Camera.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

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Full size output from Fisheye Camera

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AnalogColor is the new iPhone version to Pentacom’s popular desktop app for Mac and Windows, ToyCamera AnalogColor. It creates analog-like photos and simulates cross-processing.

The new iPhone version has hit the App Store with a resounding “meh.” It’s difficult for me to get excited about this app because of all that’s missing from it — basic features that are in the desktop version (and other iPhone photo apps) but not in the iPhone version. Even the developer hints that this 1.0 release was rushed out before it was really ready.

That’s too bad. The app has potential and could be pretty good in a few updates.

AnalogColor is yet another retro photo app in a crowded market of retro photo apps. It’s got a clean and straightforward interface. There are several easy to use one-click presets as well as tools to make adjustments. Reapplying each preset by tapping the button randomizes the effects which is pretty cool. The effects include expired film, cross process, simulated film grain, and light leaks. It’s the standard complement of analog retro camera effects.

The film effects look good. They’re well rendered and look natural. The added noise to simulate film grain is a nice touch that few retro apps have. I like the color saturation throughout the effects. It’s very rich and looks pretty good.

But there’s a lot that’s missing in the app. Even without referencing the desktop version, the app feels like it’s missing a lot of features. The app saves at a low 960×717 pixel resolution. While this resolution is fine for sharing online, on Facebook and email, it’s too low to make enlargements printed enlargements of any decent size. The less than one megapixel resolution is too low for making decent enlargements.

Also missing from the iPhone version of the app are some of the really cool toys from the desktop version, such as frames, lenses, and all the sliders for fine-tune adjustments. The iPhone version has only two slider adjustments.

AnalogColor is the type of app that I look for — a lo-fi style app that recreates digitally the look of analog film, so it’s disappointing to me when the app is poorly done, feels incomplete, or feels like a beta version.

The next update should be a big improvement. The developer promises higher resolution. They also hint that photo frames and border support will be added to the app as well. We’ll see. Both features will go a long way in improving the app and making it match the features of the desktop version and most other retro photo apps as well.

AnalogColor has some great features and some great potential, but don’t expect it to be on par with the desktop version. For online sharing, version 1.0 of AnalogColor is okay. For sharing or printing enlargements, right now, there are other apps available on the App Store that do the same thing but with more pixels. This should improve with app updates, but for now AnalogColor has some good features and a lot of potential, but it’s not an essential photo app.

UPDATE 01.21.12 @02:22: Version 1.1 has just been submitted to the App Store and adds the option for full resolution.

AnalogColor is $1.99. It’s currently on sale for $0.99. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.1 or later.

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It eventually happens to all of us. We’ll take a great shot, but when viewing later, we realize that it’s cropped just a little too tight. “If I only had a little more sky, this photo would be perfect,” we lament. Previously, on the iPhone, that involved using one or two (lesser) crop apps to add canvas and then cloning back in image. Some would call it a detailed process. I call it a PITA.

AntiCrop is a new photo app from Adva-Soft, the makers of the very good content-fill app TouchRetouch. In addition to standard crops, AntiCrop allows you to crop outside the edge of your photos, using fairly intelligent content fill to add image where there is none.

I like the app, but it’s not perfect. Read past the jump to find out how well it works.

AntiCrop is super easy to use. Just take a snapshot or import an image from your photo library, then slide the photo frame in the direction you want to expand it. AntiCrop extends the edge with similar image. It draws pretty quickly on an iPhone 4S. It’s very similar to the content-aware fill tools in Adobe Photoshop.

AntiCrop also works as a standard cropping app and has some great tools to crop an image down as well. As you resize the edge of the image, AntiCrop displays the final trim size in pixels. It’s got a 90 degree rotation tool. In addition to freefrom crop, there are also several standard aspect ratios in both portrait and landscape modes. The handles are a little dodgy to grab and move, but AntiCrop might be the only dedicated cropping app you use on your iPhone.

The fact that it does what it does — on an iPhone, no less — is very impressive. AntiCrop supports greater than full resolution on an iPhone 4S — up to 4691×3812. That’s an image of almost 18 megapixels. Wow!

And did I mention that it’s fast?

AntiCrop also allows you to import an image at three smaller sizes – high, medium, and low resolution (on older iPhones, just medium and low).

It’s not perfect. AntiCrop works best expanding basic backgrounds, such as horizons, beaches, treelines, sky, etc. It won’t recreate a detailed subject correctly. There’s even a warning in the app’s description, which the developers deserve huge kudos for in being proactive about this:

“Please do not use AntiCrop to complete unpredictable picture areas – human face, buildings or other objects since the application was not designed for these kinds of tasks.”

They’re right. The results are unpredictable and often pretty bad.

So, how well does it work? Extending backgrounds and horizons, it often works well, although many times I found myself wanting to clean up areas of the expanded image with a clone tool in TouchRetouch or other image editing app. In my tests, AntiCrop worked great on expanding the sky, including sky with clouds, which I thought was pretty impressive.

Below are several samples and my notes on each. The first image is the original, the second has been expanded by AntiCrop. All images were processed from high resolution photos.

I pulled out all four edges of this shot. Overall, the sky looks good, especially in the top and right sides. There’s a slight discoloration down where the bottom edge was extended. This can easily be fixed with a few passes of TouchRetouch.

Although it tried to extend the trunk of the palm tree and the lamppost, it had problems. Cloning these back in to fix them should fix these fairly easily. If I’d have not tried to extend the bottom edge, this image would have looked great with no additional fixes.

There are a few artifacts in the sky and on the horizon of this sunset pic. Most of the artifacts in the sky can easily be blended out in TouchRetouch. The surf extended out fairly well, especially on the left side of the image. There were more problems on the right side in both the surf as well as some pier artifacts in the clouds. Much of this can easily be cloned or blended out.

AntiCrop did a great job extending the grass and dirt. Although it tried to extend the tree out a little bit, there are visible problems.

Sky – great. Clouds – pretty good. The horizon is great on the left side of the image and the treeline on the right only needs a little tweaking. There’s some cleanup needed on the roadside poles on the right. The road on the left, though, surprisingly gave the app some pretty big problems.

AntiCrop disaster!

The above is what happens when you try to extend a pretty detailed area. AntiCropDisasters.com!

Based on the preview we ran recently, I wanted to say that AntiCrop is fantastic and perfect and is the miracle fix for your images. It’s not. It has its limits.

It’s still an impressive piece of software. What it does well is amazing, but rather than being a one-stop fix, it can be a very good tool in the process.

For a dollar, I highly recommend AntiCrop, if for no other reason than it usually works great on skies and many horizons. I like the app for what it can do. I don’t dislike what it cant.

AntiCrop is old-iPhone friendly! Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad.Requires iOS 3.1 or later

And, in case you want to have a look at it, here’s a link to TouchRetouch on the App Store.

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Mattebox
Version reviewed: 1.3
Price: $3.99

Bottom Line: I like the app. It’s like shooting with a traditional high-end point and shoot.

(UPDATED 01.19.12.)

Mattebox is a deceptively simple camera app which gives you advanced control over your image and helps you get the best photo possible in camera. It’s billed as “the Photographer’s mobile camera.” The interface is gorgeous. It’s modeled after the Konica Hexar, a classic and powerful point-and-shoot camera. It’s sleek and functional.

It’s pretty pricey for a camera app, but it has some very well-implemented features. I bought the app at its full initial price of $4.99. I don’t regret the purchase. It’s now $3.99. Mattebox is a very traditional camera-like app in a market of camera apps designed for the iPhone. It’s a simple yet powerful camera app.

Mattebox is a combination camera and image editor — mostly a camera app. Camera mode has some great features that users of more sophisticated cameras will appreciate. The user interface is lean yet functional. Everything you need to shoot is there, but the UI stays out of your way.

Everything locks easily in Mattebox. By default the white balance is locked when you open the app. It can be easily set and set again using the the white balance lock button. White Balance settings remain locked until reset or until you quit the app. The White Balance lock is easy to use and awesome. It quickly and easily compensates for a wide range of lighting conditions and color temperatures.

Like a real camera, the exposure can be set and locked by a half-press of the onscreen shutter release button. A “lock” momentarily flashes onscreen giving a good visual cue that focus and exposure is locked.

Being modeled after classic point and shoot cameras, there isn’t an advanced focus mode that lets you split out focus and exposure like in other advanced camera apps. It behaves like a traditional camera — focus and exposure are both set using the target in the center of the viewfinder, much like ProCamera’s standard mode. Some iPhoneographers will find this to be a pretty significant omission. It would be a good feature to have as an option in a future update.

While it won’t let you change them manually, both the focus distance and the ISO of the shot are displayed in the viewfinder either after the shot or after doing a half-press of the shutter button. The ISO indicator is a great feature to let you know when you’re pushing the light sensitivity threshold of the camera. The app also indicates the shutter speed in the lower bottom of the viewer. All tools and indicators are nicely out of the way of the uncluttered viewfinder.

Mattebox supports the 8 megapixel resolution of the iPhone 4S camera and saves all EXIF data. The app lacks a zoom of any kind.

Mattebox also has a built-in photo editing module with few but essential tools — White Balance, Exposure, Saturation (droplet), Gamma, Vignette, and Aspect Ratio. There is a preset button with only a few color and luminance effects. Mattebox also lets you easily add custom settings to your presets. Although it has a few effects presets, Mattebox is not for “apping” — it’s designed to optimize the photo before it’s saved to the camera roll and will help you get the best photo you can in camera. There’s no undo, but using the “Neutral” preset quickly resets all adjustments.

Mattebox image editing, neutral gamma

Mattebox image editing, adjusted gamma

One of the really cool features of Mattebox is that the app performs corrections in a wider gamut 32-bit per channel. Many iPhone apps only use the much more compressed and clipped 8-bit per channel sRGB color space to edit in, causing blown out highlights and loss of detail. In contrast, Mattebox applies all of its effects as one filter, which operates at 32 bits per color channel in order to allow “superbright” (brighter than white) values and greater precision. That’s the technical way of saying that Mattebox accurately models light, so you get a more photographic result. As I understand it, this applies to images imported from your camera roll as well as images shot with Mattebox. In my tests with horribly under and overexposed photos, Mattebox did a visibly better job of adjusting the exposure than PhotoForge2 or Filterstorm.

UPDATED 01.19.12: I had some issues with the focus in Mattebox. The app tries to grab focus more than any other camera app I have on my iPhone. On average, it tries to grab focus about every three seconds. Other apps I tested with identical light and subjects would try to grab focus every 7-15 seconds or so in the same controlled environment. The developer says that the app refocuses more frequently to get around an Apple bug with White Balance locking. It’s annoying.

Although I should have been able to hold a focus lock with a half-press of the shutter button, many times I wasn’t able to. Mattebox held focus for me for about three seconds before it tried to refocus again. UPDATE: Mattebox behaves differently than other advanced camera apps which lock focus and exposure until reset. It was pointed out to me that the focus only stays locked when the shutter button is half pressed and does not hold when the shutter button is released. Like the Mattebox website says, this mimics the behavior of a traditional point-and-shoot camera. And this feature works well. There’s no online help in the app yet to point this out. I had to go a couple pages into the website to find this. It doesn’t effect my four-star review as the focus worked great otherwise in my previous tests.

When I brought this to the attention of the developer, he said that if Mattebox was in the middle of focusing, it’ll take a second, but then will lock where it should and that I shouldn’t have to chase focus. I’m not sure how well it works. (It works well. See above. =M=)

I have to say that in everyday shooting, Mattebox did an excellent job of sharp focus on the overall image. In most cases, Mattebox focused on what was in the viewfinder. Despite what the viewfinder was telling me, in most cases, focus looked fine in nearly all of my test shots. The constant focus ended up being more of an annoyance for me than a persistent problem.

It’s now priced at $3.99, which is still a little steep for most users. This app is not for everyone. If you’ve already got a camera replacement app that you’re happy with, you may not need Mattebox. iPhoneographers who want to squeeze every bit of color accuracy out of their iPhone should give Mattebox a look, though. Overall, the app works very well. The White Balance is awesome and makes color accuracy easy. The Exposure tool lives up to its hype — it’s very effective at bringing up dark areas of an image.

I like Mattebox. I’m giving it four stars because it’s a good camera app overall. It’s also got a great set of well-implemented tools to take good photos. Mattebox is like shooting with a well-designed point-and-shoot camera on your iPhone.

Mattebox is currently $3.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later.

The Mattebox website is a good place to go for tutorials and tips on how to use the app. You can also play with a virtual Mattebox online. Check it out at Mattebox.com.

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Updated: I deleted a paragraph about focus lock. Revised focus lock info has been added to the review. =M=

ClassicInstant film and Modern Border

One of the earliest and one of the premier fauxlaroid apps in the App Store is misskiwi’s ClassicINSTA, part of their ClassicCAMERA series which also include the excellent ClassicTOY, ClassicPAN, and Squara apps.

The ClassicINSTA 7.0.0 update was just released. In it, the app gets a makeover and a few new features. I’ll walk you through them after the jump. >>>

This update adds a couple of new features, including a very nice new retro film, ClassicInstant. Colors are rich, but the overall image is faded, much like a color instant print. It’s a good instant film recreation.

The new Modern Border is brighter and more rounded. You’ll need to turn that on in the apps settings. It’s a little clunky to get to. Access from the viewfinder or processing window would be more convenient. If you like the square corners and weathered color of the original ClassicINSTA frames, they’re still available by leaving this setting off.

While in the app’s settings, be sure to turn on “High Quality Prints.” For some reason, updates often reset this preference.

The overall interface and “Camera Bag” gets a makeover in this update. The functionality is the same, but there’s a different look to nearly every aspect of the app now. The new original camera art fills the iPhone’s screen better than the instant cameras of previous versions.

The previous version of the app supported full square resolution of 2448×2448 on an iPhone 4S. This update drops that back a little bit to 1910×1910 — about 4 megapixels. Still very usable for sharing and enlargements, but not full resolution on a 4S. While this doesn’t effect most uses, some iPhoneographers may want to hold off updating until a later update. If you’ve already updated and want to go back to an earlier version, see our post on “How to Downgrade Apps on your iDevice.”

The update has many of the the great misskiwi film effects — among my favorite film recreations. ClassicINSTA also has SendToApp support, which lets you bypass saving to the camera roll when working with other apps that support this API. You can also send your photos straight to Instagram from within the app.

ClassicINSTA normally sells for $1.99. The update is on sale now for a limited time for only $0.99. It’s a good deal for one of the better instant toy camera apps in the App Store.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G.Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

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Magic Hour – Camera & Unlimited Filter
Version reviewed: 1.3.4
Price: $1.99, on sale through January 15 for $0.99

Bottom Line: I Like it. Both easy to use and powerful, Magic Hour should be great for a wide range of users.

iPhone photo app Magic Hour – Camera & Unlimited Filter by Kiwiple is on sale now for only $0.99 — that’s a savings of $1.00. This sale is for a limited time only — through January 15 — so grab it now.

We’ve never had a close look at Magic Hour here on LoFi. I thought this would be a good time to have a closer look at this fun, yet powerful photo app.

Magic Hour is an oddly named photo app. It has nothing to do with the two times of the day for awesome light — golden hour or blue hour. It’s a square format photo app with 40 one-click filters and effects. Magic Hour bills itself as an Instagram companion app, but it’s much more than that. It’s a great photo app on its own.

Start by loading a photo from your camera roll or by shooting in the app’s excellent camera interface. The viewfinder is already square format so there’s no pinching, zooming, and cropping to get your image. You frame in the viewfinder, which makes composition very easy.

The camera itself is pretty good. It features several advanced tools lacking in many other camera apps. The 6X digital zoom resamples images up to your device’s full resolution. Viewfinder has rule-of-thirds gridlines that can be easily toggled off and on. The viewfinder has separate targets for focus and exposure. Tap once for focus, tap twice to set your exposure. Magic Hour supports front cameras on devices that have them.

The camera itself is slow, however. It’s a part of the apping process, so shot-to-shot time is really irrelevant here. If you need to take a lot of safety shots, you’re better off using a different camera app for capture and importing your images into Magic Hour or you will lose your shot.

Magic Hour comes with 40 built-in filter presets. To help you keep things manageable, there’s also has a Favorites menu where you can add your most-used filters. The filter presets are one-click easy. Shoot, process, save and share. I really like how Magic Hou’rs filters are named. Their most are named usably and descriptively, not in cryptic guess-what-this-filter-is names like many photo apps.

There’s also a great Tiltshift tool for easily adding focus and depth-of-field effects. This tool behaves more smoothly like the excellent TiltShift Generator than the frustratingly harsh TiltShift tool in Instagram.

Filters range from a variety of black and white effects to color and tonal effects. There’s a good selection of retro film effects and film re-creations. All are one-click easy.

If you want more, users can easily create their own custom filters from scratch, upload and share them in Magic Hour’s in-app filter market for everybody to download for free.

For a toy camera photo app, Magic Hour has an impressive Create Your Own Filters tool. Other photo apps have this tool, but Magic Hour’s is very well implemented. It’s a good balance between powerful features and Photoshop’s interface, but yet still maintains ease-of-use so that most users won’t feel lost in it’s interface.

Using overall and separate RGB curves, contrast/brightness/saturation, textures, vignettes and frames, you can easily create your own color and monochrome filters literally in seconds. Easily add or adjust color, add texture, or add a frame. All affects our slider adjustable. You can easily save to your own presets or share your new filter in the filter market.

Magic Hour’s filter presets are good quality. Users will find most of them to be very usable. Quite a feat given the large number of filter presets the app has.

Although Magic Hour bills itself as a companion front end to Instagram, it plays nice with a whole lot of apps thanks to its adoption of apples send to outlook. Not only can you easily share straight to Instagram with two clicks of a button, you can also open your magic hour photo directly in several other apps that support this API as well.

Overall, with its easy built-in hooks, Magic Hour is a great app to use instead of Instagram’s own filters. New users and Instagram users will like the quality and additional and greater number of filters that Magic Hour has. More advanced users will like the easy to use customization options built into Magic Hour. What’s unique about Magic Hour is the large number of preset effects combined with the ease of creating your own.

All things considered, Magic Hour is worth the $1.99 that it normally costs. On sale for $0.99 it’s a steal. Magic Hour is easy yet powerful. If you need something more than a basic square format filter app, Magic Hour is worth a look.

Magic Hour is normally $1.99 in the App Store. It’s on sale through January 15 for only $0.99. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G.Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

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SelectEffect was specifically designed to offer professional effects in a more user-friendly way. The app claims high-quality effects with just a few taps.

It’s at version 1.4 now. It’s got some good-looking effects and it’s very easy to use, but I don’t think it’s a must-have app yet.

There are many good one-click filter apps in the App Store, so a new one needs to have something unique to make it stand out. SelectEffect has a great-looking, clean, and easy to use interface. Tools are big and everything is very easy to figure out. For a one-click app, the interface is well-thought out and gets you quickly from input through processing. All effects are previewed live in the thumbnails. Once selected, the intensity of each effect can be adjusted using a slider. I found myself leaving the intensity at default or cranking it up to 10 most of the time — there’s that much room for adjustment in the effects.

The effects look good. Despite the small number currently available, there’s a broad range of effects. Color effects look real with good saturation. Effects are clear and well rendered and more subtle recreations of retro photography. There aren’t a lot — only twelve in version 1.4. There are only eight frames, which are all very simple and basic. The current selection of effects isn’t anything groundbreakingly unique.

In both the app’s description and the app itself, the developer is stressing that he will take the most asked-for effects, recreate them, and add them to SelectEffect and he provides an email address to send attachments to. Hopefully, future updates should have more of these user-requested filters.

On an iPhone 4S, it reduced the image size from 8 MP down to 1750 x 1308 pixels — that’s about 2.3 megapixels. Image size is great for sharing to Flickr, as well as the built in Facebook and Twitter shares. Resolution is more than you need for online sharing. However, that’s still a pretty significant downsizing SelectEffect applies to photos. It also strips out most EXIF data, including geotags.

I don’t think it’s worth all the five-star ratings it received in the App Store. For me, this is at best a three-star app for now. But the developer is enthusiastic and hopefully will continue to not only add new effects as promised, but also make other improvements to the app as needed. The interface and easy one-click workflow are good, but with apps like FX Photo Studio boasting almost 200 effects at full resolution, it’s difficult for me to get excited about SelectEffect right now.

SelectEffect is $0.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad.Requires iOS 3.2 or later.

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I’ve got a few free copies of SelectEffect I’ll be giving away later today, Friday, January 13, around 2:00 PM Central Time over on Life In LoFi’s Facebook page.

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ProCamera

Normally, ProCamera sells for $2.99. Right now, it’s on sale for only $0.99 — a savings of $2.00. ProCamera is rarely discounted this deep and this sale is for a limited time only, so grab it now. App Store link and more info after the jump. >>>

The excellent camera module is the heart of ProCamera. The app helps improve the quality of the shot in camera, and has easy to use separate focus and exposure lock, white balance lock, and anti-shake stabilization. It has all of the things to look for in a good camera replacement app.

The studio and effects modules put the app on par with other all-in-one camera apps. You can read my review of the ProCamera version 3.0 update here. I recently helped to update and edit ProCamera’s Online Help and Tips & Tricks. It’s an excellent photo app for getting the best shot in camera and it’s my go-to camera replacement app.

ProCamera works on any iPhone or iPod Touch 4th Gen running iOS 4.0 or newer. The latest version of the iOS is needed to take advantage of some of the app’s advanced features.

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“PicYou is the perfect tool for instantly sharing your photos and daily life with friends, family and the world.”

PicYou is a new free social photo app with photo filters, a sharing network, and Facebook and Twitter connectivity. In other words, Instagram.

In fact, PicYou is a lot like an older Instagram version 1.0 except with better filters. The debut version of PicYou has nine one-click filters, but they’re all pretty varied and a lot more usable than Instragram’s current set. I like the LOMO look of the Dreamy filter. Zeitgeist is a good, basic black & white filter. Infatuation has a great look of an aged, worn photograph. Kilowatt is a great square-format frame with an expired film look. There are some cool filters here.

The interface is basic and looks a lot like Instagram’s. The tool set is non-existent; there are very few frills. Users can toggle the image border on and off. There is no tilt shift tool or other image controls.

In the bottom toolbar are buttons for PicYou’s Popular feed and an Activity tab where you can see who’s liked and commented on your photos. They’re in the same positions as Instagram’s.

Two old sayings come to mind here: “Imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery” and “Why reinvent the wheel….”

Images can be shared to PicYou, Facebook and Twitter. Photos are saved to your camera roll at 640×640 pixels. Even Instagram now supports high resolution saves. Instagram still supports every iPhone ever released, including the original iPhone 2G. You’ll need at least a iOS 4.0 to run PicYou. That’s not a problem for most iPhone owners.

PicYou’s advantage over Instagram is its web interface. You can pretty much do anything in a browser than you can do in the app, including upload images from your desktop.

Right now, there isn’t a lot of quality content in PicYou’s Popular feed. Many new users might be put off by the higher number of obvious DSLR photos and stolen images currently being uploaded. If more iPhone users adopt PicYou, that problem should manage itself.

Although a lot of people complain about the lack of quality filters and the amount of “noise” in the feeds, taking on Instagram is tough. A new social photo app will need the ever-present integration with many other photo apps that Instagram has helped to create, either by the SendToApp or Photo App Link protocols.

Although PicYou’s initial nine filters are pretty good, it’ll need more built-in filters to hold users’ interest. One of the appeals of Instagram is that shooting, one-click apping, and sharing is all very fast.

And in order to succeed, any takers will need size — quickly. PicYou will need a lot of users quickly to attract and hold interest the way that Instagram’s 15 million users does. That’s something that so far has evaded all other social photo startups.

The bigger question is with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram’s large user base and its coming entry in to the Android Market, is there even room on our iPhones and in our schedules for yet another social photo network?

“A lot like Instagram” is a phrase that came to mind when I was exploring PicYou. We already have Instagram. In my opinion, PicYou needs to do a better job of differentiating itself to give users a reason to move from their established network to a new one.

PicYou is free. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

App Store Link: PicYou

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While things are a little slow, I get to play catch-up. Here’s one from October that you may have missed the first time out.

Instacam bills itself as “Yet another Instagram camera with Live filters preview.” It dismisses itself too easily. This retro photo app is probably one of the more interesting Instagram companion apps in the store.

Instacam comes from Taplayer, the developer behind the very good TtV Camera and TtV Photo Studio apps. Instacam isn’t merely another square format shell for Taplayer’s great TtV effects. It’s a good Instagram camera with its own set of 19 lo-fi and retro photo filters such as the requisite LOMO, Vintage, black & white Noir filters and others. Worried about crossover with Taplayer’s other apps? It only shares four filters with its TtV siblings.

Shoot in-app or load from your camera roll. Either way, filters preview real time. The camera supports up to 2048×2048 resolution. Importing images often produced lower resolution files for me, usually between 1200 to 1500 pixels square. I suspect this has something to do with the zoom and crop function. Instacam also supports the front camera on devices equipped with one.

The app saves the high res image to your camera roll and saves a low res 612×612 image to its lightbox, where you can quickly and easily share to Twitter, Facebook or any of the “SendToApp” supported photo apps, including importing straight to Instagram.

Filters are one-click easy. There are no sliders to adjust the intensity. As with Taplayers other photo apps, the retro and TtV effects are authentic looking, well-rendered, and full of color and detail.

One of the great things about Instagram is the one-click ease in which it’s possible to add effects to images and quickly share them. Recent Instagram updates, though, have removed some of the app’s more interesting filters and added some nice but unexciting filters. The good Instagram companion apps combine ease of use, a good filter set with different and exciting filters, and seamless integration with Instagram.

This isn’t an iPhoneography power user app. Some users might not like Instacam’s lack of controls over effects. It definitely doesn’t offer all the filters and tools that TtV Camera and TtV Photo Studio have. But Instagrammers who want a greater variety of filters than Instagram currently offers plus an app that’s fast and easy to use will probably like Instacam.

It’s currently on sale for $0.99, down from $2.99. I wouldn’t drop three bucks on it, but for a dollar it’s worth it to help your images stand out in Instagram.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.1 or later.

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HarrisCamera sample image

As the App Store continues to return to normal after the holiday break, there has been a recent flurry of photo app updates lately. Here are some of the more notable updates. Among the dozens of photo apps updated recently are LensLight, LensFlare, Instant110, Noise Master, and Harris Camera.

We’ve also got five copies of LensFlare to give away. Find out how you could win one after the jump. >>>

HarrisCamera

Okay, well maybe HarrisCamera isn’t a notable update, but it is a cool camera app. The new update now also includes in-app sharing to Facebook and Tumblr. HarrisCamera is a unique photo app. It’s the only app I know of in the App Store to recreate the Harris shutter effect, a classic analog photo effect achieved by taking multiple exposures through several colored filters. Since the last update, the app saves in full resolution. It’s a good app.

App Store link: HarrisCamera

LensLight and LensFlare

LensLight and LensFlare — two excellent apps for adding natural-looking lens aberrations to your photos. Both updates add several new light effects to the already impressive tool set.

The new LensFlare effects are modeled on the very cinematic anamorphic lens flares used in motion pictures. Think J.J. Abrams flicks. LensLight gets the new Lumos Glow, Spectrum Halo, Rainbow Spikes and other new effects.

Want to win a free copy of LensFlare? We’ve got five free copies to give away. We’ll be giving them away on Life In LoFi’s Facebook page Tuesday, January 10, starting around 2:00 pm Eastern time — that’s 11:00 am Los Angeles time. (Update: All of the promo codes have been given away. =M=)

App Store link: LensFlare

App Store link: LensLight

Noise Master

New noise reduction photo app Noise Master just got a stability update. Although I had no problems processing images up to the 8 megapixels of an iPhone 4S, the app is supposed to have improved memory management and should be able to process even larger images. It eventually processed a 16 MP image on my 4S, but not before crashing a lot and requiring that I shut down all apps and reboot. It processed a 12 MP image on my 4S without breaking a sweat. This update is more for owners of older iPhones. According to the developer, memory management is significantly improved for older models and should make the app much more stable on those devices.

Noise Master now also retains the slider level between photos.

App Store link: Noise Master

Instant110

youthhr is the developer for some killer iPhone photo apps, including Cameramatic, Phonto, and Instant110. Like the excellent Cameramatic, Instant110 is a square format app. However, Instant110 uses film/lens/developer analogies to emulate its retro photo effects. Effects and frames differ from Cameramatic in that Instant110 seems to emulate the looks of the plastic consumer Instamatic-style cameras of the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s.

The new 1.4.0 update gets new functionality, including separate focus and exposure. Also, you can now save or delete multiple images from the apps Lightbox.

The new Double Exposure feature lets you manually create two-exposure images in camera. It ghosts the first image onscreen to help compose the second shot. The handy onscreen heads up display lets you know when you are shooting in Double Exposure mode. It has a funky blending algorithm, though. Instead of two equally transparent images sandwiched together, Instant110′s new Double Exposure tool adds a lot more emphasis to the second shot taken. Keep that in mind when you use the feature. It can either create some cool effects or some unwanted ones.

App Store link: Instant110

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Squaready is the excellent free, easy-to-use app to easily make square crops and prep your photos for Instagram and other apps. It also adds a more attractive white border around the edge of an image so your portrait and landscape images view better when they show up in your Instagram photostream. I’ve previously reviewed the app here.

The app has finally been updated to support the full 2448×2448 pixel square resolution of iPhone 4S photos. Click past the jump for more on this update. >>>

Here’s what’s new in version 1.5.0

• Changed button design
• Added button indicators
• Supported full resolution (2448×2448) export on iPhone 4S
• Can send high-res to Instagram
• Added the ability to pre-fill the hashtag #squaready when sending to Instagram

None of the great functionality of previous versions has gone away. Squaready is still one of the best tools for fitting or cropping and filling an image to a square format. The app also has basic but conveneient flip and rotate skills.

Tip: Clicking the ad makes it go away for a few hours. I’m a fan of clicking the ads in a great free app such as Squareeady, Phonto, and PhotoSize, especially where they don’t block the functionality of the app. You get a free app and the developer gets a little cash. Win-win.

The interface gets minor tweaks. The new button indicators are small, green dots above the selected tool, which make it handy and easier to see which tool you are using with the app.

Squaready uses both PhotoAppLink and Apple’s SendToApp features, so you’re able to import your cropped image into any app that supports these features — that’s a lot of the heavyweights and the list is always growing. There is no ability to add the #squaready hashtag when sending to Instagram. It’s just prefilled.

And, as in previous versions, you are easily able to toggle Squaready’s animated sound effects from the top toolbar.

Squaready is an app I use often. It’s easier and more precise than trying to use most photo apps’ clumsy “zoom and crop” tool.

Squaready is a great companion app for prepping square format photos for Instagram, Cameramatic, Squara, Instant110 and the many other square-format photo apps. This update adds small but good improvements. Squaready is an essential app.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

And, if you don’t already have it, you can click here to get Instagram in the App Store.

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Resize-Photo by iLegendSoft is an image interpolation tool that changes the image size on your iPhone. If you subscribe to a keep-it-all-on-your-iPhone line of thought on iPhoneography, apps like Resize-Photo eliminate the need to enlarge your images on a computer using Photoshop.

I can’t believe how bad the new 2.0 update to Resize-Photo is. This app used to be so good, MacWorld used it as part of its September 2010 print cover shoot with an iPhone 4.

The new 2.0 update breaks the app pretty badly. If you have Resize-Photo, don’t upgrade. If you’re looking at buying the app, hold off until it’s working correctly again.

A while back, I reviewed the app. Previous versions of Resize-Photo were great. in older versions, it quickly and easily resized images up to 3500×3500 pixels. Results were similar to the common bicubic interpolation algorithm to add pixels, which is a pretty good method of adding pixels.

The new update now breaks a lot of things, including the aspect ratio of square frame and landscape oriented photos. 1600×2300 pixels is now the maximum the app will resize to. It now distorts all images into portrait mode. The resize constrain lock is broken now as well and is stuck in ON mode.

The new user interface is cleaner than the previous version. That’s because a lot of the features of the previous version are gone. Precision resize adjustments in points and percentage have been removed. In particular, the percentage adjustment was pretty convenient to have.

This update adds 13 pointless and poorly done one-click retro camera filters. Why? Nothing about Resize-Photo screamed retro photo app before this update. The app was pretty good without them.

Image resampling apps were more useful when iPhones had lower resolution. With recent improvements in the iPhone 4 cameras, the 3500×3500 pixel resolution of the old version isn’t much better than the 3264×2448 resolution of the 8 MP iPhone 4S. Still, image resampling is sometimes needed if you want to make enlargements from some of the low resolution photo apps still being released.

Resize-Photo 2.0 is a huge step backward. I wouldn’t update this app until the problems are fixed. Or, check out other apps. For a photo resampling tool now, Filterstorm is a great app with a scaling feature that works quickly and correctly.

If you need help restoring the previous version of the app, have a look at this post, “How to Reinstall Older Versions of Apps on your iPhone or iPad.“

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

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Lensograf is a new free retro photo app with a cool name. Basically, it’s a Turkish Instagram clone, except that many of the filters are better than the current crop of Instagram filters.

It’s a low-res app, saving at 612×612. It has 13 filters, many of them look fine for one-click image processing. If you’ve got the room on your iPhone, they’re good as an alternative to the Brannens, Toasters, and Valencias that Instagram currently offers, but for little else.

I don’t recommend it, but if you get sucked in by the great name, then read on for important things I found about the app. >>>

Here’s the App Store description translated:

Take photos with the iPhone has never been so stylish!

Filter Lensograf photos with, share and explore photos from your friends. Capture all your moments with each other artistic filter 13. Moreover, completely in Turkish!

Features:
• 13 photo filter
• country-specific filters, such as Istanbul and the Maiden’s Tower
• Totally Turkish!

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The app is in Turkish, but it’s fairly easy to figure out that “Geri” means Back, “Devam” means Continue, and “Tamam” means Okay (or something like that). The app looks and works like an old 1.0x version of Instagram. The filter names are pretty easy to figure out and the thumbnails in the tool bar help a lot.

With the app’s low 612×612 resolution, any of the filters are good enough to share on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, but that’s about it.

I wouldn’t have written about the app except that Lensograf won’t work until you log into Facebook. I highly recommend that you hit cancel at the Facebook login. Lensograf wants to access your Facebook information and your birthday. I’m sure it’s all legit, but I’m just nervous giving out my birthdate to anyone. If you hit cancel at the Facebook login screen, you’ll be taken back to the app and you can then shoot and save to your camera roll.

Despite its iOS 5 minimum requirement, Lensograf isn’t that sophisticated. Feature-wise, it’s about as good as one of the very first versions of Instagram except with different filters. There’s nothing here that isn’t available in other commercial apps. But if you have to try Lensograf, you’ve been warned.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

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Noise Master
Version reviewed: 1.1
Price: $2.99, on sale now for $1.99

Bottom Line: One of the best noise reduction apps in the App Store. Reduces noise while holding most details.

Noise Master is a new app from Lucky Clan, the developer of the popular Top Camera photo app. It claims to be the fastest, most effective app to remove noise from photos. The app is designed to produce clean, smooth, noise-free images while preserving important details.

There are other noise reducers available — mostly as tools in other apps. I tested Noise Master against several of the more notable noise reduction tools — Adobe Photoshop Express, Perfectly Clear, and PhotoForge2. Click past the jump to see how Noise Master stacks up. >>>

Image noise used to be a huge problem, especially on older iPhones such as the 3GS, 3G, and original 2G. Unwanted image noise would appear almost like film grain in a variety of shooting scenarios and not always low-light situations where the camera is struggling to grab enough light to make an image.

With the improved light sensitivity of the newer iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S cameras, you’ll find yourself shooting noisy raw images far less often, but it can still happen. A good noise reduction app can rescue noisy images, especially those rescued from very low light shots or improve borderline with a hint of noise that gets enhanced during processing.

Noise Master eliminates all kinds of noise from an image: high ISO, chroma, contrast, low light, film grain, and jpeg artifacts. It can even soften and eliminate wrinkles from faces, which may not always be the desired result.

Unlike many other noise reduction apps that use blurring techniques which ruin fine details, Noise Master uses more sophisticated algorithms to eliminate noise without sacrificing detail.

I disagree with the developers claim that “Noise Master is currently the only app for iPhone/iPad that works like professional noise reduction applications.” Perfectly Clear’s optional noise reduction tool does an excellent job of reducing noise. In fact, in my tests, it did a slightly better job of photo noise reduction. Adobe Photoshop Express also held its own on many images as well.

Noise Master is super easy to use. Load an image. Let the app do its magic. Save. There is only one setting — a slider to adjust the intesnity of the noise reduction applied.

Overall, Noise Master is one of the best noise reduction apps available and eliminates artifacts that other NR apps can’t. Unlike Perfectly Clear, it handles large images. It quickly and easily handled 8 MP images from my iPhone 4 and users report it can handle even larger images.

I tested the four noise reduction tools — Noise Master, Adobe Photoshop Express, Perfectly Clear by Athentech Imaging, and PhotoForge2 — using a dark image shot in low incandescent light. It’s the type of image you’re most likely to need a NR app for — dark and barely usable. I brightened the exposure significantly which revealed all sorts of low-light and other chroma noise in both highlights and shadows.

Here is my series of test images that I used to test Noise Master. Have a look at the images and then read on for my opinions afterwards. All tests were done with each app’s default settings except where noted. All test images are clickable and enlargeable.

Here is the original, unedited image (Original 8 MP image reduced for the blog)

Here is the base image I used to process after I’d brightened the exposure. The exposure adjustment really made the noise stand out.

Here is the detail of the image at 100% for reference. This area has noise that’s representative of the entire image — note the chroma noise in both the light and dark areas of the image.

Here is a detail of the same area after being processed by Noise Master.

Here is a detail of the same area after being processed by Perfectly Clear’s optional noise reduction tool only. I turned off all other image processing.

Here is a detail of the same area after being processed by Adobe Photoshop Express’s optional noise reduction tool.

Here is a detail of the same area after being processed by PhotoForge2′s noise reduction tool.

Not only in these images but in other, similarly dark images I tested as well, Noise Master does a very good job of reducing noise and holding detail. There is a very slight loss of detail, even in this high-res 5 MP image, but you have to look pretty hard for it. The image details are still pretty sharp after processing. The noise reduction is very good as well in all areas of the image — highlights and shadows. The app was consistently among the best performers at reducing or eliminating noise in my tests.

In my tests, Noise Master’s noise reduction was better than the $3.99 option in Photoshop Express and much better than PhotoForge2′s noise reduction tool. However, Perfectly Clear was visibly better at reducing noise in the image. It reduced low-light noise throughout the image as well as Noise Master, but held the sharpness in the details a little better to my eye.

Despite Perfectly Clear’s slight edge, that app hasn’t been updated in a while and doesn’t support 8 MP resolution. Noise Master supports greater than 8 megapixels.

I then tested Noise Master and Perfectly Clear on a badly underexposed image photographed in the park at night. Same pre-processing as the previous image — I adjusted the exposure in PhotoForge2 before processing. This is a worst case scenario image. These test images look better clicked and enlarged.

Here is the original, unedited image (reduced for the blog)

Here is the base image I used to process after I’d brightened the exposure.

Here is the detail of the image for reference. This area has noise that’s representative of the entire image — both chroma noise as well as noise in the darker areas.

Here is a detail of the same area after being processed by Noise Master.

Here is a detail of the same area after being processed by Perfectly Clear’s optional Noise Reduction tool only. I turned off all other image processing.

Again, both apps do a very good job of reducing noise even in this horribly exposed image.

In most real-world situations, you will not be able to notice the difference in the details between the two apps unless your images are enlarged significantly. Both Noise Master and Perfectly Clear do a great job of reducing low light and other chroma noise.

No noise reduction tool will miraculously fixed a noisy, blurry, underexposed image. You’ll still have a blurry underexposed image, but at least it won’t have as much noise. Again, it might save an otherwise unusable image or make a borderline image better.

One of the developer’s additional claims is that Noise Master also reduces jpeg artifacts — the square, chunky lossy artifacts you find on JPGs that have been compressed too small. For my test, I took an old 612×612 Instagram image and saved it with the worst possible quality setting in Photoshop. I processed it in all four apps. This is the type of noise and artifacts you’re likely to find on an image you snag from the web.

Here is the original, unedited image (reduced for the blog). Chunkiness is most noticeable in areas of higher contrast.

Here is the image after being processed by Noise Master.

Here is the same image after being processed by Perfectly Clear’s optional Noise Reduction tool only. I turned off all other image processing.

Here is is the same image after being processed by Adobe Photoshop Express’s optional Noise Reduction tool.

Here is is the same image after being processed by PhotoForge2′s Noise Reduction tool.

Noise Master is good at removing JPG artifacts, but in my test image Adobe Photoshop Express’ NR was better. With the default settings, Noise Master removed just a little too much of the detail and the image looked a little plastic-like to me. Photoshop, on the other hand, did a good job of removing the JPG compression artifacts but did a better job of retaining more natural details in this web-sized image.

Overall, I was impressed by how well Noise Master performed in my tests. It does a very good job of removing noise from images and a good job of removing JPG compression artifacts. Other apps may have performed individual functions a little better but in my tests not by much. Overall, Noise Master’s performance is impressive and it’s an excellent all-in-one noise reduction utility.

You are less likely to need a noise reduction tool with the newer iPhone cameras. If you have an older iPhone, including the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and the original iPhone 2G, Noise Master might just be an essential purchase. It’ll help clean up the noisy images the older iPhone cameras can take.

If you have a newer phone but rarely shoot in low light situations, you probably don’t need this app. If you find yourself shooting in low light and fighting with image noise afterwards, Noise Master is a good tool to have no matter what iPhone you’re using.

Many users won’t need a noise reduction tool. If you do, I like Noise Master and recommend it.

Noise Master is normally $2.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later. It’s old iPhone-friendly!

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