One of the benefits of being a nightowl is that you get to catch deals like this. This may be one of those freebies that disappears quickly (as in a few hours) so grab this one now.

Here’s the App Store link:

Snapseed is a powerful image editor that gives you overall and selective control over your image adjustments. There is also a good selection of preset filter effects.

The interface has been redesigned from scratch for the gesture-based iOS. It takes a little getting used to, but once you do, you can move through the tools pretty quickly. I think one of Snapseed’s best features (and one of its unique ones) is the selctive adjustments where you can drop a pin on the image and adjust only the area around the pin.

Snapseed supports up to 6.25 MP on an iPhone 3GS and up to 16 MP images for iPad 2 and iPhone 4, 4S.

This is a huge freebie and big savings. Again, no word on how long this will last. The price will probably go back up very, very soon, so grab it now.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.

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TapShot is a new camera app from Two Teeth Technologies, the developer of the impressive and popular QuickPix. TapShot changes the way you interact with your iPhone’s camera. It’s a gesture-based app, rather than a button-based app.

TapShot also gives you an amazing amount of feature customization, allowing you to build the interface that works for you. Read more after the jump. >>>>

TapShot puts the power and flexibility of the app into the action you assign for each gesture — swipes, taps, etc. You can even disable gestures to simplify the app. In the end, you can create a basic (or not so basic) camera that works the way you do. It’s an interesting concept, one that’s designed to simplify and speed up shooting.

If you’re a button-lover like me, you may be uncomfortable shooting with this app. I like the visual feedback of controls. Also, the user interface of the viewfinder cuts off the edges of the preview. Your image will be cropped a little wider than you see in the preview.

TapShot supports the full 8 megapixel resolution of the iPhone 4 and saves a ton of EXIF data, including geotags.

TapShot is launch sale priced at $0.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

Want a chance to try TapShot for free? We’ve got 5 promo codes for TapShot. I’ll be giving them away on Life In LoFi’s Facebook page starting at around 3:00 PM today, Central time, Friday, December 16.

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Here’s the App Store description:

Simplicity, power and control, with FULL CUSTOMIZATION at your finger tips.

Tap anywhere and shoot a photo. Or let TapShot detect a face and shoot the picture for you. That’s all you really need to know about TapShot to start taking better photos, but there is much, much more.

First, TapShot uses a lot of gestures to control the camera. Swiping, pinching, tapping, etc. Why? Because the last thing you want to be doing is looking for a small button when your chance to capture the perfect moment arrives. Gestures are easy to make without even looking at the screen.

Secondly, TapShot puts you in control by letting you “build” your own camera. Everyone has their own ideas of how their camera should operate. So, for the first time ever, we give you control.

Like to always burst a few photos to make sure you get a good one? Great! Just set the swipe direction of your choice to be a burst of 3, or maybe 5 photos. And the best part is that assigning gestures to camera actions is extremely simple and intuitive.

Figure out how you like to take pictures, and “build” your own camera with TapShot!

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Size matters. Especially in iPhoneography. Here’s Life In LoFi’s graphic showing the relative sizes of all iPhone image sizes, updated to show the new 4S. If you’re still shooting with an old iPhone 2G or 3G, this chart may give you pixel envy.

5 megapixel and 8 megapixel iPhone cameras are now the norm due the the unprecedented popularity of the iPhone 4 and 4S. Just the high-res retina displays of the iPhone 4 series have a resolution of 640—960 pixels.

We’re constantly exposed to the numbers of image resolution, but the difference between image sizes can be difficult to visualize. So a while back, I thought it would be interesting to see how the image sizes looked visually when compared to each other. I created the original graphic with the image sizes from all of the iPhone cameras at the time — iPhone 2G, 3G and 3GS.

This latest update includes the 8 MP camera of the iPhone 4S. As you can see, 4 times bigger than the original iPhones looks very different visually. By the way, even the iPhone’s 2MP images can enlarge for prints quite nicely. See how big iPhone photo enlargements can print here. Online photo sharing such as Facebook and Flickr are supporting larger file sizes as well.

There are still new and some popular apps that max out at well below even the 2 MP of the original iPhone 2G. I still find apps that I test that still save at the postage stamp sized, super low 320—480 pixel resolution. When you see visually how small that really is, it emphasizes the importance of image size and number of pixels and why it’s important for photo apps to support the full resolution of the device, or at least high resolution.

Hopefully the low-res apps will get updated or just fade away. Even when the iPhone cameras were only 2 MP, 800—600 and 1024—768 resolution — both less than 1 megapixel — were just barely acceptable. Now, unless you’re trying to create a true digital lo-fi look, there is almost no reason any more to be constrained to this ever-shrinking canvas.

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New retro photo app Vintage Camera Pro by Presselite is starting to make it’s slow journey up the sales charts. It’s yet another entry in the square format, analog photo app category. It has an impressive App Store description, but it’s definitely not a “Pro” app. The initial release of the app falls short in a lot of ways. You’re better off with Squara, Cameramatic, Hipstamatic, Leme Leme Pro… well, you get the idea.

Vintage Camera Pro has lush effects like Hipstamatic, the BeFunky apps or Leme Leme Pro. It features a slick retro camera-like interface that’s pretty fun. Like Instagram, effects are applied through easy one button processing — there’s no changing the intensity of the effects. The app only comes with a small selection of 13 one-button effects. No options for frames other than what’s built into the preset. There is nothing really compelling or original about these effects and you probably already have them all in several other photo apps on your iDevice.

Vintage Camera Pro saves to low 640×640 resolution, whether you shoot within the app or load from your photo library. It’s pretty low-res and suitable for sharing by email or posting to Twitter or Facebook, but all the detail will be lost. Photos won’t even look great on Flickr which likes larger images for viewing all file sizes. Vintage Camera Pro’s photo size is unsuitable for printing except at the smallest sizes — no larger than about 4″ x 4″. The app doesn’t save your original hi-res photo so that is lost as well. Even Instagram now saves at full device resolution — anywhere from 2 MP-8 MP.

Vintage Camera Pro only shares to Facebook, Twitter, and the developer’s own social photo network. There are not Send To App, PhotoAppLink, or Send to Instagram hooks — pretty big omissions, in my opinion. To share your photos on Instagram, you’ll need to save it first to your camera roll, open Instagram and import. There are many other photo apps that share quickly and directly within the app.

Vintage Camera Pro is a sexy looking photo app from the outside, but right now it’s another low res app that needs some pretty significant improvements before it can really justify the the “pro” label and the dollar price tag.

Vintage Camera Pro is $0.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

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Large Aperture Pro
Version 1.3
Price: $1.99

Bottom Line: I don’t like it. The app has clunky and frustrating functionality, hard edges that make the blurs look harsh and fake, and low resolution output. I also don’t like the way the developer feels the need to bully critical reviewers.

Released several weeks ago, Large Aperture Pro by Zhong is back in the spotlight after a weekend price reduction. It’s a photo app that adds DSLR-like depth-of-field (DOF) effects to your photos. It’s the same type of app as BlurFX or the new Big Lens apps, which also simulate DSLR DOF and blur effects in your images.

Even after several updates, Large Aperture Pro still has a lot of issues and limitations. It lacks the features and finesse of either of those two apps.

Based on comments by the developer which were recently added to the App Store description (which seemed to me to be a little harsh, punitive and inappropriate), there may a controversy about this app. I’ll address that after my review. First, I wanted to review the app based on its own merits. There aren’t many.

There’s no camera module in Large Aperture Pro. You can only load from your iPhone’s photo library. I don’t consider this a minus as it unclutters the interface a tiny bit and allows you to use a better camera than the one built into the Apple Camera API. Like Big Lens or BlurFX, once imported, you simply paint the area that you want to remain in focus leaving the rest of the image blurred.

TIP: With any of these apps, I recommend using a good stylus. This will help you to paint a much more precise mask than trying with fingers will.

Unlike other focal apps, one of the frustrating things about Large Aperture Pro is that it opens your image with an overall blur, out of focus. This requires you to paint in the sharp areas. However, you’re trying to create a mask based on a blurred edge. To me, this workflow is backwards and clunky. In a format that is not precise to begin with, this is frustrating and reduces accuracy even further. Big Lens, on the other hand, starts with a sharp image and requires you to paint in the blur effect. There is no setting in Large Aperture Pro to change the default to “paint in” the blur, instead of painting it out.

While the app has a usable tool set, it’s not full-featured. There is no “Auto Snap” feature. Once an area has been outlined, it needs to be filled in manually. There’s no “Snap To” feature to help refine and clean up rough edges of a painted in mask. Both of these are great features found in other apps.

Unlike Big Lens or BlurFX, there is only one blur mode in this app. There is no Basic mode which allows you to create a simple, fast circular or linear blur to add to your image.

Brush size is frustratingly inaccurate. The brush size increases as you zoom into the image. It doesn’t stay constant regardless of zoom. When zooming in for precision edits, the brush size needs to be readjusted each time. As you zoom, the visible onscreen brush size doesn’t match the selected size of the brush in the toolbox — it’s quite a bit larger. I think the size of the brush onscreen should always match the selected brush size. It doesn’t here and that’s frustrating and non-intuitive.

The brush has an unusual “excursion” setting that shifts the onscreen target of the brush to the left or right of the actual brush. It’s a unique feature that I haven’t seen in other apps. I suppose if you use it often it should help with masking accuracy by shifting the target so it’s not blocked your finger or stylus as you work onscreen. It’s not a feature I’ll use. I prefer the accuracy of precision painting.

Left: Brush size setting, zoom and Excursion. Right: five-window save screen

The quality of the blur is pretty bad. The edges of the blur are sharp and harsh. Unlike Big Lens, there is no Brush Hardness tool to soften the edges of the blur for a smoother, more natural transition.

There is no quick before and after comparison. Granted, this isn’t an essential feature, but a before and after toggle is a handy too to help you go back and tweak edits before it’s saved. It’s a great feature found in a lot of photo apps.

Saving the image is a bit frustrating and confusing at first. After a few seconds of processing (probably longer on slower iPhones), the app shows a confusing five-window screen which I think is supposed to be a selection of blur gradients. I don’t understand or like that this is in the Save Image process after I’ve already masked out my image. Regardless, none of the gradual blurs worked very well for me. Only #5 the blur worked for me. It’s not clearly labeled and after a few trial and error saves, I realized that it’s the default overall blur setting.

Although it’s an improvement over the 640×479 pixel resolution in the original release, Large Aperture Pro still saves with a horrible 1707×1281 2.2MP output on an 8MP iPhone 4S. This alone should disqualify it from being called a “pro” app. It is possible for this style of app to support high resolution. Big Lens supports all 8 MP on an iPhone 4S.

Large Aperture Pro does not support any type of background processing — something that was introduced in iOS 4 and has been around for a while. Exiting the app causes you to lose your image and all of your edits. Answering a phone call will nuke all your work on an image, forcing you to start over.

I realize I may be more critical and nitpicky about Large Aperture Pro than I normally am in my reviews, but the app has an extremely large number of questionable five-star App Store reviews that I don’t agree with.

Possible Controversy

Large Aperture Pro was brought to my attention by a reader when it was free for a few hours over the weekend. I missed the discount but dropped the two bucks to download it. I noticed that the developer had added a long diatribe in the app’s description. In this announcement, one reviewer in particular was criticized and threatened for giving what I feel to be a fair, honest and thoughtful app review. I took an additional star off for this. You shouldn’t be bullied by a developer if you don’t like their apps.

I researched a bit and what I’ve found seems to me to be a little shady.

Of the 142 five-star app reviews given to the app, a very good sampling shows that too many of them were written by people with nonsense App Store IDs who have only reviewed Large Aperture Pro. Some also gave five-star reviews to the developer’s other apps. As of December 4, none of the reviewers I’d sampled had reviewed any other apps. See my post on spotting an App Store shill review.

I am not saying here 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 that there is a similar pattern with this developer’s other apps as well.

Fake five-star app reviews boost an app’s ratings and gives less-knowledgeable buyers the false sense that an app is a good purchase. This boosts sales which boosts the app’s rank on the App Store sales charts. This is not only unfair to users who may unwittingly buy a crappy app, this also uses up valuable chart placement for legitimate developers who play by the app Store rules and do not engage in this shady practice.

A good app will find its market and doesn’t need inflated, false reviews to succeed.

Again, I’m not saying that this is definitely the case here.

Regardless of any controversy surrounding Large Aperture Pro, this is just not a very good app and is far from a “pro” app. There are several other apps that do more, better. Photo apps like BlurFX by DD Studio or the new, very excellent Big Lens by Reallusion Inc. are easier to use, more versatile, have a better toolbox, and create much better looking images and effects. If you’re looking for a photo app that creates the shallow depth of field of a big DSLR camera, I recommend that you have a look at those instead.

Large Aperture Pro is definitely not a five-star app. I don’t know who the 142 people who gave it glowing five-star reviews are, but if this truly is their first iPhone photo app, and they truly are this excited about it, then they are in for a huge, wonderful surprise when they actually download a real iPhone photo app.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later.

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Large Aperture Pro sample image

Large Aperture Pro sample image detail

Processed by Big Lens for iPhone. Sample image detail

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Photogene2

This powerful image editor for iPhone is on sale now for a limited time for only $0.99. That’s a savings of $1.00 off the regular price.

Current App Store ratings are averaging an impressive 4-1/2 stars for Photogene2 and after using it for a few weeks, I think those ratings are accurate and deserved.

Where the original Photogene was showing its age, this new version is fast, full featured, and has a great, newly revised interface. If you are currently using an all-in-one camera app (such as Camera+ or King Camera) or are otherwise not using one of the high-end iOS image editors, this is a great addition to your iPhoneography camera bag. Grab it now while the price is low.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later. It’ll run on an iPad, but this version is not a Universal app and doesn’t fully take advantage of the larger screen real estate of the iPad.

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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 and this sale is for a limited time only, so grab it now.

None of the improvements and additions get in the way of the excellent camera module of ProCamera. For shooting, the app adds tools to help improve the quality of the shot in camera, including 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. 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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Camera360 is a Retro photo app available for the Android platform (you can check it out on the Android Market here). It’s also available for iPhone as Camera360 Ultimate, making it one of the few photo apps that’s available for both platforms.

The new version 2.0 update was released recently for iPhone and it’s a huge step backwards on iOS. If this update is anything close to parity with the Android version, I feel sorry for our Droidographer counterparts.

Camera360 Ultimate is a photo app for iPhone with a few dozen one click filters. The effects are good but not great. They are uneditable, although you can easily reapply effects from within the app’s lightbox, which is always a good feature. The app supports full resolution on an iPhone 4S and also saves a ton of EXIF data, which you can now easily view from within the app.

This update of Camera360 gets some great new features including live effects preview and VolumeShot hardware shutter release. They are offset by what is lost in this update. Removed from this update is a lot of the functionality which made previous versions of the app a lot easier to use.

Half of the apps settings are gone. There is now no way to turn off automatically saving of the image to the camera roll. This is a problem because the app now automatically saves images to the camera roll at 1224×1632 pixels — 2 megapixels, about the same resolution as the original iPhone. With this new update, there’s no way to stop or change this. To save full resolution images, users now have to go through several additional steps involving saving the image from the app’s lightbox. Clunky.

The new viewfinder has a permanent row of effects which obscures the bottom portion of the viewfinder. In previous versions, the effects screen flew away and was easily hidden. Now, the app forces you to compose a full frame image using a square frame viewfinder.

The new live preview is nice and fast. As advertised, the app is significantly faster at processing images. But the improvements don’t make up for the inconveniences that the new interface and lack of functionality brings. Taking what was good about the previous versions and improving upon them would’ve been much better than trying to reinvent the app.

Camera360 is probably a great app for Android because there are far fewer photo apps in the Android Market than the thousands in the App Store. For iPhone, however, there are thousands of photo apps and many of them do many of them create Retro, LOMO, and other photo effects with a much less frustrating interface than this one.

Current users of Camera360 Ultimate for iPhone may want to stick with the 1.4 update. It’s just better despite the slower processing speeds. It has a better user interface and a larger viewfinder. It’s a better experience to shoot with. New converts from the Droid OS may want to avoid Camera360 Ultimate on iPhone. Version 2.0 takes the functionality of the app back a few steps. The “improvements” of the update now make it a pretty frustrating photo app to use.

Camera360 Ultimate is $0.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

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Here’s all that’s new in Version 2.0:

New Features:
1.Faster, photo Processing is 50 times faster than before with new image processing engine.
2.Newly add Realtime Preview function (only for iOS 4.2.1 and up).
3.Newly add shoot by volume button function, makes shoot much easier(Only for iOS 5.0 and up).
4.Newly add Grouping by Date function to photos, you can preview photos grouped by date.
5.Newly add Check function to photo details.
6.Newly add description of icons to show their function apparently.

Improvements:
1.Auto-save to System Album is available with iOS 4.2.1 and up.
2.Optimize the fluency and stability.
3.Fix some bugs, and it is more wonderful for users.

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This updated Camera Bag post is regularly updated and is the same post as in the navbar above. It’ll eventually roll off here. It’s posted here in the blog to share the evolution of my iPhone. For kicks, you can read my original November 2009 Camera Bag post here. It’s interesting to see how things have changed (and how they haven’t) in two years.

I have a camera. Sometimes I use it to make phone calls.

Although I don’t share my photography here on the blog much any more, I still shoot. My old iPhone 2G and a handful of photo apps used to be the standard for creating some great-looking digital lo-fi. Now, the camera that’s with me nearly all the time is my iPhone 4S.

One of the features that makes the iPhone camera unique is the availability of thousands of photography-related apps. For less than the cost of a DVD, you can basically get a whole new camera experience. I don’t use one app exclusively to shoot with. I have several and try to match up the image with the app.

iPhone apps are constantly being created, updated and improved. Since I first wrote my original Camera Bag post, some apps have fallen by the development wayside, failing to keep up with the hardware advances of the new iPhones. Other new apps have been released, and many apps have been improved to the point where they have leapfrogged ahead as far as functionality and performance.

I find myself shooting with many different apps than the first time I wrote about my iPhone’s camera bag, including on occasion many apps that aren’t listed here. Here’s my newly updated toolbox. A few of these apps need to be updated to take advantage of the 8 megapixel resolution of the iPhone 4S. For me, they are that good that I still use the apps.

These are the go-to apps I’m currently using.

1. Camera

That’s right… Apple’s built-in Camera app. With iOS 5, the Camera app has come of age and it’s really hard not to use the app. It’s simple, easy and fast. It’s still one of the fastest camera apps available with shot-to-shot times that are faster than many point and shoot digital cameras. The 5x zoom works by magic. Although it is a digital zoom and not as good as an optical zoom, Camera uses a great algorithm that helps maintain sharpness even at high zoom factors, without many of the artifacts or fuzziness of other apps’ digital zooms. It’s one of the clearest zooms available on the iPhone. The HDR feature introduced in iOS 4 is real, bracketed, three exposure HDR and while it doesn’t create the saturated, enhanced colors associated with traditional HDR, it adds subtle image enhancement that adds detail to the shadows in your image but not at the expense of your highlights. The new VolumeShot feature lets you use the Volume Up button as a hardware shutter release which is many times a lot easier than fumbling for the onscreen shutter button. There are plenty of other new features as well, but best of all, the Camera is now available from the iPhone’s lock screen. The phone can go from off to shooting in about a second or two.

2. ProCamera

An excellent camera replacement app with a powerful toolset for taking photos. ProCamera has had several awesome updates recently and is the camera replacement app to beat for serious iPhoneography. The pro features include image stabilization with three settings, full-resolution 5X digital zoom, and fast reload times. Separate focus and exposure locks, as well as the best white balance lock in the app store make ProCamera the best shooter currently available. Speed, features, tools — even with the recent introduction of a ton of new apps, ProCamera is still my go-to camera replacement app. |

3. Camera+

This is a full-featured camera replacement that works great on any iPhone. The interface is simple and uncluttered, but the app is well-thought out and powerful. The app features a good digital zoom for all iPhones. The viewfinder features rule-of-thirds guide lines to help with composition. The is an anti-shake stabilizer which waits until your hands are steady before releasing the shutter, helping to minimize blur and create sharper images. The separate focus and exposure targets are easy to use and a great feature.

Camera+ is fast — among the quickest shot-to-shot times of any photo app. It’s got the most well thought out lightbox of any photo app. Once an image is synced to the iPhone’s camera roll, it’s deleted from the app’s lightbox, helping to reduce image clutter. |

4. Hipstamatic

Hipstamatic is ubiquitous. It’s a wonderful iPhone-only photo app that many people think of first when they think of arty iPhone photography. For me, it gorgeously recreates the look of stressed, vintage, analog film complete with noise, digital light leaks, smears and vignettes. It really does a great job recreating the imperfections of a toy camera. It’s a fun camera to shoot with. It feels analog. It’s the experience of an old camera shooting within an iPhone and along the way, it creates some stunning photographs. Like any real camera, lens, and film combinations, I use Hipstamatic as a tool to create my vision. The results are often unpredictable and gorgeous. |

These are the apps that I use most often for post-processing:

5. Perfectly Clear

Fast, easy Dynamic Range Correction (DRC). I usually run my images through Perfectly Clear before doing anything else to them. One-button image scrubbing — improves the sharpness, exposure, saturation and contrast. It’s optional noise reduction feature is one of the best available for iPhone and is worth the in-app purchase. Recent versions are a little cranky, but it’s still worth the effort to use. Quite honestly, there’s no other app that preps photos as well as Perfectly Clear. Although the images from the iPhone 4 and 4S  are much better than older iPhones, I still use Perfectly Clear to help quickly improve images that may need a little help.

Despite some memory issues on the iPhone 4 and the fact that its output resolution is limited to 5 MP on an iPhone 4S, I still use this app often, although it’s in dire need of an update to address both issues. |

6. Filterstorm

Filterstorm is a powerful image editing program with the essential tools for improving the look of a photograph and correcting color and other flaws. Calling it the new “Photoshop for the iPhone” does it a disservice. Filterstorm’s recently revamped interface sets the standard and redefines how image editing apps should work on the iOS platform. It has a complete set of powerful, essential image editing tools that rival desktop image editors, including layers and blending. It’s straightforward interface is designed for iOS devices and doesn’t get in the way of even large fingers like mine. It’s fast, it’s powerful, and it works great on the small screen of an iPhone. Check out my full review of the previous version Filterstorm 3.  |

7. Simply B&W

The old Vint B&W app was a simple black & white camera app for your iPhone that created some of the nicest black & white images on the iPhone. While it still works on an iPhone 4 in the latest iOS, it hasn’t been updated in quite some time. Simply B&W is not only a simple camera app, but you can also import existing images from your camera roll — a feature that Vint B&W never had.

Simply B&W has a great grayscale conversion algorithm, several color filters for conversion, and sliders bars to help fine tune the color-to-grayscale conversion with results that are on par with Vint B&W. With minimal fuss, Simply B&W quickly creates rich, great looking black and white photos. |

8. Crop Suey

A crop, rotation and straighten tool. I love this app. It’s fast and easy cropping. Although many other photo apps have cropping and rotation tools, Crop Suey is the only app that uses resolution enhancement when straightening apps. Instead of reducing the trim size of an image after a 1.2 degree straighten, Crop Suey resamples data. A 5MP image stays a 5MP image after straightening. |

9. Cameramatic

To say that Cameramatic is “a simple toy-camera app” is an understatement. Cameramatic is a beast. There are more filters and effects than I’m likely to use in my lifetime (okay, not really, but there are a ton). The interface is clunky, but what you find beneath are probably the most exhaustive set of retro and analog camera, film, and frames available for iPhone — all excellently rendered. Cameramatic is one of the best, most versatile square-frame shooters available. It’s an excellent alternative if you’re looking for an app with great analog effects but with the control than Hipstamatic lacks. |

10. PictureShow

For creating digital lo-fi from iPhone photographs, Picture Show is one of my longstanding go-to apps. With dozens of built-in filter presets, over a dozen great frames, and the ability to add noise, texture and light leaks effects, the possibilities are almost endless with this easy to use photo app. The LomoGraphy and Vivid filters are currently among my faves and the convex blur applies a great, subtle black frame around an image. Effects applied by Picture Show don’t necessarily look like Picture Show, which is a good thing. While it does have some beat you over the head effects, many of the fx are well done analog renditions. Picture Show can enhance a photograph, not hide it. |

11. dotfunc(camera)

Many iPhoneographers have probably never heard of this app, or have already forgotten about it. Overlooked on its release — something for which I am partly responsible. I love dotfunc(camera) by dotfunc but could never figure out how to do it justice in a review. Its two “modules” really need to be discussed as separate items. At its core, dotfunc(camera) is a perspective correcting camera app. Simply tilt and rotate until the image is cropped within the floating frame in the viewer. dotfunc automatically corrects the perspective distortion, similar to how a tiltshift camera on a movable bellows would correct the perspective in camera. Basically, it’ll take a shot of building looking up and make it look like it was shot straight on from the the center of the frame. Really cool. There are one or two other apps that can do this in post. No other photo apps that I know of can do this in camera.

Its other module is a fairly full-featured image editor and analog film filter set. The built-in image editor has the essential toolset that we’re now seeing in many all-in-one apps. The filter set is a very nice collection of film recreations that reminds me a lot of the collection of films in RetroCamera by CLBITZ Ubiquitous Communications.

Most likely a dead app. dotfunc(camera) hasn’t been updated in about a year. It only supports an maximum of 3 MP on an iPhone 4 or 4S (released for iPhone 4, it needed the headroom to make its perspective adjustements). That’s a size difference that wasn’t as bothersome on my 5 MP iPhone 4. For me, dotfunc is still worth it just for the automatic perspective correction alone. It would be very nice to see this app get an update and resolution bump for the 4S. |

12. TiltShift Generator

More than just an app to apply a TiltShift for a toy effect, it’s a great app to create shallow depth-of-field in an image or to apply a focus effect better than any other tiltshift apps. It also adds really nice saturation and contrast to an image. |

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Your camera bag will probably look a lot different than mine and there are new apps being released all the time that push the envelope of what you can do creatively on the iPhone. Find what works best for you and have fun!

Does your iPhone Camera Bag look different than mine? Share some of your faves in the comments below.

Unless indicated, nearly every image I’ve shot on this site has been shot with my iPhone and processed on my iPhone with one or more of the above apps.

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However, reader Matt Fragale shared his update experience in a talkback on Life In LoFi’s Facebook page:

“Actually, Marty… I pulled mine off when I thought it was done, but then realized I didn’t have all my apps and stuff. I plugged it back in and it popped up an error to tell me it hadn’t finished and then asked if I wanted to continue. I clicked yes and it went on its merry way with nothing lost at all.”

My iPhone is now updated. All in-app photo albums restored. I didn’t lose any Hipstamatic lenses in the update. Now, to take iOS 5 for a shakedown….

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FiLMiC Pro is billed as “THE Filmmaker’s App.” It adds features specifically for videographers which improve the video production experience on the iPhone. FiLMiC Pro is a full-featured video camera designed with the videographer in mind. There’s everything you could want in here to shoot some pretty serious raw video. It’s got separate focus and exposure targets, white balance lock, a user-switchable rule of thirds grid. It’s a pretty spiffy video app. You can read my review here. I liked it a lot and it’s still averaging over four stars in the App Store user reviews.

FiLMiC Pro is on sale now for only $0.99 – that’s $2.00 off the regular price. This is a limited time sale for this outstanding full-featured, video camera app. It’s not on sale for this price often. This is a great chance to grab it if you’ve missed previous sales.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.1 or later.

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Both versions recently got a big 2.0 update. Now, both the iPhone and iPad versions are free in the App Store. Click past the jump to read more about these apps and a warning from the developer if you’re upgrading from version 1. >>>

The recently released Grungetastic 2.0 is a major upgrade that is rewritten and redesigned from the ground up. It still retains all the power of version 1 with major additions. There are now over 140 “Grungies” that include scratches, grainy, blotches, texture, etc. You can print directly from the app with AirPrint-enabled devices. Version 2.0 has a huge 400% speed improvement on rendering in preview and final full resolution image. The update features an all-new UI that includes categorized grungies and categorized presets

Version 2.0 lets you randomize the effect on a global or per effect basis. The new 2.0.1 update just released tweaks the randomize slightly to allow some less drastic looks to show up while still randomly getting drastic looks as well.

If you are updating to 2.0.1 over an install of version 1.0.1, updating will erase all of your presets. Jixipix suggests that if you need your presets then do not update the app. Updating from 2.0 to 2.01 will retain your 2.0 presets.

Both the iPhone and iPad versions of the app are free right now in the App Store, however the new in-app purchases of additional grunge textures will set you back $0.99 for each new set. I’m not sure if this is a permanent price drop, so grab them both now.

Grungetastic is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later. |

Grungetastic HD for iPad is compatible with iPad only. Requires iOS 4.3 or later. |

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CamCam
Version: 1.1
Price: $2.99

Bottom Line: Good, but not very good. Great looking filters for both stills and video. Supports full-res. Needs more frames. It’s not a fast app.

Camera+Camcorder = CamCam. I get it. Catchy name. And I like the icon.

CamCam is a new effects camera from CnC with 30 film, camera and color effects and 7 frames. See below for a list of all 30 effects. All effects preview in speedy realtime, which is pretty cool. The rest of the app doesn’t feel as snappy, but it’s still an interesting app.

CamCam has 30 different film and color effects. You can either swipe through them onscreen or choose them from a pop up menu — complete with a live preview. The live preview gives you a splitscreen-style look at several effects at once.

The effects are named after an impressive collection of retro analog cameras, including many that aren’t often found in photo apps, such as the SMENA Symbol, Luvitel 166+, as well as the standard Holga and Diana cameras. There are several vintage looks as well, as well as several other color tweaks. It’s a good collection of effects. Overall, effects are what you’d expect from a retro camera, but a few effects to me are less accurate than others in digitally recreating their analog counterparts. For instance, photographs I’ve seen from a real-world SMENA aren’t nearly as sepia-heavy…. Some of the filters aren’t accurate “recreations” per se, but more like “tributes.”

Colors are good, though. They’re rich and nicely saturated. Some of the filters even have really cool randomly applied dust, grain and scratches.

Frames are well rendered. Sadly, there are only seven of them. I hope future updates add a greater variety of frames to match the effects.

All effects and all frames are available on all three cameras — rear, front and video. Video, when using one of the filters, even has a retro 8mm style flickering frame which looks good, especially for video, but adds a little needed randomness to the stills as well.

CamCam is slow slow. It takes a few seconds longer to load than most photo apps. Refresh time is pretty long, too. On my iPhone 4, refresh time was about 5 seconds between snaps — despite the fact that CamCam buffers images to complete processing in the background. Also, the app was sometimes cranky, sometimes locking up while processing a large video.

The separate focus and exposure targets are a little crankier than other apps. I didn’t really figure it out so much as I got lucky when I was able to get a lock. Target locks don’t stick when you change filters.

Also, it’s a camera only. You can’t load images from your camera roll to take advantage of its great filters. CamCam saves to its own library, much in the same way Camera+ does. I like that particular workflow as it lets me thin out images and helps to reduce camera roll clutter.

CamCam supports full 5MP iPhone 4 resolution and saves a bunch of EXIF data. The onscreen controls adjust to any orientations, making CamCam compatible with any iPhone tripod available, including the left-handed Gymbl tripod.

It’s fun but flawed. The filters look good and I like the live preview. It’s not a fast shooter. I don’t think it was intended to be. Like many of the classic Lo-Fi and toy cameras it mimics. For some, it might not be worth the three dollars. For others, it’s a fun diversion.

We’ll keep an eye on this one and let you know if it goes on sale.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.1 or later.

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CAMCAM STANDARD EQUIPMENT
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•Scene
Normal
Baby Face effect
Darken effect
Color Dodge effect
Faded effect
Text effect
•Color
Cross Process effect
Redscale effect
Lomographic effect
Goth effect
Duo Sepia effect
Silver Gelatin effect
•Analog
Diana effect
Kieb 16a effect
Ronda effect
SMENA 35 effect
HOLGA effect
Luvitel 166+ effect
•Fashion
Aqua Sapphire effect
Nashville effect
Early Bird effect
Newage effect
Skyline effect
Cyanotype effect
•Retro
1920 effect
XPro effect
Super 8mm effect
‘70s effect
Golden Age effect
Pinhole effect

•Frame
Full Frame
Square frame
White frame
Date frame
Vignetting frame
Flickering frame

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LensFlare

The LensFlare 7.2 update was recently released with a few new features. The app has two new flares and is now iPhone 5 ready.

The two new flares are Energy Wave and Plasma Wave. Both are well done, natural looking lens aberrations.

Previously, due to limitations in the iOS, LensFlare’s great looking effects maxed out at 2048×2048 px — smaller than the full-res of an iPhone 4.

The new version 7.2 ups that and more. The app now supports 3072×3072 px — 9.4 megapixels. Not only is the app now iPhone 5-ready with its anticipated 8 MP resolution, LensFlare supports the larger file sizes on the iPhone 4 as well. I’m not sure how it does on older iPhones as I don’t have a device for testing.

Life In LoFi has confirmed that BrainFeverMedia’s other apps, LensFlare HD for iPad and the excellent LensLight will also be receiving 9.4 MP support in updates coming very soon. Updates are in review in the App Store.

LensFlare is only $0.99 in the App Store. It’s old iPhone friendly. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later

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The app is normally $0.99. It’s FREE right now in the App Store for a limited time. This is for the full version of Camera360 Ultimate, not a feature-limited lite version. There’s no mention of this freebie in the App Description, so I’m thinking it won’t last long. This is a good chance to try the app and see how one of the premier photo apps for Android works.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

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11:52am (lunch time!) by Tosha. Shot with an iPhone 5? (photo courtesy of ars technica)

ars technica blog recently posted a photo of sushi allegedly shot with an iPhone by an Apple engineer and posted to his Flickr account. What’s special about this iPhone photo is that according to the photo’s EXIF data, it was cropped down from an original size of 3264 x 2448 pixels — 8 megapixels, the rumored resolution of the next generation iPhone camera.

An 8MP iPhone camera has been the subject of speculation for some time now. The news isn’t much of a surprise. The other goodies uncovered in the ars technica post are.

The ars technica post, “”Leaked” photo suggests the iPhone 5 camera won’t be much of an upgrade” by Chris Foresman does an excellent job of breaking down the EXIF data as well as analyzing the two possible sensor units that could have produced the image.

The EXIF data I found particularly interesting. If the data is genuine, the new camera will have a maximum aperture of f/2.4. The current iPhone 4 has a maximum aperture of f/2.8. Foresman suggests that the improvement in aperture was necessary to compensate for a decrease in the light sensitivity of the new sensor. The iPhone 4 currently has a nice dynamic range with good sensitivity in low light. Despite the improved aperture, the smaller pixels of the new sensor may mean slightly more noisier images than the iPhone 4. That’s good for digital lo-fi — a step back for iPhoneographers wanting to improve the quality of their images. I like the larger aperture. It means that the camera can capture more light. But it’s like shooting with slower film if the new, physically smaller sensors lack the sensitivity to record it.

The post also mentions that the new camera has a longer focal length. This means that iPhoneographers will no longer enjoy as wide a field of view as they currently do on an iPhone 4. You can read my previous post on the iPhone 4′s wider field of view here. If the post is accurate, the new camera will frame images a little tighter — closer to the tighter crop of the iPhone 2G and 3G cameras.

The post has much much more is an excellent and detailed read on the possible new camera. To me, Chris Foresman’s research is sound and I think this story is very solid speculation. We find out for certain in about a month.

Read the entire post, ““Leaked” photo suggests the iPhone 5 camera won’t be much of an upgrade” by Chris Foresman on the ars technica blog.

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“Best Served Cold” – FiLMiC Pro Action Promo from FiLMiC Pro on Vimeo.

Click the embed above to watch a short film — a fake action film trailer that was shot entirely with an iPhone 4 and iPhone videography app FiLMiC Pro. It’s a cool short film that does a great job of showcasing many of FiLMiC Pro’s capabilities. Honestly, it’s also better than a lot of the theatrical releases I’ve seen recently.

I’ve previously reviewed FiLMiC Pro. I think it’s the standard for iPhone videography.

Not only did they use an iPhone, but they used a wide range of support hardware while shooting, including a Steadicam Smoothee, Gymbl Pro, GorillaPod, Manfrotto monopod with a Glif, and an elevated skateboard dolly with 16 feet of track. Sound was captured to the iPhone primarily through laveliers connected to a KV connector. The Glif, Joby GorillaPod, and the Gymbl Pro by YOUBIQ are all fairly affordable camera mounting solutions for these types of productions.

While I doubt we’ll see any Hollywood blockbusters shot exclusively on an iPhone, with minimal investment in hardware, FiLMiC Pro seems like a good choice for shooting anything from hobby films, music video, or independent productions.

FiLMiC Pro is $2.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.1 or later.

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Disclosure: We are an Amazon Associate and get a small spiff from any sales generated from the click-throughs on this page. That’s not why I singled these three products out. I actually use them. =M=

Noir, full screen mode

I bought my copy of Noir Photo by Red Giant Software the day the app was released – no promo copy for me. To this day, I think it’s three dollars well spent. Noir Photo lets you convert your images into luscious, classic, cinematic black & white and then adjust the vignette to “light” the image or draw attention to one element of the photo. You can read my review of the previous version here.

Noir just got an update. While not a major one, it adds a couple of good, new features to the app.

The big new feature is fullscreen editing. Touch the spot at the top right of the control panel and the image fills up the screen to give you a larger canvas to work with. You still have access to the six presets, but the control dials are now hidden. Another touch quickly and easily returns you to standard view. It’s a left-handed fill, though. The screen rotates so that the home button is on the left side of the screen, not the right.

Noir now also preserves EXIF data including camera and geotag info. Be sure to let the app access the iPhone’s location services.

While not a huge update, this is a good reason to talk about Noir again. While expensive for this class of app, Noir quickly and easily creates rich and cinematic monochrome effects.

Noir Photo is $2.99 in the App Store. Noir is a universal app. It’ll run great on any iOS device including iPad. Requirements say compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later, but the app description says it requires iOS 4.2.

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It’s on sale now for a limited time for only $0.99 – that’s a dollar off the regular price. This sale is only good through the weekend, and this is for the brand new updated version of the app. It’s got a huge variety of filters and it’s from a great developer who regularly updates the app. It’s easily worth its normal price. FX Photo Studio is a steal for a dollar.

FX Photo Studio is normally $1.99 in the App Store and is on sale for a limited time. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

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Photo Mixer for iPhone 4 – Mix your photos
Version 1.0
Price: $2.99

Bottom Line: Expensive for an app. Doesn’t work properly. Doesn’t do much when it does. A horrible app.

I really don’t like shredding apps. I’d rather just ignore bad apps and hope they disappear on their own. But some apps are so bad, they should come with warning labels.

Consider this a warning label for Photo Mixer for iPhone 4. I dropped three bucks so you don’t have to.

The app’s description says “This photo enhancing application for iiPhone 4 contains dozens of different effects that you can apply to your photos in incredible and fun way!” Other than that, the app’s description is pretty vague as to what these effects are.

As far as “mixing” photos, all this app seems to do on my iPhone 4 is crash or add noise. And, Photo Mixer doesn’t really add much noise to an image, although you can hit the Mix button repeatedly to stack the effect. The noise it does add is really ugly noise – the kind I try to avoid, not the really cool-looking, monochromatic, faux-film grain. There is no control over the noise effects and no other “random photo effects” that I was able to generate after several tries.

The camera and photo import screens prompt you to crop the image square, which doesn’t work. The image is still processed and saved in a 4:3 aspect ratio no matter how you crop and zoom your image. Portrait images are rotated and saved 90° when processing. Maybe that’s one of the “random photo effects.”

I don’t get the big deal made about the knives. If this were a slice-and-dice distortion app, I’d understand. But the knives theme seems very out of place in this app and is pretty annoying.

Asking $2.99 for this app is a rip-off for what Photo Mixer does and for all the things it doesn’t do. For about $3, you can choose from plenty of other apps that add noise to an image much much better than this one – and have a ton of other functions as well. And there are plenty of apps that crash that don’t cost $3.00.

A waste of money. Avoid this app.

(There’s also an iPad version of this app, Photo Mixer for iPad 2, for you to avoid as well.)

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

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Photo Mixer sample, effect applied four times

Photo Mixer effect. Detail of previous photo

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