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VintageScene
Version 1.1
Price: $1.99
Bottom Line: Photos processed with VintageScene have the right look and feel of the period. These look real.
Update 12.17.12: Here for the Vintage Scene App Sale? The app is on sale for a limited time right now for only $0.99. This is my original review of the app from about two years ago. The app has been updated an improved from here! App Store link is at the bottom of the post. =M=
There are many photo apps which add classic camera, retro, and toy camera looks and textures to iPhone photos. These apps can make your iPhoneography look old. VintageScene by JixiPix Software makes your photography look ancient. For making your photography look authentically aged, VintageScene is a great app.
VintageScene combines several classic effects — sepia tone, grain, darkened edges, distressed paper, along with the look of fade that with time has left behind an image with only bright blacks and darkening whites.
The app is easy to use. Images can be taken within the app or loaded from your photo library. VintageScene does not save your original image when using the app’s built-in camera.
The main work screen is uncluttered. While the effect presets are great in themselves, the effects are also highly customizable using any of the three control screens accessible by the small buttons at the bottom of the main screen. There are 16 preset effects. All of them look authentically old.
The effects range from faded sepia to tintype to daguerreotype and several others. All of the effects give images the authentic look of photographs that are at least 100 years old. Textures are rich and authentic, as are the colors (or lack of) and tonal qualities of the conversions. All of the effects, color conversions and textures are seamlessly rendered. The end result is a beautiful looking antiqued photograph.
Compared to Pic Grunger, another “photo aging” app, the effects are more refined. VintageScene is what you expect photos from your great-great-grandparents to look like. Pic Grunger is more street — grittier, dirtier, more stressed and beat up.
JixiPix did an incredible job on these filters. All of them recreate very well the look of ancient, stressed and early photography. The detail these filters render is impressive. The colors of the various styles rendered are recreated nicely. Great care was taken to get the details right and it shows in the effects. Essentially, images processed with VintageScene have the right look and feel of the period. These look real.
Fade, image strength, and texture can easily be changed and adjusted to customize the effects. I found that the presets did an excellent job with little or no adjusting most of the time.
VintageScene is solid. It never crashed during my tests. It supports high-resolution saves on your iPhone or iPod Touch — up to a huge 12MP on an iPhone 4. There’s also a separate iPad version which also supports 12MP resolutions.
Original image. Click to enlarge
VintageScene has a fairly fast workflow upfront and is coded so that previews render quickly — an essential feature with this app. VintageScene does its heavy lifting on the back end as it saves or exports. Rendering a full size image to my camera roll took over 2 minutes for a 5MP image on my 4. It’s doing a lot of work under the hood. Given the detail and richness of the effects, it’s understandable. Be prepared to wait when you save.
The look of ancient photographs isn’t for everyone, but for recreating the look of 19th century and early 20th century photography, VintageScene is an excellent and easy to use app for adding the look and qualities of very old classic photographs.
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Disclosure: For this review, we requested and received one promo code from the developer.
