iPhone photo app PhotoToaster is a great, easy to use image editing app that makes fast and easy color and luminance tweaks as well as quickly applying effects from a selection of presets. The new PhotoToaster 3.0 update was just released and adds new tools and features that improve this already very good photo app.
To celebrate the update, PhotoToaster is on sale now for a limited time for only $0.99 — that’s half off.
The full list of new features and my thoughts on some of them after the jump. >>>
Before this update, PhotoToaster was already an excellent choice for many iPhonegraphers to quickly perform many everyday day photo scrubbing moves.
I helped to beta test version 3.0 of the app. My favorite new features are the powerful new lighting adjustments and noise reduction features.
The new lighting adjustments behave more like some of Photoshop CS’ photo adjustment tools. Rather than simply brighten overall, the new lighting adjustments are more selective and give much better results. Instead of blowing out your highlights when trying to lighten up dark areas and shadows, the new adjustments in PhotoToaster apply a smooter tweak and let you open up shadows while preserving the detail in your brighter areas. The one-click adjustments work well in many cases, but you rather than simply cranking the “Brightness” like in many other photo apps, you can adjust Exposure, Color Temperature and Lighten Shadows (kind of a gamma adjustment). Bottom line, your images look better and are more balanced.
The new noise reduction feature works well and even with the great cameras on the iPhone 4 and 4S, it’s a feature that’s still sometimes needed. The new NR feature in PhotoToaster reduces noise while doing a good job of preserving the details. In my tests, the noise reduction worked well in reducing just general noise from my iPhone 4S’ camera and low light noise in test images that were so dark I really shouldn’t have shot them. Check out the sample sky shots above for a good example of noise in everyday photos. PhotoToaster uses a more advanced NR algorithm than the image-softening, overall gaussian blur found in other noise reduction tools.
The app comes with plenty of one-click fast filter presets, which is one of the strengths of this PhotoToaster. The 3.0 update adds even more.
I already highly recommend PhotoToaster. This update improves an already great and very useful app. The new tools broaden the appeal and usefulness of the app. The speed and ease in which iPhoneographers can apply all types of everyday color and light adjustments make this a worthy addition to your camera bag.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.
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There are plenty of other new goodies in this update. Here’s the full “What’s New”:
Photo Adjustments
Professional level control over different lighting ranges
Lighten Shadows, Recover Highlights, Lighten Midtones
Intensity adjustment to create dramatic effects
Blacks adjustment
New and modified presets that use the new settings including Clarify, Bleach Bypass, Sketch, Dynamic HDR, Dramatic
60 global presets
Noise reduction using sophisticated bilateral filtering algorithms
Remove noise or smooth skin imperfections
Photo Management Improvements
Recent List that stores recent edit sessions for easy retrieval
Support for saving and viewing location, exif and other image metadata
Select specific photo albums during save
Automatically save originals of camera photos to library
Misc
Recent settings added to My Presets list
Several adjustments were made twice as fast
Rule of thirds crop grid
More Crop aspect ratios
Finer control over sharpen
Higher resolution borders
Soft focus vignette honors main adjustment settings
Load full size camera kit imported images on iPad
Direct printing to AirPrint capable printers
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