Reviews

Kevin, Roving reporter

Guide to Essential Photo Apps

The perks of having a smartphone are amazing. The ability to take professional photographs and film in full high definition video has never been cheaper. This gives the power back to everyday citizens. You no longer need to do a three-year photography course to understand the basics of making a nice-looking photo.

This is an app guide for the smartphone user who chooses to capture the beauty in life.

Camera +

($1.99)

This is essentially an upgrade for your regular iPhone camera, but don’t think that means you only get a few filters. Camera + is packed with different modes to give the best picture possible. It gives you features like touch focus to highlight the most important part of your photo, plus shooting modes like stabiliser (steady shots), timer (timed shots), and rapid (multiple shots). The option to add a grid or zoom up to 6x into the photo makes taking pictures much more convenient. But that's only what you can do before you take your photo!

Once you take the photo Camera + has an amazing array of photo-edit features. You can crop your photos. Give them a border. Add a scene mode to adjust the lighting. Add an effect from a load of options, ranging from classic effects to modern colour-changing filters. After you finish editing the photo, you can save it to your camera roll or upload it to Facebook or Twitter.

Normally priced at $1.99, the app goes on special at $0.99 regularly. It's definitely worth the money if you want to add more professionalism to your photos.

5 out of 5

Diptic

($0.99)

Diptic gives you the ability to add multiple photos into one picture. It’s very easy to navigate and there are a range of layouts you can choose from, like one photo on the top and two at the bottom, or three photos on the left, one at the right... The choice of layouts is set out in a box formation, with plenty of pre-loaded selections as well.

Once you choose a layout, you can select which photos to put into that layout, choosing them from your camera or from Facebook or Flickr. You can adjust the photos' brightness and contrast, and the size of the photo. If the size of the box is too small, you can adjust that as well. Making borders is the highlight of the app and most likely why you’ll buy it. You can choose the roundness, the colour, and also the thickness of the border.

Diptic does cost $0.99, but is well worth it if you’re looking to import multiple photos into one picture. It’s a simple, user-friendly app that complements your photos. Photo collages and contrasting pictures featuring different angles of an object are made easy with Diptic. The only disappointment is that there could be a better range of borders, especially as other apps are being developed that do utilise more borders.

4 out of 5

Pic Collage

(Free)

The only photo app that’s free and that is both useful and remotely different is Pic Collage. Simply put, this is an app where you can choose x amount of photos and spread them all over the page. Just tap anywhere to start applying photos. Pinch to zoom in and out. Use two fingers and tilt the photo side-to-side.

You can select photos from your photostream, Facebook profile and even from the web. You can change the background to any of the default backgrounds within Pic Collage. You can also add stickers and flashy texts to your collages.

Pic Collage is a free app that’s easy to use and a good app to put a bundle of photo memories into one picture. It's not essential, but it's a great addition to your iPhone.

4 out of 5

iMovie

($4.99)

This is a condensed version of the iMac and Macbook application. The iMovie app provides simple video editing for your clips on your iPhone. If you’re looking for a quick snip-and-combine for your videos, iMovie is perfect, but those who actually want a decent amount of professionalism will be disappointed.

iMovie has some buttons that will confuse some people, but once you get used to it you’ll become more efficient.

iMovie makes good use of the touch ability. Sliding your finger down a clip will cut that clip. Pinch and zoom for a closer look at your footage. These are simple functions that make it easier to edit on your iPhone. It also includes the ability to add a soundtrack or record a voiceover with the iPhone mic itself. There are also some pre-loaded themes. Once your movie is edited, you have the option to upload it onto the internet, email it or save it to your iPhone.

At $4.99 the iMovie app is a bit of stretch. This app is free on Macs but you have to pay $4.99 for the iPhone version? If you have a computer or Mac with basic editing software you can probably use that instead. Either way, if you want an on-the-go video editing app, pick up iMovie. If you don't, I wouldn't lose sleep over not buying this app.

3 out of 5

ColorSplash

($1.99)

This photo app gives you the ability to isolate the colour of a certain object in any photo. The best part is that there are built in video tutorials that show you how to use everything. Watching these tutorials is the best way to get the best experience from this nifty app. What makes it really great is the beautiful interface. It’s very uncluttered and clean.

ColorSplash lets you choose a photo from your camera roll. It then turns the background grey and lets you re-paint the colour onto the picture. With the ability to zoom in and out of the photo, you can easily colour the edges. There are also four different paintbrushes (hard edged, soft edged, opaque, and transparent) to choose from.

Usually selling for $1.99, ColorSplash regularly goes on sale for $0.99, so it’s best to wait for a sale. It's definitely an app for artistic photo lovers. Extremely easy to use and very fun, this app will not disappoint.

5 out of 5

Some Photo App Advice

Finally, here's some things to consider and watch out for when buying photo apps:

• A lot of the free photo and video apps require you to upgrade for either ad-free or the full version.
• If you can wait, a lot of the apps priced over $1.99 go on sale regularly.
• Read the reviews and star ratings carefully if you are unsure about an unpopular or unfamiliar photo app.

Have fun experimenting with these apps - I hope they bring out the creative artist within you!

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