App Review: Tangled FX

Let’s get straight to brass tax with this review. Tangled FX is like ShockMyPic on steroids. You can get very similar effects to ShockMyPic or you can create an image that looks like you spent hours on it in photoshop.

The first screen is the simple instructions that pop up on how to use Tangled FX. When you tap on open, you can open a photo, use the camera, copy an image from the clipboard, or use one of the sample images. The second screengrab is what you see after the image is opened and initially processed. There are 16 presets to choose from ranging from fibers, to the shockmypic look, to extreme processing that makes the original image unrecognizable.

In the options panel, I reommend using the advanced settings with the preview on. The preview size will vary depending on your device. Choose something in the middle for pretty fast rendering. The higher the resolution, the longer it will take for the image to process. With that in mind, you’ll want to fine tune the image on a lower resolution preview image before you process the high res version. In order to switch from the preview image to the high resolution image, you must tap the top middle button that shows the resolution and says “preview.”

I think the presets offer a great start and often times you’ll probably be happy with at least one of them. If you’re a perfectionist, like me, you can fine tune the settings by tapping on the tune button in the lower right hand corner.

The sliders might be hard to figure out at first, but after playing with them a bit you’ll be able to get work with them like you know what you’re doing. I still don’t know how to explain what each slider does, but I’ll try to share what I can at this point.

The effect scale factor is exactly what you think it is…it makes the overall effect larger or smaller. Think thicker or thinner fibers or swirls. I’ve found that the pre sharpen, sharpen size, and post sharpen size all offer better results when they’re under 5%. You can adjust the amounts to get more or less of the sharpening effect. The stroke size is the size of the fiber/brushstroke/swirl. Smudge size is used to smooth out the image and reduce harshness of an effect.

Pros

• You can achieve a wide variety of effects with one app.
• The size! It’s only 6.2MB at the time of this review.
• Being able to adjust your settings on a low res preview image saves a lot of time.

Cons

• I didn’t find the sliders to be the most intuitive.

Examples

Conclusion

I’m a big fan. The effects on animal photos are amazing to me. Since I can use Tangled FX to create a painterly image, a fiberous image, or an extremely edited version of my image, I can see this app replacing a few other similar apps that don’t offer as much variety as Tangled FX. Although this app is optimized for iPhone 5, I didn’t find myself annoyed by long save times or sluggish performance because of the ability to work on a low resolution preview image. Don’t forget to work on the preview image and then tap on the preview button at the top to switch to full resolution before you save! For the absolute best results, run Tangled FX, save your image, then make some subtle adjustments to brightness, contrast, and saturation, in your favorite image editor.

Rating: 5/5 I feel like I give quite a few apps a 5/5, but this one truly deserves it.

Price: 1.99

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G, iPad (3rd generation), iPad Wi-Fi + 4G, iPad (4th generation), iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (4th generation), iPad mini and iPad mini Wi-Fi + Cellular. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

***Full disclosure, I did not pay for this app, I asked for a promo code so I could review it. I’m not being offered any compensation for this review. ***

http://www.orangeqube.com/tangledfx/index.html

App Review: Aquarella

Aquarella is yet another interesting app by JixiPix. They’ve made other apps that I recommend, such as Dramatic BW, SimplyHDR, and PhotoArtista Oil. There’s a lot to like about Aquarella, and a couple of things that bug me. Let’s take a look at their familiar user interface. (You can click on the images to see them larger.)

   

    

Just like in their other apps, JixiPix provides the user with a lot of presets. The 32 Aquarella Presets will apply a watercolor effect while keeping the colors roughly the same. The 28 TwoTone presets will change the image into a watercolor using two tones instead of all that are present in the original. When working on a two tone image, there is a tone panel where you can choose the two tones you want to use.

   

If you want to make your own adjustments, or fine tune a preset, tap on the adjust button on the bottom to bring up this panel. The color panel is where a lot of the heavy lifting is done. By adjusting the details, you can get a image with a subtle painterly effect to an image that looks like a rough watercolor. The color detail slider affects how much overall detail is in the image by adding or subtracting the range of colors. The enhancing colors slider adjusts the saturation. Wet Edge Strength adjusts the thickness of the line between colors. Wet Edge Detail also affects the amount of detail in the image. To me it acts like the clarity slider in photoshop or lightroom.

Texture is the paper style that image is painted on. It varies from subtle to a very noticeable canvas.

    

The wash and Bloom panels both make the image appear more like a watercolor. Think of the Wash as overlaying color on your image. It will change the color in your image slightly, or quite a bit, depending on what the Color Strength and Color Shift are set to. There are an incredible 63 choices in the wash panel.

The bloom is basically adding a texture to the image that makes it look like a watercolor. Some of the bloom overlays have drips or splatters to make it look like someone actually painted it. You can adjust the opacity of the bloom by adjusting the Bloom Strength. If you switch from normal to reverse, it basically inverts the white to black and black to white, giving you even more variety to the 41 textures to choose from.

The Share panel has a number of features to note. First, in the settings panel, you can choose to save your images as low, medium, or high. I always choose high. You can also save your settings as a preset and name it so you can use the same settings in the future. There are buttons to share directly to facebook, twitter, and tumblr. The app will render the image for those mediums, which takes some time.

Gripes

Not everything was perfect with this app for me. The loading and saving were very slow. They do admit that the app is optimized for the iPhone 5, so thats probably my issue. I’m using an iPhone4, so I’m sure its faster on the newer models. I tested the loading speed multiple times, with the slowest being 37 seconds before it even began to render the image for the first time. The fastest loading time for me was 20 seconds. It seems like 27 seconds is about the average time. In an age of instant gratification, this is a lifetime haha. The save times were much worse. The first few times I saved an image I thought it was taking way too long, so I decided to time it. After a number of tests, 2 minutes seems to be the average time it takes to save a hi-res image.

Examples

These are examples that I created. The last one is an example of a two tone preset.

    

Conclusion

The results are great for an easy to use app. Its fun to play with and theres a lot of room for customization. The wash and bloom overlays are where you’ll be able to really make your photo look like a watercolor. This is an app that can save your photos that might be a little out of focus by turning them into a lovely painting. If you enjoy turning your photos into paintings, Aquarella is an excellent app to pick up.

Rating   5/5 I can forgive the sluggishness because my phone is considered somewhat old now.

Price   2.99 for the iPhone and iPad. Currently 7.99 for the Mac.

Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

***Full disclosure, I did not pay for this app, I asked for a promo code so I could review it. I’m not being offered any compensation for this review. ***

Foolproof

Last month, a friend of mine sent me a painterly image and told me to check out this app called Foolproof Art Studio for iPhone. There is a free version that you can play with. I was lucky enough to get the paid version while it was available for free.

Basically, you import your photo and make all of the strokes with your finger, or try the auto mode. Its very simple, you can adjust the brush size and the paint effect, and then go to work. It even saves a video of you creating your painting if you’d like to watch it back or share it.

I have a few apps that turn photos into paintings. Foolproof delivers the ability to create some dreamy paintings. I’ll be keeping this app on my phone for a while

App Review: Hueless

There was a time where I only shot black and white film. If you shoot enough black and white, or constantly convert your images to black and white, you begin to actually see the world in a new way. I remember I use to be able to look at the scene in front of me and immediately see what it was like in black and white. Then I went digital and got into HDR, which is more how I see the world today.

Hueless is a great black and white camera app. Instead of having to imagine what the world looks like in black and white, this camera will give you a live preview. Not only that, but it has a couple of features that practically lets you edit while you shoot. Theres a slider on the left of the screen that acts as exposure compensation, effectively allowing you to brighten or darken your image before you press the shutter. If you ever want it to go back to 0, just double tap the slider.

The other great feature of Hueless are the colored filters, which is the icon in the top left corner. If you’ve ever been in the darkroom, you know what these are good for. Try experimenting with the different colors while shooting and see what a dramatic difference they can make. When you select a colored filter, there will be a slider on the right side that allows you to adjust the opacity of the filters.

If you feel like the screen is too cluttered, you can always just tap on the Hueless film roll in the bottom left corner and your view will be unobstructed.

The sharing features seem a little odd to me. You can email, tweet and post to instagram, but only if you allow location services. If you don’t you won’t have access to the camera roll in Hueless. Thats not really a big deal though because all of the images are also saved to your main camera roll.

Examples

None of these are edited with any other apps. I imagine you could get even more out of your photos if you touched them up just a little more. I know my examples aren’t the best I’ve ever included in an app review. I haven’t had time to shoot with this app as much as I’d like, which is why I included Keisuke’s photos as well.

You can overexpose images on purpose by increasing brightness before you shoot.

Below are examples from Keisuke Takahashi, a fantastic iphoneographer in Japan. I met him on Tadaa, where his username is TokyoGyango. Here is his flickr page.

Conclusion

Hueless is great for black and white photography. Its simple to use and post processing isn’t always necessary if you set things up before you take the shot. As with most cameras and apps, this may take some practice before you really master it. My only gripe with the app is the location of the shutter button when holding it in portrait orientation. It just feels awkward. Overall though, Hueless makes for a great black and white camera.

Rating: 5/5

Price: $1.99

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

***Full disclosure, I did not pay for this app, I asked for a promo code so I could review it. I’m not being offered any compensation for this review. ***

App Review: ShockMyPic

 

ShockMyPic is an app I’ve seen a few other people use to make some cool photos, so I had to get my hands on it and see what it was all about. This app is incredibly simple and provides great painterly effects. There is also a very similar Mac version that I’ll be reviewing soon.

 

App Review: NIR Color

NIR Color is another app by JixiPix. The main screen is just like their other apps, dramatic BW, PhotoArtista Oil, etc. There are presets of color combinations that they think make for interesting looks. There are also some easy to use sliders to fine tune your image. I like how jixipix keeps the same user interface for the majority of their apps. It makes it easy to pick up and use if you’ve tried their others.

 

 

     

App Review: PhotoArtista Oil

PhotoArtista oil is another excellent app from Jixipix. It does a great job of turning your photos into oil paintings. There are a number of presets in different categories ranging from realistic to abstract. The lower you scroll down in the presets, the more abstract the presets get. If you prefer more control, you can fine tune your painting with the sliders.

App Review: PhotoViva

PhotoViva is an app that allows you to turn your images into paintings with total control. Instead of selecting a filter to achieve a certain look, you choose brushes and paint each stroke. This allows for endless creative possibilities. Not only can you use this app to turn your photos into paintings, but you can also use it just for painting in general.

App Review: A-HDR

A-HDR is an app used to create pseudo HDR images by applying filters/presets to a single photo. A lot of the filters are, in my opinion, a good way to overprocess your image. Having said that, there are a couple that seem to work well on the right image. The good thing about A-HDR is you have the ability to make your own adjustments before or after applying a filter/preset.

 

Easy mode is where you can choose a filter/preset to apply to your image.

App Review: Simply HDR

Simply HDR by JixiPix is an app that you can use to create pseudo HDR images, which are HDR-like images from a single photo. It’s the same easy user interface as one of their other apps I reviewed, Dramatic BW.

You can choose to start out by selecting a style from one of five categories: High Dynamic Range, Black and White, Contrasted HDR, Contrasted Light, and Shadows and Light. Each category has a number of presets you can apply to the image. I’ll share an example from each category.

Dark Contrasted from High Dynamic Range.

Contrasty from Black and White.

Dark Sky from Contrasted HDR.

You can also make your own adjustments with the few sliders available. Adjust the highlights, shadows, and add a vignette, grain, or tint. Looking at the presets made me think there would be a contrast or detail slider, but they’re missing. I think you have to add grain to bring out texture in the image. There are different styles of grain you can apply, making me think they’re to be thought of as textures. There are also a lot of different tints you can overlay on top of the image to change the color a bit.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can randomize the settings by tapping the dice in the top right of the app.

Early Sunrise from Contrasted Light.

Sunset from Shadows and Light.

Pros

• Very good selection of presets.
• Ability to make adjustments at any point of the workflow.

 

Cons

• There are very few adjustment sliders making me wonder how all of the looks in the presets are achieved.
• Lack of a contrast or detail slider.
• Vignette tool is kind of ugly.

 

Conclusion

I’ll be keeping Simply HDR and using it once in a while because it does a really good job compared to similar apps. Simply HDR provides a lot of useable presets, making this app very easy to use. My only suggestion to the developer would be to provide previews on the presets of the image being worked on instead of unrelated images.

 

Rating:     5/5

Price:        $0.99 for iphone, $1.99 for iPad, 5.99 for Mac

***Full disclosure, I did not pay for this app, I asked for a promo code so I could review it. I’m not being offered any compensation for this review. ***

http://www.jixipix.com/simplyHDR/simplyHDR.html

App Review: Photoforge2

Photoforge2 is a photo editing app I’ve been meaning to review for a while. It just got updated the other day which made me want to dive in again and see if it was better than the last time I looked at it. There are a lot of features, but not many that stand out as exceptional compared to other apps.

App Review: Dramatic Black and White

I’ll admit it, I’m spoiled by photoshop CS5 and all the awesome plugins I have. I keep trying to find apps that come close to those photoshop plugins, at least in terms of flexibility. When it comes to black and white conversion, nobody can touch Silver Efex Pro2 in my opinion. Thats what I want on the iphone. Dramatic Black and White comes closer than the others and is the best black and white app I’ve used to date.

The UI is clean and straightforward. You can choose a preset from 3 different styles and there are  a lot to choose from. If you’re feeling lucky you can tap the dice in the top right to get a random effect. If you like control, you can adjust everything even after choosing a preset. There aren’t a lot of controls,  but enough to make a difference. Especially useful is the ability to adjust red, blue, and green values.

 

Oddly enough, my favorite feature of the app is the spotlight (vignette.) You can adjust the size, shape, center, and opacity. Its the most versatile vignette tool I’ve seen so far. I’ll let you in on the real reason I’m geeked about it in another post.

There isn’t really anything else to cover, the app is really that simple. This is the first image created with the app. I didn’t edit with anything else beforehand because I wanted to showcase this app alone. When used with other apps, I think the results would be even greater.

 

Conclusion

Dramatic Black and White is more versatile than Simply B&W or other apps where black and white conversion is an afterthought. This is definitely an app that I’ll be keeping on my iphone and using not only for black and white photos, but also for more complex color photo edits with layer blending apps.

Rating:    5/5

Price:     $1.99

Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.2 or later. Also available on Mac.

***Full disclosure, I did not pay for this app, I asked for a promo code so I could review it. I’m not being offered any compensation for this review. ***

App Review: Filterstorm

I’ve had a few weeks to play with Filterstorm now and I still don’t feel completely comfortable using it. Its a deep app that others have said is like photoshop in your pocket. It certainly appears to be a powerful app, if you can master it, but there is a steep learning curve. This isn’t an app that I’d recommend for beginners. If you’re a professional photographer, or someone that has a grasp of most of photoshop’s features, I’d say give Filterstorm a try. No matter what level you’re at, watching the tutorial is a must!

App Review: PhotoToaster

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve used PhotoToaster in some recent images. I have to say its great when you don’t feel like editing everything manually. There are some great filters included and you also have the ability to fine tune them after applying them.

If you want to get everything done in one click, you can choose the little globe icon on the bottom left and select the global preset you want. If you’d like a little more control, you can apply filters in up to 5 different categories including: lighting, effects, vignette, textures, borders. If you want to do everything manually, just select one of those categories and instead of applying a filter, you can switch to sliders mode and make your own adjustments. When you’re done with all of your adjustments you can even save them and turn them into a preset filter.

This is what the layout looks like.

Here is a look at some global presets. There are 4 different categories that you can access by touching the dial in the bottom left corner. They are basic, deluxe, supreme, and your presets.

Pros

• Great textures
• Good variety of nice borders
• You can make your own filters/presets
• Very easy to use and can be enjoyed by users of all levels

Cons

• The vignettes aren’t appealing to me
• Lack of a noise reduction feature

 

This is my most recent image edited with PhotoToaster.

 

Conclusion

This is a great alternative to customizable filter apps like Magic Hour and Process. I actually prefer this one over those because of the ease of use and beautiful results. I think its well worth the price to keep as an option for quick editing.

Rating:    5/5

Price:      $1.99

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

***Full disclosure, I did not pay for this app, I asked for a promo code so I could review it. I’m not being offered any compensation for this review. ***

App Review: AntiCrop

I still remember the first time I saw the video for AntiCrop. It looked like it was capable of doing amazing things. The video showed the app doing the same thing as content aware fill in photoshop by extending the image. AntiCrop is from the makers of TouchRetouch and since I was so impressed with that app, that I received via promotional code, I bought this one.

I really wanted to buy AntiCrop the first time I saw the video, but there were some negative reviews complaining about consistency. I’m here to tell you that the complaints were accurate. This app does do some great things once in a while, but its way too inconsistent and seems to struggle much more often than succeed. Perhaps if you use TouchRetouch to fix the mistakes AntiCrop makes, this app could be useable.

 

 

Start out by loading a photo or taking one with the in app camera, which is the same as the default camera.If you load a photo, you can choose between 3 sizes.

Once the photo is loaded you simply drag the border that you wish to extend. Its that simple. After a moment the app will try to fill in the new area with similar data.

Thats really all there is to AntiCrop. Have a look at my test results below.

The images that worked.

I have to say it did a good job at continuing the slope of Shasta with just a little unnatural pattern in the hill on the left and the repetition of the cows.

 

The failed images. I recommend clicking on the extended versions to inspect them yourself. You’ll likely find unnatural patterns and objects in places they aren’t suppose to be.

There are some floating leaves and branches.

This is a trainwreck.

 

Conclusion

I had a 33% success rate, thats not anywhere near passing in school or the world of iphone apps. I have a feeling it would have been even lower had I tried to use this on other images.

I like the idea for the app, but how often do you find yourself needing to extend your image? In its current state, it’s not worth the price to see it work once in a while.

 

Rating:     2/5

Price:        0.99    

Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad.Requires iOS 3.1 or later