Just a small disclaimer before you even start reading: 1) I'm still counting this as my Wednesday blog, even if I didn't manage to post it before the clock struck midnight (this took more effort and time than I first thought) and b) I am including photos of myself in this blog for educational purposes (please excuse the silly faces!).
Yesterday I blogged about Instagram, today I thought I would share my favorite iPhone camera apps. While I will never claim to be an expert on the subject, I am always looking for new and fun camera apps to use in my everyday life. Usually I try not to pay for any of my apps because I am never sure which apps I will actually use on a day to day basis and I don't have any spare change to waste on applications. However, if I use an app almost everyday I would never consider it a waste which is why I am recommending the apps that cost money first.
Paid Apps:
Hipstamatic to me is the app that is the most fun. It takes its cues from the Holga cameras of the world. This app has so many options. You can have as much control over the final picture by choosing the film, lens, flash, and even the case (though that doesn't really affect the picture). The one catch is that most of the films, lenses, and flashes come in certain packages (that you have to buy in the app's store). But once you have a good selection to choose from you can produce beautiful photographs that always look like a piece of art. (You don't really even have to buy any packages to produce beautiful photos.) There are also sales and sometimes free packages, but you have to be patient for these to come about. My favorite part about this app is the "shake" feature. If you shake your phone you get a surprise combination of film, lens, and flash. I love that I never know what the picture will look like until it develops. (Oh and the Hipstamatic app acts somewhat like an in-phone polaroid camera, as it takes the picture just a little while to develop.)
Diptic allows you "collage" pictures together into one square picture. This app is extremely helpful when used in the editing stage before uploading pictures to Instagram. The process of using this app is simple. You pick your layout (how many pictures you want to put together and in what format). Then you add pictures to the layout (in this step you have many options: you can take the pictures then, upload from your phone's library or from Facebook). After this step you can tweak your layout--maybe one of your pictures needs more room, you can move the borders however you need them to go and you can also switch your pictures (rotate them or make them mirror images). Then you can change the color of the border to any color you like, as well as changing the thickness of the border and if you want rounded edges (new feature that I love!). After you finish all of these steps you are ready to export it! You can send it to a numerous amount of places. You can send it directly to Instagram or Facebook or you can just save it to your phone. In my opinion this app is very worth the money spent. I like some photo collages now and then.
This collage might be a little confusing, but there are 2 diptic pictures on each line. Notice how you can change the border to as thick as you want or make it so thin it's nonexistent? You can also change the color--white, black, any color you want (any mix of primary colors you can come up with) and round the edges (top left photo).
Incredibooth is your own personal photo booth! I love this app, even though I need to use it more than I do. From the makers of Hipstamatic, you have your choice a few different styles of what the final product will look like. In my opinion this app is one that is much more fun with your friends than by yourself. Just make sure to warn them that it takes 4 different pictures before the mini-photoshoot begins. Otherwise you end up laughing too hard to take good pictures, from my experience. If you're patient, diligent, and lucky you might be able to get this app for free. I did, and since then they have had it on sale before at least one other time that I can remember. (The notification came through my Hipstamatic app.)
Free Apps:
Disposable is also from the creators of Hipstamatic (and Incredibooth). This app is supposed to mimic the disposable cameras we all had at one point (growing up or on trips). You are unable to see the photos until after all of the photos have been taken on the "roll." However, a really fun aspect of this app is your friends who have the app can be invited to participate in the roll. Whoever you invite and joins can take pictures from their phone and when the final product is completely developed they can see their photos and your photos on their phone. How cool is that? Also, these aren't just regular photographs, you can pick different cameras to play with and you can play up or down their effects (fx). As of right now, my only friend who has an iPhone and this app is my Mom, but when go on trips it is a lot of fun to contribute to group albums! (And the pictures get stored directly to your phone for safe keeping).
There are three different free cameras you can choose from, I obviously have a favorite.
Squaready is another app that is very helpful in the editing process before a photo goes to Instagram. All Instagram photographs have to be square, no exceptions. So if you have something that you want to put on Instagram, say a photobooth strip, you first load it into Squaready, choose a background color and save however you want to (whether that's to your camera roll or just in the Instagram format). To be honest, I haven't used this very much, but I do have a couple of times on Instagram where I really did need Squaready. Also, even if you don't want to put your photobooth strips on Instagram, if your photograph is just better being in its original format, keep it that way, and here's how.
This is actually my favorite picture from my goofing off Incredibooth "photo shoot" (I had to test them all out!)
PictureShow, to be honest is something I don't use that much either, but it is one of my favorite free editing apps. You can take any photograph and turn it into something special through this app. However, in my opinion there are just so many choices it is a bit overwhelming which just means that I spend most of my time hitting the "shake" button to mix every option up. If I like it I keep it, if I don't then I hit the button again. I use this app for those photographs that I know I want to put on the background of my phone because I get beautiful effects without losing the height of my photograph (basically it doesn't have to make the photograph square). Also this time last year, I some fun experimenting with the camera effects, as you can see in the photographs below.
Here's a before and after for PictureShow. I know it's not the same photo, but it basically has the same original lighting (it was in the same series that I took).
These photos are from the in-app cameras.. You can choose the different cameras with 2-4 lenses. It's quite fun to play around with when bored.
Labels: Electronics, Social Media
These photos are from the in-app cameras.. You can choose the different cameras with 2-4 lenses. It's quite fun to play around with when bored.
