Category Archives: News

Lastest news for iPhone Photography

Free photo share services have to make money, why not a subscription version?

A company offering a free service and never making any money will not be able to pay rent, employees and if online, hosting charges. A start up has to show some understanding of how they will make money for investors to get excited about. Otherwise, why would an investor hand over operating cash? Some services turn to advertising on their site or within their related app. Some services use the data collected by the way users interact with the service to profit from companies willing to pay for people’s habits.

Last year a group introduced a service to compete with Twitter where they charge a monthly fee to cover their bills. That way, there is no need for them to every sell users data or insert adds into the user’s conversations. The service, app.net, was successfully funded through Kickstarter and has gone on to be a nice spot to exchange posts with others of like mind. They do charge $36 for a year’s access, and a bit more for developers wanting to create apps that work with app.net. Both, a small fee in exchange for knowing how a person’s data will be used today and ongoing.

With all of the excitement around how services may use shared photos or user’s data going forward, Instafocus is pivoting their business away from being a outside Instagram connected free universal app to being a subscription model social share service. The future is still in motion as Instafocus has also gone to the public for funding via Kickstarter. Being an outsider to Instafocus, it is hard to say if the app will actually still move forward as a subscription service whether funding is successful or not. By jumping in via Kickstarter, the service charges are reduced as well ‘life time’ subscriptions are being offered.

The claim is that like app.net, there will never be ads amongst users photos, the photos and the data around the photos are always owned by the person that posted them, and photos wont be used for anything like ads by the service.

The reward options on the Instafocus Kickstarter page are for things like a discounted 3 and 6 month subscription, discounted 1 year and lifetime subscriptions, being involved in the beta and getting the first photo you post sent to you as a print signed by the developers.

Getting photos off film into the iPhone for sharing using the Smartphone Film Scanner

You have not heard of the SmartPhone Film Scanner? Well, that would be because it’s new item from the folks at Lomography and isn’t shipping till March. The idea is simple: make a mount for the iPhone that is pointed down a dark tunnel and allow film to be placed at the far end to take pictures of. There are some fun parts in making such a simple looking device of course. Alignment, backlighting, distance between the iPhone and film is just a few. In this case, the Lomography team had a head start since they offer a similar device for an earlier project (transferred ‘movies’ from film to the iPhone where people had recorded short movies using 35 mm film, called LomoKino).

If this looks interesting, and a bit of fun. You can jump in now and get your name on the list to receive one through their Kickstarter Project. The projects is already fully funded with two weeks to go till it wraps up. The solution might not be the best answer to that big box of 500 rolls of developed film in the corner, but for grabbing a few photos off of a roll now and then, it could be very handy. A quick method to get a film image into the iPhone that can then be edited and shared. The project is also outlined over on the Lomography site too.

0 lomography smartphone scanner

New Black and White iPhone photography fun with release of Tintype SnapPak update

The iPhone camera app Hipstamatic has received a new film and flash updated called Tintype. The additional two vintage films and single lens are available via a 99 cent in-app purchase as a new SnapPak. The group offer a new take on black and white photography for the iPhone. One film leans towards the look found in a police mug shot while the other gives the effect of early photography colorization prior to color film photography.

01 Hipstamatic TinType

The new Tintype SnapPak should prove popular with folks using the Hipstamatic app on their iPhone where more than just a lack of color is required in a photograph. The films and flash are all about setting a mood for the photo’s viewer similar to what was found in an old Kodak Brownie camera.

03 Hipstamatic TinType

04 Hipstamatic TinType

05 Hipstamatic TinType

For the love of EyeEm iPhone photo share, updates and Ambassadors

Many times, services and apps are reviewed by how they do against another solution. Feature lists, support, accessibility and user interfaces of a new app have get compared to another that people think set the standard.

In the world of iPhone photo sharing, many compare others against Instagram. While I agree, the solution is very well done, there are others with a different take on the sharing problem that are equally well designed, but they are different. EyeEm is one that is a service and an app where iPhone photo sharing is at the center. Photos on the service are generally quality over quantity. People post up fewer photos, seemingly picking only their better shots. Each photo is tagged with what the photographer was doing and where they were. The location being an item they choose from a list of nearby business options or enter their own instead of being locked to a Geolocator.

A recent update to EyeEm made the application of the included filters and frames easier. While I do almost all of my tuning outside of the app, the ease of selecting an additional filter is nice. Swipe side-to-side to move through the available filters (14), seeing each one being applied, reaching the end moves you back to the start. Swiping up/down takes you through the frame options (12) to outline the photo your uploading.

You can still use the buttons along the bottom to show the filters and frames which can be manually picked. Across the top of the ‘edit’ area of EyeEm is a ‘clarify’ like enhancement tool and crop.

To get the word of EyeEm out to more possible users and to gather with people to exchange set up and usage stories, EyeEm is now offering the opportunity to be an Ambassador.

While looking at the Ambassador information, you may want to look around a bit at EyeEm’s very nice tutorial pages. Full of instructions and inspirational photos.

iPhone photography Rock The Vote photo contest

The Hipstamatic iPhone camera app folks want you to get out and VOTE. So, to bring the message home, they have a new photo contest: Theme:: We Will. Now through Nov 7th, turn in your photos for a chance to win…

Top voted submission: Hipstamatic Grab Pak filled with all sorts of goodies.

Featured Submission: Selecting the most imprssive shots for a piece in the November issue of SNAPMagazine.

In support of the contest is a Free Film Pak!

Access to the film is in the usual spot within the iPhone Hipstamatic cart area, just go there and download at no charge.

ROCK THE VOTE FREEPAK INCLUDES::
RtV: this border looks like you grabbed a marker off the table at a local election rally to make a perfect DIY-looking frame for your photos

RtV SHOUT: this film has the same rad DIY feel of the first, and then cranks up the volume. Rock the Vote phrases are splashed across your image, reminding you of the power you hold as a voter in every election.

Here is a stream of the Hipstamatic Rock The Vote submissions:

Fun 2×2 Print Pics created on the iPhone

There is a variety of apps I use for printing my iPhone photos onto products and merchandise. Always a hit for holidays. One free solution on my iPhone, PostalPix, first became popular with their print-to-metal service they offered. Along with paper prints, there is the option to have my iPhone photos printed onto metal, which offers a whole different impact of photos. Very nice sitting in the Business Card holder on my desk.

An update to PostalPix today now offers the ability to assemble a 3 x 3 grid of 2″ square photos.

Choosing 2×2 Grid Print results in the grid view. Tap each square to insert a image from your iPhone’s photo library. There is an option to resize/crop prior to inserting. Other than that, PostalPix doesn’t offer any editing or enhancements. Once the 9 photos (they can be all the same if you place them, no limitations there) are as you like, tap ‘Save’ to go to the pay screen. Ship them to yourself or to someone as a nice gift. Better than a postcard if you place 9 photos of a vacation trip.

 

My Sketch gets True Color upgrade for iPhone photos

Holiday and event cards always provide a nice challenge when creating their cover art. Do you use typography or a photo? Is the photo just a shot you took or do you enhance it for the mood. While My Sketch isn’t an app I use all of the time, it is one that has gotten me passed being blocked a few times when I need a unique feel to a creative piece. Today it solved a blocking issue for me so I thought I would share my success, fun stuff.

The app converts a photo, from your iPhone library or taken through the app, to what looks like a sketch. The My Sketch app offers 20 different sketch effects. This update includes True Color which is the effect I applied above. The new ‘sketch’ appears in the row of options you can swipe through below the photos.

The completed ‘sketched’ photos can be saved to the usual popular list of social friend sites. A step I always miss is the ‘Save’ button at the bottom. You must use the button for My Sketch to save your creation to your iPhone photo library. If you exit the app without doing that step, you lost your work as it wont be there when you re-launch.

The Sincerely print ordering system is built into My Sketch. It cuts a trip to the print shop is you want to create and have them print the image on a variety of layout styles.

Keepsy adds the ability to create photo print books on the iPhone

I have set up a couple print books using the Keepsy online Web service. It’s pretty easy to add photos, either from a photo library as well as photos I have on Instagram. My only complaint has been the feature where all of the chosen images are auto inserted into a photo book, that I then have to sort and shuffle. Bigger books can prove to be a fun juggling game. Overall though, the service is great for creating quality photo books that Keepsy prints and mails for me.

Yesterday, Keepsy released a free iPhone app version of their service. When you launch the app, it goes through the photos in the iPhone’s photo library and then divides those the apps sees as being able to be grouped. All of the rest of the images are still available to use in print books too.

The first two ‘folders’ on the list are actually tools that make the creation of book groups easier. They offer suggestions as well button(s) to get a person started.

The additional areas on the list are the Keepsy app trying to group photos just to make it faster for the creation of print books. Anaheim in my case was actually photos I took at Disneyland. Opening a group, photos can be removed (good since if you have the iPhone HDR feature on, you have two copies of each photo), shared with other people so they can add photos too, then sent to print.

 Custom groups can be created from photos in the iPhone’s photo libraries. On the ‘simple things make me happy’, Keepsy groups the photos by date which makes it much easier to get through the 3200 photos I have to sort through when building a group for a print book.

The photos grouped together are automatically added to a digital version of the print book. Keepsy allows the photos to be moved around between pages as well more pages added since Keepsy attempts to keep page counts down to stay affordable.

The Web site for Keepsy shows the options that the Pocket Book version of the print books have (notice that there is a base price, then a charge per page over that so smart grouping of photos on pages saves money):