Tag Archives: filter effects

The filters and effects from many iPhone Photo editors, all available in one… Pixlr-o-matic PLUS

There are apps that give you a variety of ‘film’ effects, like Vintage, Retro, Unicolor and Soft tones. There are other apps that provide lighting effects either through disrupting like burning and leaking light or overlaying with fireworks or Bokeh.

There is an app I just started using called Pixlr-o-matic Plus that brings the many options other iPhone photo editors have to one place. The Universal app lets you use photos on your iPhone or snap new ones. In the work area, you can swipe across the photo or use the random button in the upper right corner to have an effected added for you. Along the bottom is a ‘film roll’ of options to manually choose. As you move left/right through those filter options, the effect being viewed is applied in real time.

Choosing the light bulb provides another group of filters, to the right of the light is frames and finally the ‘save/share’ button. At first glance, the available filter options are small in each group. Not to worry, Pixlr-o-matic Plus has many more in their online library.

Scrolling all the way to the right of the filters is a ‘more’ button (or you can use the film canister upper right corner button), tap to go to a long list of grouped effects. Notice at the top is a film and light icon, both contain their group of effects. Scroll up/down to view the groups, right/left to see the filters in each group. Each of the Pixlr-o-matic ‘packages’ has a download button to pull that group into your iPhone to use on photos.

As you add the different groups of film and lighting effects, they are included in the film roll on the editing screen. Also, Pixlr-o-matic has a ‘My Effects’ folder for a quick overview of what you have installed.

The finished image can be saved to the iPhone photo library, attach to an email, push to iTunes, store in Dropbox or post to Facebook and Flickr. After choosing a method, Pixlr-o-matic Plus gives you the option to choose what size the photo will be exported in size text, including the original full size 3264 x 2448… just right to share onto my 500px account.

Random iPhone Photo Filters… just swiping through to find what you like

I’m a precision kind of iPhone photo editor. I know when I take a picture that I’m going to leave as it or which app and which enhancement I will be using on it to get what I’m going after. A few times, I will use an app that provides the image I’m working on as thumbnails with the filters applied to get an idea how close one is over another.

An app I came across this weekend goes the other way, to an extreme. Infinicam on the iPhone is a way to be shown how a iPhone photo you took will look with a filter applied in full size. What you don’t know is what the next filter may be. Infinicam literally assembles and applies a filter in the background amongst all of it’s variables, then shows you what they created. Of course you don’t have to choose the creation, you can sweep to the next one to see what is possible in a completely random different direction. This isn’t just twenty filters applied in random order, Infinicam uses the many bits that make up a filter and scrambles, then applies for your viewing.

If you prefer not sweeping through one random filter effect to the next, you can use the camera button in the lower right corner. Tap the button for Infinicam to apply the next effect.

If you like the filter effect but not the frame, swipe your finger up the screen to cycle through the Infinicam frame options.

If there is a camera style you prefer, there is a list available to jump to photo filters created using that as a starting point. Notice that this is the area that any filters you saved as Favorites will be accessed to use again.

The image you choose can be saved to your iPhone’s photo library in a variety of sizes. A photo taken with the iPhone and saved at ‘FULL’ was 2448 x 3264. If you choose to email the photo to someone, the email includes the code of the bits that made up the filter. They can just insert that code into a copy of Infinicam on their iPhone to apply the same filter.