Tag Archives: iPhone Photos

Stickygram Instagram photo magnets is now Photobox

There are some interesting printing options for your Instagram photos. There are little square post cards, mugs, large wall photos, and Stickygram provides little magnets. The service has you choose nine photos from your Instagram account, which the print right away and mail all over the world. Generally, they are sent to you, which you can redistribute rather than being a drop-ship gift sort of service. The service is offered via a Web site, rather than an iPhone app.

01 stickygram

An announcement on the Stickygram site is saying that the company and it’s team is joining Photobox. Which is a company that does all sorts of photo printing as stand alone prints and photo books.

02 stickygram photobox

Looking over the Photobox site, there is no listing of United States. I hope I will still be able to order my Stickygram magnets to have delivered here in the US!

03 photobox

 

 

 

iPhone SnapJoy users, grab your pics fast, the service is going away!

Back in 2011, a nice cloud solution became available. A easy to use iPhone app grabbed your photos and stored then with little work on the users part. Like any good Cloud solution, SnapJoy made the uploaded images available on other devices and via their Web site. In December 2012, the service was purchased by Dropbox, who has a photo sync solution of their own. Perhaps with the help of the team from SnapJoy, Dropbox has been improving their upload and viewing solutions within the Dropbox iPhone app.

The folks over at TechHive said they have received an email from SnapJoy stating that they cut off upload yesterday and will be turning their services off on July 24th. Just visit their site, log in and download a zip file of all of your uploaded photos. You have a month! Interesting there isn’t a ‘push to your Dropbox’ option just to move the photos to your ‘other’ account.

A reminder of what was SnapJoy:

01 snapjoy iphone

02 snapjoy iphone

03 snapjoy iphone

04 snapjoy iphone

Creating those cool Clone photos using only the iPhone

A year ago, I was involved in a fun movie, “People in Motion“. The movie follows several very talented folks as they Parkour their way around the US. That is to say, they leap and jump their way around city obstacles while making it look so easy. When I first decided to get involved in Producing the movie, I was taken by a single photo where a person is doing a summersault in air. The single photo had the artist at several spots in the action like they where frozen in time at different stages of the leap. A special photography technique was used for the shots, which is now available to do with an iPhone!

The above photo was done using the iPhone app Clone Camera. A full feature, yet amazingly easy to use app. While there are a few tuning options, the app is ready to use right upon launching. You take 2 to 4 images, either manually or let the app auto snap for you. Then, trace the part of each photo that you want to carry forward to the final image. Clone Camera then uses the single background and pastes in the parts you chose into a single final output.

The ‘camera shake correction’ is a nice feature. Just because everyone else does, Clone Camera also includes 27 filters to apply to the output image. When done, save to the iPhone photo library in high-resolution or share out through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Flickr.

Multi Image Photography on the iPhone using the updated Hipstamatic camera app

Oh, here I am with Hipstamatic again. I hope you saw the Rock The Vote contest I just posted. In that same update was a big win for me via the ability to take multi image photographs. The feature is a 99 cent in-app purchase upgrade, which is the price of some stand alone apps. I’m happier to have fewer apps and more features so if the feature works well it could mean the clearing of a few other multi shot photo apps.

When the feature is installed, a new slider appears on the Hipstamatic camera in the upper left corner. When it is to the right, the camera works as it normally does. Slide it to the right to ‘disengage’ the film advance function.

When your Hipstamatic camera is in multi shot state, the slider shows the overlapping image icon in yellow. Just snap the first photo like you would normally.

The Multi Exposure slider moves across a bit to show that you are about to take a second shot over the first. If you did this double exposure by accident, you can slide it to ‘advance’ the film to a new image. I took a few shots around the house and the results where nice. I will update this post after I have spent the day around town shooting a few real life multi exposure shots. Like any Hipstamatic photography, the usability of the photo has a lot to do with the film/lens and subject combination.

Also in this update, the flash slider has grown a bit. This allows for the choice of flash styles depending on if you move it left or right.

iPhone pictures of documents become scans to share

There is a couple apps from the developers of Readdle that I use. The Calendar app does a very nice job of pulling all of my different calendars into a manageable view yet allows me to quickly switch between work and personal. If you work with Google Calendars at all, Google Calendar Client helps with it’s many views.

The other app is the Readdle’s Scanner Pro. The universal app allows for the ‘scanning’ of documents so I don’t have to carry paper around and it’s easier to share with people not in the room.

No matter how ‘paper free’ an office gets, printed pages still work their way into meetings. Then I end up with a stack of paper on the edge of the desk, then it grows, then it gets tipped over, then someone asks me for a copy that used to be half way down the stack right where I left it, now… who knows. So, I started taking pictures of documents. There are a few apps that claim to help with the ‘scanning’ process, each with their own special features. Scanner Pro has been one that I didn’t jump on board with till this week, no particular reason, I thought I had documents covered.

The difference of snapping a picture of a document with your iPhone and using a ‘scanner’ app is that the apps usually offer corner ID, contrast and built in sharing. With Scanner Pro, you also get the ability to save to cloud storage/share services and joining multiple page into one document. Being able to re-order the pages in that grouping is something many of the other options seem to miss that is important, I can’t always take pictures of documents in the exact order that I need to share with others in.

Lots of fine tuning options including which cloud service your using.

Grids for alignment can be turned on/off. It is more important to get the document straight along one edge than trying to take the image so that it at a perfect straight on. Scanner Pro offers clean up for an angle image but not a slightly twisted one.

Drag the corners of the alignment square to match up to the corners of the document. Scanner Pro then shifts the image to be straightened. This is important since you will almost never get a perfect straight on shot. Without the feature, you get areas of the document with smaller and squished text than other areas.

Continue reading

iPhone Black and White Photography has gotten better with Hueless

Show of hands, how many readers remember my mentioning an app I have been using (reviewed) for Black and White photography with the iPhone. The important part to the joy of taking the Black and White photos was that the shots are done from the start without color rather than running filters later.

A downside I mentioned was that the ‘viewfinder’ on the iPhone screen showed the subject in color, with the resulting image being Black and White. So, your not seeing what you will get, must like looking through a film camera’s physical view finder.

A iPhone Camera app I just found that solves my request for ‘see what you will get’ viewing is Hueless. The app has it’s positives and negatives, but as a app for seeing and taking Black and White photos with my iPhone, it’s a winner!

When you launch Hueless, your ready to start snapping shots. Tapping the screen will give you a focus ring. Around the outer edge of the screen (works in portrait and landscape views) is some tuning options, which can be hidden if you want a clean viewfinder screen. The screen shot below is all of the tuning options showing. The ‘half circle’ can be tapped to run through colors like yellow and green filters, this helps when dealing with a color item you want parts to show strong or week. Next is the ‘show grid’, front/back camera chooser and flash control. Down the left is a slider for tuning the exposure. The only complaint is that front/back camera choose, why wasn’t the iPhone’s standard icon art get used?

When you snap a photo, they are saved to the ‘camera’ roll graphic along the bottom of the page. Tapping the image, opens a new page, the app thinks a bit then your given a screen with three icons: A camera icon to return to photo taking, a Photo Library link to see the images to choose, and a share button to share images with friends on Instagram, Twitter and attach to an email.

The need to step through the iPhone’s photo library confuses me, but the process of taking the picture from the start makes Hueless a fun app I will be using a lot.

Using photos taken with the iPhone on products, all created on the iPhone

I have mentioned using the free app, MoPho, to create prints using images I created on my iPhone. The app allows for iPhone photos to be printed in a variety of size, on a variety of materials and even on products like mugs and mouse pads. MoPho has been updated to version 2.0 including a whole new User Interface as well an expanded list of product types that can be created using iPhone photos.

To help promote version 2.0 you can get 10 prints for free (one free offer per person), just use code ‘10FREE‘ at checkout.

You may have noticed in the opening screen shot above, the addition of access to your Instagram photos. Below is a list of the photo size and layouts available through MoPho. Notice the two square layouts have a Instagram logo to remind you that those photos are square so they fit that layout the best. Choosing a size/shape, then a photo, MoPho will print and ship for you, all managed through your iPhone.

MoPho goes beyond printing photos, the update includes more products than the earlier version. Tapping the categories across the top bar presents images of the products (scroll up/down) in that group.

Choosing images can be a single or multiple at a time. The photos don’t have to only from the iPhone’s photo library, connecting a Facebook and/or Instagram accounts will let MoPho to use those photos to be used for products or prints too.

When viewing a product after an image have been selected, the product appears with that image on it. Sharing your work via social networks and crop/zoom/rotate buttons are across the bottom of the overview. The ‘More Info’ button provides information about the product being worked on.

Using the Crop Zoom button, you have access to the full image to resize, rotate and move. This is particularly important when dealing with a tall or wide work area where the image doesn’t automatically fit those dimensions.

Bouncing around MoPho without the need to follow the app’s path is done through a swipe on the screen to the right. This exposes the tools and area access. Another modern UI update to the app that seems natural when using it instead of hunting around for a ‘settings’ icon or being locked into an app’s workflow.

Lesson for better Depth of Field Photography – works for iPhone too

This is post isn’t about an app for the iPhone, rather a nice video I saw that covers tips for better Depth of Field photography. I have covered a few apps where you can add the effect to a photo on your iPhone after you have taken the photo (eg. AfterFocus). You can still use those apps or use the focus ability of many iPhone camera apps (like ProCamera), there is more involved than just grabbing a photo and blurring out everything but your key object.

The video, Depth of Field by Cristina Mittermeier is about framing an image to tell a story. This can apply to taking the photo with your iPhone perfect when you hit the shutter button or later in your editing. The tips hold true whether your using a digital camera, a film camera or a iPhone. I’m not able to imbed the video here on this page, but you can jump over to Digital Photo Magazine and watch it there. Hope you find it as helpful as I did.

Paint FX brings fine tuning of iPhone photography effects

Paint FX was recently updated with 3 HDR and new background effects. It is an app that I use from time to time and really should have mentioned it before. You know, I just use it and don’t think about it.

What makes Paint FX a bit unique is that you don’t have to use their filters and effects on the full picture. Instead, you paint the effect onto your iPhone pictures to apply only where you want. It means a bit of a rethink about enhancements to photos. Instead of applying a filter or effect to all parts of an image at one time. Paint FX has you create a layer, then choose an effect to apply only to parts you need the enhancement on. Brighten on area, sharpened, darken, make it vintage, HDR, grunge and more… 71 in all.

Import photos from the iPhone photo library, Flickr or Facebook.

From the effects button, you can choose effects to paint on or apply to the full image at one time (Paint vs Fill). Sweep up/down through the options, choose to use. Next to the Effects option across the top bar is a button that offers the fine tuning of the brush tool: size of tip, strength and brush edge. When ‘painting’ on the effect, you can undo/redo. Along the bottom, the eraser will let you edit the filter edge to get more precision around corners.

Almost every effect can be fine tuned. In fact, many allow for multi levels to get the most out of every filter. So, 70+ filters/effects can each be adjusted to make it almost impossible to count how many options are included in Paint FX.

I’m surprised more apps that allow you to apply selective effects don’t offer a ‘mask’. As you can see here, when on you can see exactly where the effect is being applied. This is a must where you altering an image with a soft effect that you may not be able to see on the small screen. If you want to see your work on a ‘big’ screen, your in luck… Paint FX is a Universal app so when you buy for your iPhone you can install on your iPad too at no additional charge.

Yes, you can use an effect to apply to the outer edge of an image that will create a frame appearance. Like I said, when using Paint FX, think outside of the box!