photo edit | Everything iPhone Photo

Google+, the social sharing service from Google, has its lovers and haters. Google has tweaked it from time to time to get it to match a plan they have. While I post there and enjoy viewing many photographers work, it has never caught on as my first social solution when I want to get the word out. That is just me, your milage will vary.

Many updates appear to be to tie Google+ more directly into Google’s other services, and in some cases for enhancements to replace the need of those other services. One area of enhancements has been the improvements to the photo editing features. There is still the ‘quick filters’ for effect, but now there are other enhancements in the area of pinpointing photo turning.

The photo editing features are available on either the iPhone or iPad via the free Google+ app. It does require you have a Google+ account, but you are not forced to ever post any of your images to Google+. That said, inside of Google+ is the feature to auto sync all of your photos to the Google online storage if you would rather use another service than the iCloud/iPhoto builtin option.

Starting off, the app lets you take a photo or edit one you took previously. Across the top is a Cancel (exit without saving any edits), an undo, a mirror flip and ‘Done’. After you complete your edits, the photo can be saved to the iPhone’s photo library or shared for others to see on Google+. Across the bottom of the first screen is Google’s Auto Enhancement too (it does allow a slight bit of control over the amount of ‘auto’ applied), then the Crop and Rotate tools. I’m amazed at how few photo editing apps do not include a ‘rotate’. A quick win for Google+ photo editor.

Swipe across the bottom of the screen’s menu to go to the pre-configured filters.

Choosing a Google+ photo editor effect filter opens to a group of finer detailed options in that area of filters. Generally, these can be selected to fine tune the amount of the effect applied too.

The pinpoint editing option allows for taping a location, adjusting the size of the area to be impacted, then swipe left/right for the amount of the effect. A swipe up/down offers more options for the tuning. The app allows for multiple points to be selected and tuned (individually) without having to exit and return to the photo like other pinpoint solutions do.

RealMac Software has been producing Mac software for many years. Their first iOS app was Clear, which introduced users to a new way to interact with their iPhones in the area of Task Lists. With the exception of typing the text of the task, all actions in the app are via swipes and pinches. Clear has no buttons.

Today, RealMac released ‘Analog Camera‘, a minimalistic iPhone camera app. After a bit of time using the app to snap photos around the campus, I started questioning the line between lack of features and minimal interfaces.

Launch the app and your presented with an active view finder. There is also a row of images from your iPhone’s photo library across the top of the screen. From this starting screen, tap the shutter button to snap a square photo right away. Or, drag the screen down to select a photo previously taken for editing.

Many posts I read today talked about how Analog Camera is a one hand iPhone camera enhancement app. Where this line of thinking slips is the feature to have a separate focus and exposure spot. To go from the default auto focus, tap on the screen with two fingers, then drag each item around the screen. This of course means you need to use a second hand to do the tapping. Perhaps, RealMac could get away from this by always having a manual focus circle in the center of the screen, tap the screen once to have a Exposure point box appear and use.

Snapping a photo will add the image to the iPhone photo library, shown in the area above the viewfinder right away. Tap an image to be taken to the Analog Camera’s 8 filter options. 8 is no where close to as many as other apps have, but the group is slight tweaks rather than major alterations so the original photos are recognizable.

Selecting any of the options will expand the image with filter applied to full screen. Tap the screen to return to the picker. The buttons below the image are for saving the filtered image to the iPhone camera roll, Open In to move the image to another app for further editing or using in documents, and attach to an email.

The social share buttons appear depending on which are set up in the iPhone, between Twitter and Facebook. Though Analog Camera only takes square pics, it doesn’t feed directly to any of the other popular photo sharing services beyond the two Facebook/Twitter services built into the iOS.

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