Booster! is the latest app from misskiwi, the maker or ClassicSAMP, ClassicINSTA, ClassicTOY, and several more. Differently from the other apps from the same developer that mostly rely on presets that you can apply right away or combine together, Booster! is aimed at making your own live effects.
Booster!'s interface.
Main Features
- Full resolution available;
- 12 filters in all;
- Curves editor;
- Brightness, contrast, saturation;
- Vignette;
- Temperature;
- Front/rear camera switch;
- Exposure lock;
- Focus control;
- Rotate.
Appotography Opinion
Booster!’s real time view lets you adjust all the settings before taking the photo. You can adjust focus and exposure and there are basic controls for curves, brightness, contrast, saturation, temperature and vignette, plus a section with a few nice filters. There are 8 of them to choose from: Normal, Sepia, Cyano, B&W, Xproc, RScale, X-Ray, Greeny. If you pay attention, you will see that besides these main effects there are 4 more available: B&W has an option to select among Desaturate, Red, Green or Blue and XProc has negative and positive sub-filters. You can tweak any of these effects using one of the various tools and of course everything is in real time, so you can see what your final image will look like before actually pressing the shutter button.
Boster!’s tools come with sliders that you can play with to create different recipes and see right away the how they affect the image. The Curves editor is not very sophisticated, and you do not have access to color channel modifiers. This solution makes everything very straightforward, but the tradeoff is lack of precision.
Sepia and RScale
In general, the app offers neat features and effects and it works quickly and simply; nevertheless, it is not that great if you want to try different effects on the same photo. What if you choose the effect, fine tune it, press the shutter button, and then change your mind after the picture is ready for saving? In that case, unless you have picked the “Normal” effect without making any adjustment, the only thing you can do is to retake the picture (“Normal” is basically the unprocessed original: as a workaround you can load and process it later as many times as you want). Booster! has not a very practical approach also if you plan to process with it the photos you have stored in your albums. As stated previously, the app allows processing previously taken photos, but when you load a photo from your albums, Booster! just applies to it the last filter you used. You don’t have access to any of the app’s tools and you cannot make adjustments. This lack of post-processing flexibility is fairly common for apps that work in real time. Unless one uses the same filter most of the times, the best way to enjoy Booster! is as a sort of instant camera with more control over the basic image parameters and with the added bonus of a very accurate preview.
Cyano and B&W
Booster! may not be the most comprehensive app out there, but it’s still quite fun to use and it works very smoothly. The app is optimized for iPhone 4s and it’s right now on sale in the App Store. There is also a free version of Booster! if you want to try before you buy.
Overall
Name: Booster!
Developer: misskiwi
Compatibility: iPhone 4 & 4s. iOS 5.0 or later.
Price: £0.69||$0.99||€0.79
Vote: 3/5
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