Author: Pu

Pixelist, Oil Paintings From Your Photos

There are often mixed feelings when it comes to photographic paintings and photos altered with painterly effects. Many photographers have been exploring the possibilities of the latter creating and applying artistic filters to photos to enhance their visual impact. But do you need art filters when you can have the real thing? True, not everybody is a painter and having a specialist craft a custom painting does not come as cheap as downloading an app to apply art filters on your fancy snapshots. However, if the idea of turning digital photos into traditional artwork sounds intriguing and you have some money to invest on it, you should check out Pixelist, a new service to create hand-made oil paintings out of your favorite images.

Pixelist
The funding campaign for Pixelist is currently ongoing on Indiegogo and through this platform it has raised over $16,000 of the original $20,000. Continue reading “Pixelist, Oil Paintings From Your Photos”

Of Old-fashioned Brighton Summers & Melted Ice-creams

Once upon a time we used to enjoy our holidays, to paint our lips with melted ice-cream to the despair of our mothers and to warm our tiny tender feet in the frolicsome caress of silky sands. Once upon a time—another time, a proto-time—the notion of holidays belonged only to the elite and made no sense at all for the sweating classes who used to work all year round. “But who cares? That was long time ago!” some will think.

Hipstamatic Brighton Hipstapak
Long time ago indeed, but not too long. The learned men cleverly taught us that time and history—and bad habits with them too—repeat themselves. We shouldn’t use clever theories for our personal purposes, but this is actually a pretty good, even if a bit pretentious, apology for spending the summer in the city with no regrets. Continue reading “Of Old-fashioned Brighton Summers & Melted Ice-creams”

Why Leaving a Review in the App Store Makes a Difference

With almost 1 million of applications available in the now 5-year old App Store and with competition gone wild in the meantime, with several companies ready to pay thousands to professionals with the tools to help them rank high in the charts, it has become an extremely tough job for independent developers with a tight budget to make their efforts worthwhile. If for a few developers, especially for those who started years ago, the App Store is still a gold mine or, at any rate, a valuable asset, for the majority it’s very hard to get noticed and to make more than a few bucks per app published. There are so many sites dedicated to discussing apps today; reviewers that are less disorganized than I am are very efficient with offering information timely. But external sources influence sales differently and user ratings are still one of the most precious resources for developers.

App Store Rating
Before starting this site, I was constantly reading other people’s reviews in the App Store when making some of my purchases. Continue reading “Why Leaving a Review in the App Store Makes a Difference”

HarrisShutter for iPhone Now Free

Misskiwi’s HarrisShutter camera for iPhone is currently free in the App Store. HarrisShutter only works with images taken in-app; its purpose it to show given subject(s) in motion, but with a little creativity it can also be used to achieve special effects beyond its original purpose. The app’s normal price is $0.99.

HarrisShutter iPhone Misskiwi
The Harris Shutter that inspired Misskiwi’s app is a device that owes its name to its inventor, Kodak’s Robert S. Harris. Continue reading “HarrisShutter for iPhone Now Free”

iPhoneography Tricks: Using Hipstamatic Frames with Album Photos

I’ve read many times complaints coming from iPhone users who wished they could disable Hipstamatic frames like they do with a number of other apps. There are also users complaining about the opposite, that is not being able to apply Hipstamatic’s effects to photos from albums and camera roll. Hipstamatic’s purists will argue that the point of the app is to reproduce the practices connected with analog photo taking, so it’s obvious you should accept a certain lack of control on the result as an added extra and use the app to shoot if you want to apply its effects to your photos. In the end, what really matters is your image; if using a certain border brings your photo closer to your way of envisioning it, you can just ignore purisms.

Eventide II
Robusta frame applied to photo taken with Vscocam and processed over with Laminar, Alien Sky, Mextures.

Today I will share a simple trick for using Hipstamatic’s frames outside the app. This is a cheap trick, really. The result relies on layer blending and it just requires five minutes to achieve, plus access to Hipstamatic (duh) and an image editing app such as Photoshop Touch or Laminar. Continue reading “iPhoneography Tricks: Using Hipstamatic Frames with Album Photos”

Exbel Review

The trick to a stunning double exposure without actually creating it in-camera is usually to start with a darker image, often a silhouette against a clear background, and to apply a second image via layer blending over it. How many images like these have you seen around already? Well, even if you have seen a billion examples of this technique, there is still a lot of space for creativity. With the help of Exbel, iPhone users can give the double exposure effect a go, too. Exbel is enjoying some popularity in the App Store right now, as the app is conceived as a very simple shortcut to obtaining impressive double exposures from any photo.

Exbel iPhone
I was pretty excited to try Exbel when the developer kindly provided me with a promo code, but I was not totally satisfied with this app. Exbel is definitely quick and easy to use, but there are several issues that made me realize the tool is still not very practical to be enjoyed thoroughly.

Continue reading “Exbel Review”

Summer Solstice Sale For AppAlchemy & More

Marcolina Design announced the Summer Solstice Sale: all their educational interactive apps on iPhoneography will be available for three days in the App Store at the special price of $.99, an offer ranging from 85% to 66% off.

Summer Solstice Sale
The apps on sale are the following: Continue reading “Summer Solstice Sale For AppAlchemy & More”