App Updates – Page 8 – Appotography

New from Hipstamatic: Family Album

Hipstamatic iPhone Hipstamatic 220 presents: Family Album – Share Your Adventures in Hipstaland.

Now you can create your own personalized albums and share them with friends and other Hipstamatic users. As soon as your prints are developed, you can select the “Send to Family Album” option to share them via this new feature.

There are three types of available albums that you can choose from:

Shared Album‘s purpose is making it easier to share and have instant access to Hipstaprints of your friends and contacts. For example, you can create more shared albums to share content with different people.
In Photo Album you can collect Hipstaprints you like: they can be your own, your friends’ and other Hipstamatic users’ as well.
Magic Album can contain all sort of content, relating to people, things and places.

For each album type, you can set a name, add tags and specify other details, like a defined period of time and shooting location, so that you can keep track of everything and have your shared prints or prints you like neatly organized.

Through the main Family Album screen, you can browse all your shared prints, together with featured albums and latest uploads. Albums you create can be deleted at any time, while prints you have shared are not deleted with albums.

Hipstamatic Family Album — Set up your Family Album in Hipstamatic.

Lastly, you can now upload your prints to Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr at the same time.

Cameramatic Updated to 1.3.0

Cameramatic 1.3.0 is out. The latest version of youthhr’s toy camera for iPhone introduces a new essential feature, Color Channel, for better handling black and white photo conversion. With color channel, it’s possible to select one among the available colored filters, red, green, blue, orange, yellow, plus two other options, normal gray (a default equal weight for all color channels) and maximum channels. The same feature was recently added also to Monochromia, the monochrome sibling of Cameramatic.

Cameramatic for iPhone In Cameramatic 1.3.0 you will also find two new filters, Slide and Cross Processing 2. Slide is an addition to Cameramatic’s Standard filter collection, while Cross Processing 2 is included in the XPro selection.

Cameramatic by youthhr for iPhone — The new filters: Slide (left) and Cross Processing 2 (right).

Monochromia 1.5: Update Review

Monochromia 1.5 is now available in the App Store. I reviewed Monochromia last month, explaining that, while I regarded this app as one of the best in its genre on iPhone, I truly felt that the impossibility to work properly with color channel settings was something that prevented users from fully taking advantage of youthhr’s monochrome converter.

The developer listened to users or, in any case, he demonstrated to agree that color channels are not a secondary aspect for better looking black and white photos. There is more to black and white than simply desaturating, and not all photos can be successfully turned into monochrome just by giving equal weight to all colors. Sometimes, to make important elements in a monochrome photo stand out or in order not to lose precious detail, it’s necessary to filter colors. In traditional black and white photography, for giving visual preeminence to specific elements of the image, special filters can be applied in front of the lens of the camera. Blocking certain colors instead of others (for example, the red filter blocks all colors but red, the blue filter blocks all but blue, etc.), filters allow to obtain a richer tonal range. The same effects can be accomplished in digital photography with post processing.

Monochromia for iPhone Monochromia 1.5 finally offers a color channel feature, for greater flexibility and better conversion from color to black and white. The possibility to apply filters for individual color channels makes a huge difference. From Monochromia’s developing area, you can now access the color channel settings. Other than red, green, blue, yellow, and orange filters, it’s possible to select normal grayscale and maximum channels.

Given Monochromia’s new features, I decided to review my previous rating accordingly, giving the app a full score.

Overall

Name: Monochromia
Developer: youthhr
Compatibility: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad. iOS 4.1 or later.
Price: £1.19||$1.99||€1.59
Vote: 5/5

King Camera, GIFVid² & TiltShift Generator Updated

King Camera iPhone King Camera 1.04 completes the series of updates that, together with version 1.02 and 1.03, improved the app’s speed both for camera and editing modes.

Camera shutter speed is now steadily under 1s; launching and rendering times in Photodesk are also overall bettered: speed for thumbnail generation and photo import from Camera Roll are improved.

A few other details about the latest release, besides various bug fixes (sound not being properly disabled, HD burst mode crash on 3GS, flashlight issue when switching from camera to video, among the other things, although in a note, developers let users know that iOS makes impossible to turn off camera shutter sound): photo buffer limit is removed in version 1.04 to allow unlimited photo taking; moreover, you can now browse multiple pages in Photodesk while in Selection mode, so that deleting and sharing over multiple pages is possible.

King Camera is currently on sale and available at the special price of $1.99 (£1.19/€1.59) in the App Store.

GIFVid iPhone With the update to version 2.1.0, GIFVid² is now capable of importing photos and videos stored in your Camera Roll. Previously, you could either create your animated GIF by recording a short video or by taking a sequence of images over a given time interval, only using the built-in camera feature, while no import was possible. Now you can create animations also making use of previously recorded/shot material. The process to create your animated GIF is exactly the same in both cases.

GIFVid² is currently 33% off the regular price (for a limited time it’s $1.99/£1.19/€1.59).

TiltShift Generator 1.55 improves control in ellipse blur mode. With the last update, you can now freely adjust width/height ratio of the recently introduced ellipse blur, simply by pinching with your fingers. The developer also revealed that EXIF support will be added with the upcoming release.

Magic Hour Updated to 1.3

Magic Hour 1.3 is now available in the App Store. The new version of Kiwiple’s photo editing and filter creator application for iPhone introduces new features for more fun and possibilities.

The biggest addition in this release is the brand new TiltShift effect, for turning photos into fake miniature images.

Magic Hour by Kiwiple for iPhone

Tilt shift simulation can be applied to photos edited in Magic Hour after adjusting other settings, just before saving. This means, you will not find the tilt shift option among Magic Hour’s presets or in the Filter Market, but you will be able to add it after the rest of you editing is done. There are two blur modes that you can choose from: radial and linear. Other than that, you can decide if the blur must be applied inwards or outwards. A slider allows easy resizing of the effect. In combination with other filters and/or with vignetting added, Magic Hour’s tilt shift effect looks pretty neat.

Magic Hour for iPhone by Kiwiple - Tilt shift — Colorful Reykjavik! Apply a fake miniature effect to your photos in Magic Hour.

Other changes in version 1.3 include a digital zoom feature for the camera mode and a fix for Facebook and Posterous sharing bug.

Hipstamatic Releases New FreePak

A new Hipstamatic FreePak is available in the HipstaMart.

The new pack, Cowboys & Aliens, which has a strong Space Western inspiration to it and clearly plays with commonplace motifs of the genre (if you wish, you can have some fun guessing the source behind each item’s name), comes with two lenses and a camera case.

Hipstamatic Cowboys & Aliens FreePak

The Steambox camera case mixes a hybrid design of high-tech brass details with organic elements.

The lenses are very different the one from the other. Matty ALN conveys a retro sci-fi feel with its neon green-yellowish overlay and intense hot pink flare around the borders, as mimicking an iris; Libatique 73 features a very subdued selective sepia toning and vignetting for a vintage look vaguely imitating, according to the lens’ description, old calotypes. Libatique 73 is definitely the better rounded and more versatile addition in the Cowboys & Alien pack, whereas Matty ALN is more of a less usual effect with a relatively limited scope.

PhotoForge2 Now a Universal App

Photoforge2 2.1 is finally in the App Store. GhostBird Software’s photo editing application is now universal, fully compatible with iPad and iPad 2. The iPad compatibility is not the only interesting aspect in the latest release of PhotoForge2. Several enhancements were made, especially to performance and interface. Tools like masking and rotate are now more user friendly than before and users are given more freedom when saving their photos.

Here is what’s new in PhotoForge2 2.1:

PhotoForge 2 by GhostBird Software

Improved mask painting: now faster even on larger images;
Added Composition mode: see layers below while mask painting to easily apply selective filters and effects to photos;
Redesigned ropping handles: for more control during cropping process;
Replaced rotation gesture with 1° rotation buttons;
Improved size of the handles in the Levels editor for easier control;
Save photos to documents directory: for easily sending images back to computer;
Save images in JPEG, PNG and TIFF (upload of PNG and TIFF only to supported locations);
Added compression control of JPEG quality;
Added more editable IPTC fields added;
Added address field for GPS location information;
Added ability to manually remove GPS info on the map screen from images;
Added selective control to remove meta data from images when uploading;
Adjustments, Effects, Tools and Uploader now save last location: the last used item will be the first in user’s list;
Added link to online tutorials in the main menu;
Fixed Facebook uploader crash;
Various bug fixes and improvements.

PhotoForge2 is currently on sale at $1.99 (€1.59/£1.19), which is 60% off the original App Store price.

Hipstamatic Hornbecker Lens Is Out

The new Hipstamatic Hornbecker lens was released today as a part of NSW Always On FreePak. The other items in the FreePak were previously released in the Hipstamart.

NSW Always On FreePak Hipstamatic iPhone The new addition to Hipstamatic’s lens collection was done in collaboration with photographer Chris Hornbecker, most notably renown for his work for Nike sportswear brand.

Honestly, I don’t know what to think of the latest Hipstamatic FreePak. Since the new pack is free — I assume also and especially thanks to Nike sponsorship — one could object there are no grounds for any criticism towards developers, feeding shameless promotional messages to their own loyal audience. However, I am sure I am not the only one annoyed at the notion of using a photo app so tightly connected with some huge brand I do not care about, to say the least; even if I cared about the brand, it would not change the way I feel towards this kind of promotional stratagem. Moreover, I don’t like the notion of using a filter bearing a not-so-subtle Nike logo on it. This is just one among the reasons I find myself using Hipstamatic less and less after every release. Before anybody points out that even iPhone/iPod has a Nike + iPod feature that comes with it by default, let me clarify that’s exactly the kind of corporate shit I don’t really like about Apple iPhone.

Detail of AO DLX Film in NSW Always On Freepak

The filters and lens in the NSW Always On FreePak in themselves are nothing to fuss about: pretty good, but also pretty average effects, but yeah, all that counts is if and how you can market them. Both AO BW and AO DLX are black and white films, the former featuring a white border with intense whites, attenuated nuances and noticeable vignetting, the latter featuring a black border and high contrast.

Hipstamatic NSW Always On FreePak — Hornbecker lens with AO BW and AO DLX films. Dude's tired of always working out.

The people behind Hipstamatic proved once more they are definitely very smart when it comes to devise effective marketing strategies.

GIFVid² Now Available In The App Store

GIFVid² for iPhone. GIFVid² for iPhone is now available in the App Store. The slight name change in version 1.1 didn’t affect the way GIFVid² works; the UI is also untouched. The additions represent an upgrade to the basic features of GIFVid, but they do not introduce drastic changes. If you want to know more about how GIFVid works, you will find our full review here.

In GIFVid², both camera performance and GIF export were improved; pasting from iOS clipboard is now supported and so is video exporting; the integrated gallery, where it’s possible to browse GIFs from other users, was also enhanced.

GIFVid² for iPhone It’s now possible to edit GIFs by adjusting offset, brightness, contrast parameters, by adding blur and by setting loop interval. Reset is always possible for restoring the original.

GIFVid² for iPhone A few new sharing options were also added with the latest release: you can now share also on Tumblr, Imgur and Lockerz.