Pixiq

iPhone Apps for Creativity

Every day there are new apps coming out for the iPhone (and iPad and other phones) and they are getting more and more sophisticated. It is always good to catch up on the latest ones and also the updates on older ones that bring them forward again.

Here is a line up of ones I am enjoying and are amazing in their ability to "mimic" dslr's but watch out because pretty soon we won't need those dslr's or even the point and shoots if the quality keeps coming on this strong. We all do post processing on our images so this is a not a time waster, but it's doing the same thing you would do with Photoshop and other programs to your images taken from your expensive equipment.

Let's get started!

Slow Shutter Cam   

Slow Shutter Cam mimics what can be done with a dslr by dragging the shutter. It has many settings that let it be totally different each time and customized to favorite settings.Create all kinds of slow shutter speed effects with your iPhone/Ipod by using one of the following capture modes; Automatic, Manual and Light Trail. Capture modes can be selected by taping the Settings button located on the left of the Shutter button.

This one was done with the app and then edited in Photoshop using the Topaz Plugin to saturate and deepen it. Exposure Color Stretch was used on this one at the default settinghs. More about Topaz Filters and *discount* codes for it can be found at my Topaz Blog post.

Automatic mode

Equivalent to the Shutter Priority mode on a DSLR, the Automatic mode lets you suggest movement in your photographs by adding blur. Featuring automatic exposure compensation, your pictures are always perfectly exposed. The Automatic mode is also the mode of choice for creating ghost images or waterfall effects.

Manual mode

In low light conditions, the Manual mode lets you turn darkness into daylight. Set the shutter speed and the camera will accumulate every photon of light hitting your camera sensor. Exposures can then be fine tuned by using the exposure compensation slider.

Light Trail mode

The Light Trail mode lets you "paint" with light, shows car light trails, fireworks or any other moving light adding drama and realism to your photos. Unlike shooting with a DSLR and being tied to specific rigid settings to get good results, The Light Trail mode takes care of the essentials, letting your creativity soar! Light Trail mode also features a live preview allowing you to watch your work progress in real time.

Tilt Shift for iPhone

Here is another one that mimics a great effect from cameras and allows plenty of your own creativity in it. 

Focus on a linear or elliptical region in the image with visual guides and interactively adjust the amount of blur for maximum effect. Increase color saturation, contrast or brightness. Create a bokeh effects with the lens blur filter controlling all aspects.Blooming strength and threshold are adjustable.Even choose a shaped aperture (hexagon, heart, dollar sign, etc.) if you like.Size and orientation of the focus can be adjusted.

The resulting image can be saved in high resolution.

Both portrait and landscape mode are supported. The options here are amazing and limitless. Love using this for the closeups like you see here.

FX Photo Studio

This app has been around for a while but has also been updated with new options and filters. While there are many "filters" apps out there, it's hard to just use one. FX Photo Studio is a lot of fun and has many color options that make it intriguing to play with.

The icon for this app is particuliarly adorable and colorful and makes it easy to find in your iPhone. There are easy to following instructions along the way that can be turned off when you have learned the app well enough. Presets can be saved and the effects can be seen in categories or all at once. Save favorites for use again later. When you choose an effect it can still be fine tweaked and it does not apply until APPLY is chosen. This allows fast previews. The processing of the effect is very fast. Multiple layers of one effect over another is permitted before saving it.

Save the image to your photo album, documents or clipboard and share it via Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr or email it. It's great having all the share options to save time later.

Corel Paint It Now

A fun little quickie autopainting app brought to us by the leader in natural media digital painting software. This little app is great fun to watch it auto paint a photo using your choice of settings: Modern,Oil,Illustration,Impressionist and Pen&Ink.

This one was using the Impressionist setting on the image that was manipulated in the FX Photo Studio app.

The paintings are saved as low resolution but can always be upsized in other software. The object is "fun" and posting and sending them.

Burst Mode

Burst Mode is incredible! Haven't you always wanted a fast shutter speed and motor drive for your iPhone? I know I have! With Burst Mode you get that plus more. Don't waste memory space with all the images shot, only save the ones you want to keep. 

Set the number of frames to shoot over a set amount of time. Choices include 1 to 24 in a second! Choose the number of frames to be captured from 5 to 400! I use 50 as an average. It even has a self timer built in to start the action or manually click the camera yourself once to start it. Afterwards the above thumbnails appear.

It will only save the ones you want to save so no space is wasted. Pick your images to save and that's the only one it will save.

This one was the best one of the bunch so it was saved.

Using this app for animals, birds, kids, sports, etc leaves your options open for getting that great action shot or just "finally" a great smile on the new baby! This is one app I will be giving a workout often.

Most of these apps are either already available for the iPad2 or will be available for it. There is no way anyone will leave their apps behind on the updates. As fast as we find the fun and useful apps, they are creating them for us.

Post your favorite images using these apps and let us know about other ones.