Lately, I have been exploring the photography capabilities of my Motorola Cliq XT. I have put away my Canon (temporarily) in exchange for the built-in camera on my Cliq XT. The camera by itself takes very good pictures, but it lacks in giving the pictures something to stand out from the other pictures taken with my Canon, save for megapixel differences. I decided to turn to apps in the Android Market for enhancing my photos. In my search, I found four camera apps that I think are great for enhancing photos taken with an Android device. My descriptions of the apps will be brief, only highlighting certain, easy to use features. These apps offer far more features than will be covered in this article. My goal is to feature the apps and then provide you with the link to more information should you be interested in learning more about the app or acquiring it for yourself.
1. FxCamera (Price: Free)
FxCamera is a very simple app to use and it offers a handful of nice effects. The menu presents you with five different effects and normal mode. The effects are, ToyCam, Polandroid, Fisheye, SymmetriCam, and the recently popular Warhol. My two favorite effects in this app are ToyCam and Polandroid. The ToyCam effect is probably the most versatile, as it gives you a host of color filters and vignetting. The Polandroid effect aims to mimic the old Polaroid cameras from several decades ago. This effect offers a few options for variance. I think the Polandroid effect does a very good job of mimicking the vintage film. In my opinion, the Polandroid effect is the best effect offered by this app. The other features are definitely worth exploring and they will provide you with a good set of photo effects to enhance your pictures and make Android photography fun. For the price of free--by free I mean ad supported--FxCamera is definitely worth a download.
 |
| Polandroid with Vintage Film color mode |
Official Site: http://stackrmobile.com/fxcamerasupportAppBrain Page: Free version (ad-supported)QR Code: Free version
2. Retro Camera (Price: Free, or $2.99)
Retro Camera is the easiest to use camera app I'm featuring in this article. This camera app is not as feature rich as the other apps mentioned in this article, but it can be equally as fun or interesting to use. Using this app, you simply choose the model of camera you wish to emulate (only 4 are available as of this writing) and then take pictures as if you were using that camera. All of the customization is taken care of, so you only need to choose what effect you want and then take pictures. When choosing a camera model, you have the option to see the presets of each model along with a sample picture of the output. In my opinion, the Little Orange Box camera is the best option in this app. For Retro Camera, simple does not translate to diminished quality. While it takes nice pictures, my only quarrel with the app is that it applies a border to each picture that doesn't seem to be removable. I think that a border is only necessary for the camera model that emulates Polaroid pictures. Because of this border, I don't think that I can use Retro Camera for any serious photography, that is, unless I were taking pictures for a scrapbook, for which it would be great. So, if your aim for taking pictures is to have fun or for scrapbooking, then Retro Camera is an app you should check out.
 |
| Little Orange Box camera |
Official Site: http://www.urbian.biz/apps.htmlAppBrain Page: Free version (ad-supported) | Plus versionQR Code: Free version | Plus version
3. Camera 360 (Price: Free, or $3.99)
Camera 360 is a feature-rich app offering a vast amount of effects. Some of the effects include, black and white, LOMO Cyan, HDR simulation, Reversal film, Night mode, and Tilt-shift mode. A lot of these effects actually do a decent job. The LOMO Cyan effect is my favorite, but it's a close call. The HDR simulation is not true HDR, hence "simulation" in the effect's name. It does do a good job of bringing out the colors in areas of the photo that would otherwise be washed out or in the shadows. Camera 360 offers a neat feature when previewing a picture with the effect applied. If you tap and hold on the picture, you will see the original. Release your finger and the new picture reappears. This gives you the ability to see the changes before you save the photo to your SD card. I do have one issue with Camera 360. After taking a picture, for some reason, the app rotates the image 90 degrees and then stretches the image, giving you a preview of a warped image. The final image will of course be unaffected by the rotate and warp. Perhaps this is just a display bug in the app. The Pro version offers two other effects that look very interesting: Dream and Back to 1839. I have not yet purchased the Pro version, but images with the Back to 1839 effect look really cool. Of the four camera apps featured in this article, Camera 360 is my second favorite. If you can tolerate the nag ads when you open and close the app, the free version offers enough features that there may not be a need to upgrade to the Pro version. However, it may be worth the $4 to remove the ads and support the developer for making such a good photo app.
 |
| LOMO Cyan effect |
Official Site: http://www.mappn.com/community/AppBrain Page: Free version | Pro versionQR Code: Free version | Pro version
4. Vignette (Price: Free, or UK£2.99)
I suppose you could say I saved the best for last--at least it's the best in my opinion. Vignette captured my affection with the first picture I took with the app. I was immediately impressed. This app offers you with a host of options to tweak your picture to your liking. Vignette offers you some basic camera controls, such as, white balancing, flash control, and auto focus. With these controls, you also get a composition guide, which adds a grid to your display for subject placement. I really like that feature, as it offers you a nice rule-of-thirds grid. Vignette also allows you to set the desired resolution of your picture. The demo version only offers the smallest resolution of 0.3 megapixels, but the full version gives you a range of 0.3 to 5+ megapixels, depending on your camera's capabilities. Finally, Vignette has a nice set of effects to apply to your image (e.g. vignette, vintage, black and white, etc.). To set your effect, you simply choose it from the drop-down menu and then apply additional effects (e.g. film grain, soft-focus halo, light leaks, tilt-shift, exposure, etc.), if desired. You really have to play around with the settings to get the desired results, but the extra efforts certainly pay off. Vignette can turn an ordinary photo into a stunning photograph. It's definitely worth paying for.
 |
| Vignette with soft-focus halo |
Official Site: http://neilandtheresa.co.uk/Android/AppBrain Page: Demo | Full versionQR Code: Demo | Full version
Now that my Motorola Cliq XT is loaded with these apps, it's time to go out into the world and explore what sorts of photographs I can produce with it. Have you used any of these apps? What do you think about the one(s) you have used? Do you know of any other or better camera apps for Android? Feel free to comment below.
I don't think I made myself very clear when mentioning Vignette's feature set. To say that the app has "a host of options" is quite an understatement. I might have to write a new post featuring only that app so that I can highlight more of the features. It truly is a feature-rich app that's more than worth the price to buy it.
ReplyDelete