No, this list doesn’t include
Instagram or Flickr or Snapseed. Here are some other interesting apps you may
have missed out on
Smartphones these days come with cameras
which are capable of taking decent pictures for mobile sharing. But capturing
photographs is just one half of the equation, the other being sharing it. You
will rarely find anyone NOT sharing photographs on social media sites.
When we talk social media, some things are
par for the course. You don’t just share images right from your phone’s image
gallery. You marinate them in a lot of filters, cover them up inside funky
frames, geotag them and so on, before hitting the share button.
Instagram is a big name in this field and
is found on most of the smartphones around (sorry Windows and BlackBerry
users). So in this month’s line up, we are going to look at photography apps
which may not be as popular as Instagram, but are worth considering. Some apps
in the listing leave Instagram way behind in terms of the sheer number of
features they support – and we aren’t just talking more filters. Read on.
Flickr, Camera+, Snapseed and 500px
are some of the biggies already covered in our Fast Track to Mobile Apps last
month.
1.
PicsArt
PicsArt is a photography app for Android
and iOS, which allows you to add effects to pictures, make a collage of your
photographs, draw alongside on the pictures, and add effects to your native
camera while taking a live photograph and so on. It allows you to import
pictures from your Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Google, Dropbox accounts as well
which is quite impressive. PicsArt allows you to connect your Twitter or
Facebook account to it. Under effects, it not only allows you to add a variety
of filters, but each filter comes with its set of adjustments which can be
tweaked according to your liking. This gives you more control over the effects
than say the Instagram filters. With options like adding masks, you can even
select on which part of the photograph you may want to add an effect. The
collage function is a fun way to group multiple photographs.
PicsArt
The social angle allows you to follow
people on PicsArt and it has dedicated tabs for interesting photographs, recent
photographs, trending tags, popular artists and so on.
If you are those discerning photography
enthusiast who like to fine tune your photographs and feel limited with the
stock filters on Instagram, this is the app you should download!
Platform: Android, iOS, Amazon.
2.
Pixlr Express
Pixlr
Express
This app takes image-editing to a whole new
level with over 600 effects, borders, overlays to play around with. Coming from
Autodesk, the same company which makes 3D editing software Maya, you obviously
will expect the best. Unlike PicsArt, Pixlr Express does not allow you to
import pictures from other services but it allows you to share it directly to
your social networks. Pixlr Express’ main focus is image editing and it does
not have a social community as such to speak of. You are presented with
countless adjustment features such as touch up, focal blurring, sharpening,
etc. and there are plenty more. Under Affects you have filters categorized
under sub heads, ditto for the other options such as Overlay, Borders and Text.
This app is also meant for those who love
spending time, fine-tuning their photographs. Those with short attention span
will find this app cumbersome.
Platform: Android, iOS
3.
Otaku Camera
Otaku
Camera
Otaku is the Japanese word which describes
people with obsessive interests generally around Japanese manga or anime, but
can involve other kinds of nerds as well. So Otaku Camera is the one you should
have on your phone if you are into comics or graphic novels. It is a very
simple app which allows you to comicify your photographs with interesting frame
designs which will make your photograph look like it are a panel from some
Japanese comic. There is a list of frames which you can download for free, if
you want more variety. In terms of tweaking, you can only adjust the brightness
and the thickness of the lines on the sketch. You can either share it on
Facebook or Twitter or just save it to your phone.
Platform: Android, iOS
