My favorite iPhone camera apps

Lately, I’ve been taking more pictures with my iPhone than my DSLR since I picked up a few new camera apps. The pictures just come out looking so groovy.

The new apps are: Night Shot, TiltShift Generator, Hipstamatic, and TouchOfColor. My go to app used to be Photoshop.com Mobile, but I haven’t touched it since I got the other four.

Here are some samples from each app:

PS Mobile: Crop, straighten, rotate, and flip shots. You can also control exposure, saturation, tint, and contrast. If you’re feeling really artsy you can also add a sketch, soft focus, or just plain old sharpen effect. Last but not least there are several preload actions and boarders you can apply to your images. For this shot I applied the Vignette Blur and added a sepia tint.

Night Shot: This app is the best app for taking pictures at night or low light situations and comes with 5 effects (negative, color, B&W, sepia, and night vision) which can be applied with a low, medium, or high setting. You can use existing images or take a picture directly from the app. It seems to enhance the detail in shadow areas that would have otherwise been lost and does it really well.

TiltShiftGen: This app helps you simulate images taken with tilt shift lenses. It lets you apply either a circular or liner blur, adjust saturation, brightness, and contrast, and apply vingnetting.

Hipstamatic ($1.99): This has got to be my favorite app so far. Hipstamatic brings back the look, feel, unpredictable beauty, and fun of plastic toy cameras. You can change “films”, “flashes”, and “lenses” to create different looks or just shake the phone and the app randomly selects each for you. Awesome! The most boring pictures seem to turn into works of art. The downside of this app is you  can only use pictures taken from within the app, but that’s okay by me. I’m always excited to see what I get. For this shot I used the Ina’s 1969 film, John S lens, and no flash.

TouchOfColor: This app lets you select multiple color in your picture using the eye dropper tool and keeps the colors you choose while the rest of the image is converted to black and white. Randy has had a lot more success with this app than I have, but I do look forward to playing with it more.

Tonight I’ll be shopping around for a few new apps. I’ll be checking out Pano, Best Camera, Camera+, Camera Plus Pro (yes, it’s different than Camera+), and whatever else I might run into. I’ll let you know if I find anything worthwhile.

BONUS: I don’t actually use this app myself, but it’s one of Randy’s favorites.

OldBooth Premium: This app puts pictures of you or your friends into 20s – 60s era photos. Practically anyone that gets near Randy has been OldBoothed and everyone always gets a good laugh out of it.

iPhone GPS

This is where my iPhone GPS says I am right now. Green dot is home, red dot is destination, blue dot is little old me.

That's what she said

I found the perfect app for Craig and Krista on my iPhone. It does nothing more than say, "that's what she said."

Thank goodness it's free.

Tap Defense

let me make one thing clear (despite what john may say) - I AM NOT A GAMER. that being said, i'd like tell you about my latest addiction: Tap Defense. i have already wasted most of yesterday and today playing this game.

Tap Defense is a strategy game. the game gives you only one location (at least for each mode: easy, medium, or hard). at one end is the the gate to heaven and the other is the gate to hell; between the two is a path. all types of creatures from hell try to walk from hell to heaven and your goal is to stop them by laying down defensive towers in their path. there are 7 different towers each with their own unique characteristics and price tags.

there doesn't seem to be one definitive way to complete the game, in fact, i've noticed the requirements to achieve certain things sometimes change each time i start a new game. sometimes it takes 2 halos to get an interest rate increase, sometimes 3 halos! this does keep the game interesting.

anyhow, i could go on and on about the game, but there are plenty of in depth articles out there on the net. a quick google search will reveal hundreds of guides, tips, and tricks. you can download this game for your iPhone free at the iTunes app store and start wasting time now.


if thinking is too much for you, my favorite mindless game (thanks to john) is bubble wrap. all you have to do is pop the little bubbles on the screen. you have 45 seconds to pop as many as you can (some bubbles reinflate). have fun. remember to stop and eat every now and then.


*** in case you're wondering how to do a screen capture on an iPhone just hold down the home button and then briefly press and release the power button (if you hold both down for several seconds, the phone will soft reset). you should see a flash of light and hear the sound of the camera. the image will be stored in your photos folder.