My New Favorite iPhone Camera App

My husband and I recently took a road trip, and along the way I played around with several camera apps on my iPhone. The end of the school is year approaching and with summer coming quickly the photo opps are all around, so I wanted to share my experience with a camera app that I think might be helpful to you!

I should mention that I have primarily been a native iPhone camera app user since entering the era of my iPhone (that's definitely an era right?!?), but I found myself getting frustrated, primarily with the focus, lighting and speed of my shots. I started exploring some different camera apps (I like Instagram, but I wanted something with more features) to see if I could find one that I liked better. I compared a few different apps in the end of my hunt, mainly Camera Awesome, and Camera+. My favorite is....Camera+. I should forewarn that it is $.99 app (normally I try to keep all things free on this blog), and I think it's well worth it, but for a free suggestion (and for the Android peeps out there) read on.

Focus AND Exposure Adjustment
You can do more than tap for a focal point of your photo (like in the standard iPhone app) by using a second finger to set the exposure of your image before snapping the pic.


Speed of Capture
Camera+ allows you to capture a photo and then quickly turn around and capture another. If you continue pressing on the camera button pictures will keep being snapped by the app. This helps ensure you don't miss a moment.

Clarity
This is by far my enhancement feature of the app. After capturing your photo, select it in the Lightbox to edit. Then select Clarity and watch your photo come to life. These feature has done some serious good for my photos. Check out the images below. This picture was taken traveling at about 65 mph on a highway in Tennessee. The first image is the original, the second was adjusted only by adding the Clarity effect.

Filters
If you want to fancy up your photo even more you can dig into some of the many filters that are offered in this app. You can apply an Instagram-ish filter if you prefer, or choose from the many filters in the categories of color, retro, and special. For the example below I added the HDR filter. You also have the ability to customize the intensity of all filters with a slider which I really like.

Take another look at this before and after...

Share-ability

From Camera+ you can easily share your pic by posting to Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr. You can also save your photos into the Camera Roll of your phone from your Lightbox (you can also change the setting so that photos go straight to your Camera Roll or to both your Camera Roll and Lightbox).

To top it off, you can go back and change the settings of your photo at anytime from the Lightbox. You can also bring in your photos from the Photo app on your phone in order to add features and effects.

So yeah...I'm loving this app. It does cost $.99 in the AppStore, and I'm not a spokesperson for them in any way...it's just a great app that I've really enjoyed! If you have $.99 cents to spare I definitely recommend checking out Camera+!

Free Alternative and Android
Now, if $.99 is something you do not wish to spend on a camera app, Camera Awesome is a great alternative. It lets you set the focus and exposure of a photo like Camera+, and it has a nice "Awesomize" feature for your photos that does a great job of enhancing your image, plus it has an easy share feature.

I didn't forget about the Droid users out there, and though I didn't have the opportunity to check these out first-hand, I did find a couple of apps that sound quite good. You might want to take a look at  Little Photo (FREE) or Camera Zoom ($2.99); both look to have some great features.

Happy warm weather photo taking!!

Want Instagram style pics on your PC? Try pixlr-o-matic!

So I have been a fan of Pixlr (pixlr.com) for quite some time now. Their online photo editor is quick and has a lot of great tools (see prior posts about it here and here). I've noticed other resources on their site before and have used a couple, but had never really spent any time with pixlr-o-matic until recently.

With the popularity of Instagram (and my new found love on my iPhone Snapseed), I think many of us are familiar with the style of pictures that can be produced with pixlr-o-matic on your computer. To get started just go to pixlr.com/o-matic/ or you can go to pixlr's main site and choose pixlr-o-matic.

You can either grab an image from your webcam or one already saved to your computer. I started with a quick pic from my webcam. Choose the effects you want to add, and a frame if you choose, then save your final product to your computer or to immio (photo sharing site). You can also use the randomizer button at the bottom to get randomly generated effects, overlays, and borders. It's right to left of the "gauge" (it looks very much like a shuffle button for music). I found I liked to use the random button and then just tweak the things that I want to. By using different effects a photo can be made to look old or futuristic, which could be a nice touch for pictures or photos that are used in a student project!

Image Help! Great resources for image editing

Have you found yourself in a situation where you needed or wanted to edit an image, or even create one, but didn't know where to start? Maybe you're looking for a great editor to use with your students. Lucky for you there are multiple free resources that are yours for the taking, and lots of tutorials on how to use them.  I think it's a great idea to use free resources when possible in the classroom because students can easily use them at home. I've featured a few of my favorite (FREE!) resources and tutorial videos.

GIMP - GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is free piece of software that is very capable of doing some major image creation and editing. It is often described as a free alternative to Photoshop. There are a ton of tutorials and help for Gimp online. Visit the GIMP site here to download the program.


Video: Let a photo flow into the camera - GIMP tutorial
More Resources: GIMP Tutorials

Pixlr -Pixlr is definitely one of my favorite web-based image editors. There are several versions depending on the type of editing you want to do. The Pixlr editor is the full photo editor that I have found to be quite good for many image edits. Pixlr express offers some quick edit tools in an easy format and Pixlr-o-matic offers some quick vintage effects for your photos. If you want to create your own image you will want to use the full Pixlr editor. One of my most favorite features of Pixlr is that you can create a free account and save your images in your Pixlr library. This means if you working on an image and have to leave that computer, you can save your image in your Pixlr library and easily pick up where you left off on any other computer.

Video: Pixlr Tutorial: How to Make a Banner (using layers, style options, and free transform)

FotoFlexer - FotoFlexer is great for quick and easy changes to photos. For more info check out the post I wrote about FotoFlexer here =)


Video: FotoFlexer Tutorial

PDFmyURL Saves website as pdf fast!

PDFmyURL provides a service that lets you generate a pdf of ANY web address that you enter. This could be super helpful when you need to save what's displaying on webpage today when it may be updated and changed tomorrow. Additionally if you want to have a file on your record of something that you've seen this is a fast and easy way to do that. All you have to do is go to pdfmyurl.com and then enter the web address in the window.

Once you've entered an address just hit enter or press the button to the right. The website will then save and you'll see a pdf appear...pretty cool!

Min.us improved!

I've just found out that an already great site is now even better! If you don't know about min.us check out my prior post about it here. Basically the site provides a crazy simple setup for sharing. You can drag a pic onto the site and easily share from there. Brilliant right? Well now min.us has come out with new features such as being able to share music & documents, as well as images. You can also select multiple files on your computer (hold Ctrl on your computer as you click to select more than one) and drop them all in to receive one link to share. You just have to drag any file onto the window of the page and drop it in.

Min.us has released desktop versions for Mac, Windows, and Linux. I've just downloaded the Windows version and it seems to work great. It just puts a small icon in your system tray where you can drag your files to and receive a link to share from there. For more info and options you can view their FAQ page here.

min.us - Share a pic, so easy!

It doesn't get any easier to share an image (in my opinion) =) If you have one picture or even a few that you want to share with others, just open your browser and type in the address, min.us. From here, it's as simple as dragging your picture(s) over to the window, or clicking the Select your Files link and going from there. As soon as you do this you will see a page with your image(s) and a small window that details the pictures and includes links. The link that you want to share is at the bottom of the window. For an example go to http://min.us/mvbnZx9. This example is of 5 pictures, just click the one you want to view.

It's not necessary to even create an account, but if you want to easily access your picture galleries later, you may want to register. Thanks to my coworker Ricky Gode (and his informant Josh Davis) for this site! =) Enjoy!

Pixlr...Photo Editing Services

www.pixlr.com

Pixlr provides a great online application for editing photos. So you may ask...what makes it different from other online photo editors?? Well for starters, you don't have to register for an account so it is quick and easy to start using the application. 

Even better, Pixlr offers you a couple of options for editing your photos. If you're a beginner with photo editing, Pixlr Express is a great place to start. It offers cropping and resizing tools, as well as adjustments and effects that you can apply to your image. 

If you are familiar with products like Photoshop, then you will be quite comfortable using the full Pixlr Editor. The editor will allow you to import your own images and it gives you the option of creating an image from scratch. In the Tools window you will also find red-eye fix, blur, clone, and many more correction and editing tools.

When you click on either of the options (Editor, or Express) you will first see a window that prompts you to select your image source (or create a new blank image in Editor). Once you make your choice, you will see the application with the toolbox on the left. 

Enjoy! 

FotoFlexer

Have you ever needed to make a quick change in a picture (or maybe a few changes :) before you added it to a presentation or uploaded your image to your website?

FotoFlexer provides a quick, easy, and free online tool that allows you to edit your pictures and even add text. To use FotoFlexer just go to fotoflexer.com, and click the Upload Photo button (if you want to just try the product there are sample images you can use as well).

Your image will open with the basic tools showing. With the basic toolbar you can fix red eye, crop, resize, rotate, flip, and/or adjust the color/contrast in your picture.

Just click the tool that you want to use and fotoflexer will tell or show you what you need to do next. On the other tabs you will find tools for adjusting or adding effects to your picture, including text! When you are finished editing your image just click the Save button and choose where and how you want to save your file.