Part 3: The Six Categories of Photo Apps

1 - Camera Apps
I use Camera+ if I want a high resolution photo otherwise I go with the standard camera app on the iPhone which is pretty good if you want auto. If I want old film effects then there is Hipstamatic which has an entire following of people. Can end up to be expensive if you go for a lot of the film effects but quite addictive.

Then there are lots of camera apps which give special effects when you take the photo or you can also use them afterwards. Two of these that I use are AremaC by Dominik Seibold. Has endless choices that users have designed that you can download. The second is ColourBurn by Xiaodong Wang. Often use a silhouette from this to blend with another photo.

 2 - Tuning or Photo Enhancement App
If you have a photo that requires just a little improvement than Snapseed is the way to go. It's free and does such a great job of improving the basics like contrast, highlights, shadows and colour. The criticism by high end users is that it only saves in .jpg but for the ordinary person in the street it's less of a concern. If you start with a high resolution image it will still save it at the same resolution but as a .jpg and most people are taking photos as .jpgs in the first place so there is only a slight loss of quality if this is the only save you make.

However, top artists will often want to take their image into lots of apps to do various manipulations and then they want it in a 'lossless' format where the image does not degrade each time you save it. These formats are .png or .tiff. Images are taken with an app like Camera+ which allows you to save photos as a high resolution .tiff file. Then they will take their image into apps which allow you to save as .png or .tiff file. So many will use Enlight instead of Snapseed which allows this.

3 - Repair, Healing and Selection Apps
Facetune by Lighttricks - you can't do without this for improving facial features in my mind.


Healing and Clone
Photoshop Fix by Adobe - free so go for it. Does a good job of healing.
HandyPhoto and Retouch by Adva-Soft - both good for healing. Cloning a bit tricky. HandyPhoto also does selections, extends photos and more.

Selections (I use all of these for different selections)

Eraser by HandyCloset (make sure you get the right one!) - good for removing a colour because of it's threshold slider.
Photoshop Mix by Adobe - free - good for distinct shapes like a red flower against a green background. You have to press your finger on the screen to see the back photo which I find annoying but it is good and you can have more than one layer.
Superimpose by Pankaj Goswami - also good for one colour removal and more complex cuts but I tend to use a sketch app for complex cuts these days.

4 - Sketch App with Layers
A sketch app is mostly used to make a drawing from scratch or to paint on top of an existing photograph but it is well worth learning a good sketch app as a repair tool or to add back definition. If an image is slightly blurred in places, it is possible to make it sharper by taking it into a sketch app and drawing around the blurred object with it's colour or even with a thin line of black. Also, I will patch over a problem area with the necessary colour - sometimes what you need rather than healing or clone.

Personally I think the best sketch app around is Proceate because it's so incredibly powerful and has so many tools and allows more layers than any other app I know. It is also being continually developed by it's makers so it gets better all the time. However, this also means that it has a steep learning curve. If you know you are going to be drawing a lot then persevere with this but if you want an easier sketch app that you can pick up easily I would go for SketchClub. I started with this one and although I probably am starting to use Procreate more, I love the Sketchy pencil in SketchClub which is more forgiving than the brushes in Procreate and for an outline I often go here.

5 - Painting/Effects App
There are so many of these but by far the best is iColorama. So much you can do in this app but again like Procreate there is quite a steep learning curve. The developer is also continually updating this with new features so it's worth getting to know this app well too. The secret is just to try out different options on a photo. Open a photo in iColorama, go to a menu option like Style, choose an effect like Flow and just click on each of the presets and see what they do. Mess around with all the sliders. An effect doesn't always work with every photo so try another photo and go through all the presets with this as well. The more you try things out the more you will learn what you can do with it.

I use the blending options a lot with iColorama. Open a photo, go to Effects, then Blend. At the bottom right there is an option to choose another photo, select a texture photo from your camera roll and then blend it by going through all the presets on the bottom right. If it doesn't work very well, try another texture. Remember to try all the sliders again.

Although I use iColorama as my basic painting app, I use a lot of other ones to finish off an image or to try something different along the way:

Blending Apps or Double Exposure
Union by Pixite - another of my favourite blending apps
Diana by Stettiner Games - just a fun way to see if you can come up with a good double exposure combo. It randomly blends photos in your camera roll but you can lock one and randomly choose the other.

Manual Painting
Repix by Sumoing - One of my favourites. Often use it at the end of my edit to spice up an image.
CleverPainter by SU BINGXI
PaintCan by Adobe (free but low resolution - pity)

Auto-painters
Becasso by Digital Masterpieces
Glaze by Gilles DESEUSTRE
Brushstroke by Code Organa
Artomation by futurala
Aerograph and Imaengine both by Luis Manuel Rivas
Superphoto by Moonlighting - has some great effects but requires a high spec ipad like the iPad Pro

Geometric Shapes, Lines etc
Matter, Tangent and Fragment by Pixite - don't use them much but has some stunning effects.
Trimaginator by Paul Ollivier - again, don't use much but have had some excellent results when I have needed it. Quite extreme results.

6 - Grunge/Texture Apps
Stackables by Samer Azzam - the one I use the most for adding grunge or textures
Shift by Pixite - use this one a lot too
Mextures by Merek Davis Com - not my favourite but liked by many
DistressedFX by We Are Here - again not one I use much but used by others

Of course you can always use Union, iColorama, Procreate and SketchClub to blend your own textures into your photos. Have a look online for photo textures but take note of any copyright requirements. One of my favourite places to get them is Shadowhouse Creations (He gives them free but do donate if you use a lot of them - he deserves it!).

So that's about it. In my next posts I will post some pics done with these apps.