As soon as I bought the iPad, among the first applications I looked for are Photo Editing apps. On the desktop, I actually use Picasa for most of my basic editing. It’s free – which makes it the best choice for what I need it to be. However – there are just some editing that Picasa can not fulfill – and I wasn’t willing to spend for the Adobe Photoshop. The last time I checked – Photoshop cost at least 70 USD.
This is where the iPad comes in. Those who own an iPod Touch, the iPhone and the iPad – knows that the Apple App store is filled with hundreds of thousands of applications that are very reasonably priced. Developing an App for the iOS devices has become the cottage industry of this generation. For Photo Editing – I have found and tried half a dozen of them.
The first two applications I downloaded are Filterstorm and Camerabag. Both of these apps cost 2.99 USD. Camerabag allows one to choose form 6 different filters. it’s simplistic and provides the user a vintage feel for their pictures. Filterstorm – was great – but when I first downloaded it – I felt that it was too complicated and I didn’t know how to use it. Little did I know – that if I was just going to be patient – Filterstorm is actually the closest that I can have to having Photoshop on my iPad.
Camera Bag – Cinema Effect with Polaroid style Borders
I then continued to download other apps. The next ones that I bought were Colorsplash (1.99 USD) which allowed me to have localized colors to a predominantly black and white photo. Tiltshift Generator (2.99 USD) allowed me to highlight portions of the photo by having artificially applying Gaussian Blur onto the photo. Masque ( 3.99 USD ) allowed me to have multiple effects to the photos – like increased saturation, Gaussian Blur – and colorsplash effects.
Tiltshift Generator
I thought I found the perfect app with Masque. The problem that I had with Masque is that it doesn’t allow me to zoom into the picture which makes the application of some effects on detailed corners of some figures very difficult. So I looked one last time and found PhotoWizard (0.99 USD). it does almost all of what Masque does and more. And this time – I can zoom into the picture for the details. The problem I found with PhotoWizard is that it saves the picture in a very small resolution because it only has an iPhone version.
Masque
PhotoWizard
So I thought that the only way that I can successfully edit a photo is by combining the capabilities of all of these applications. Then I decided to revisit Filterstorm. If you’d recall – I thought it was too complicated and one of the things I failed to explore is applying effects ( all of those I mentioned above ) – and applying them to local masks. I was thrilled. Everything that Colorsplash, Masque and PhotoWizard can do – Filterstorm can do – and in a decent resolution. Moreover – the CLONE feature allows me to paint over unwanted portions of the picture ( for example the leash of the dogs in their pictures ).
Filterstorm – Leash on Char Siew is Erased, Color has been saturated and People in Background Blurred
Original Picture
So I guess – I found the perfect Picture Editing software and that is Filterstorm. I hope that people who read this entry – can learn from my journey. If you have a newly bought iPad --- I recommend downloading Filterstorm. IMO – it is the only photo editing software you need on the iPad.
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