Monthly Archives: September 2009
Top 5 Photography iPhone apps
The fact that my second favorite hobby, next to my iPhone :), is my Photography, and given that the iPhone has a built in Camera, which albeit, isn’t the best, there are a couple of fantastic apps that allow you to maximise the capability of the iPhone Camera.
If you want to see some awesome iPhone photography check out JustWhatISee.comwhich is a site by a guy who goes around taking photos with his iPhone Camera. For all iPhone Photography things also check out iphoneography.com
I have a whole page dedicated on my iPhone to Photography apps, so I thought I would share my top 5 apps :)
Camera Genius (iTunes link)
Price: $0.99
The app adds all the missing features of the standard iPhone camera, and allows you to zoom in on your subjects, which is a big plus, and the images come out fairly clear. Another nifty feature is the anti shake, which helps you get the perfect shot. The camera will only take the shot when the camera is perfectly still,eliminating the blurry pictures we all used to. Camera Genius also has Sound Capture, so everyone can scream cheese and the pic is taken, Guides, full screen button, timer, and a few other features.
All in all a fantastic app that is well worth the asking price. My Rating: 4/5
ColorSplash (iTunes Link)
Price: $1.99
A fantastic tool to make the photos you have taken look extra cool. Color splash is a simple app, which allows you take the color of the image out, or add it back into the image. So the app makes the whole image black and white, and then you simple color out the parts you want to be color again. Something like this below
Great app, that you can spend hours on dollying up your iPhone pics. My rating: 3.5/5
Photogene (iTunes Link)
Price: $2.99
Well well worth the $2.99 you will be spending on this app. This is like Photoshop on your phone. The app is a photo editing app, that allows you to edit the photos you have taken on your iPhone, and then allows you to save them to your phone. These are just some of the awesome things you can do with Photogene
- Crop. Fixed aspect ratios are optional.
- Sharpen
- Levels histogram. Manually or automatically correct color distribution, improving brightness and contrast at the same time.
- Gamma correction (midtones)
- Separate exposure and contrast buttons.
- RGB balance
- Saturation. Increase or decrease hues intensity in your picture. B/W effect can be reached.
- Color temperature. Correct unnatural colors by adding warmth or coolness to the image.
- Straighten for a tilted image
- Rotate and mirror
- Special effects, such as pencil, sepia or heat-map
- Frame effects: Reflection and Vignette
- Preset and customized frames in various shapes, widths and colors. Selection of shadows – outer and inner glows, gloss, drops shadow.
- Text bubbles of different styles, colors and fonts (just drag and place them wherever you like).
- Multiple Undo-Redo and reset buttons. You can use these features to compare between origin and result.
- Take photos from with in the application
Cool hey. Really an awesome app, and like I said, well worth the money. My Rating: 4.5/5
Pano (iTunes Link)
Price: $2.99
This is probably one of my most favorite apps on the iPhone. I have spoken about this app before, and I would buy it 10 times over if I could. The app allows you to take a series of photos which it then stitches together. And it just works. Does a fantastic job. This is one of the photos I took recently using Pano
If you would like to see more of the pics I have taken with Pano, check out my Pano Flickr Set. My Rating: 5/5
Flickr (iTunes LInk)
Price: Free
I have also written about this fantastic app before, but it seriously a great app. Once you have taken all your pictures using the apps above, you can directly upload them to your Flickr Account. On the Go. You can also browse though your Flickr Contacts photo stream, and comment on them. All in all an essential app for your iPhone to help you store your new iPhone photos quickly and easily. My Rating 4/5
Well that’s my 5 favorite iPhone Photography apps. If you know of some that I may have missed, please leave a comment, so we can check them out.
090909 Geeks Day Delight
Yesterday was I think the ultimate Geeks day (well for me anyways :)
- I eventually upgraded my Mac to Snow Leopard. WOW, what an improvement. 2 minor hiccups, in that Checkpoint SecureClient did not work in Snow Leopard, but that was easily fixed, thanks to these fantastic step by step instructions. I also had an issue with Switch Res X, which I am still fiddling with, but not the end of the world
- I upgraded to iTunes 9, which has had a face lift. My favorite feature allows me to organise my apps on my phone from within iTunes
- I upgraded my iPhone firmware to OS 3.1, which also seems a whole lot faster. As someone pointed out, may just be a placebo effect after seeing how much faster Snow Leopard runs, but it definitely does feel a lot faster
- Tweetdeck also graced us with an upgrade. Much cleaner interface, and I wouldnt be lying when I say it also feels that much faster :)
- Winston my Pigeon Booi, from DC, won his race against the ADSL upload. The win was monumental in pigeon terms, and Winston has gone on to break all sorts of other records, by appearing on loads of various websites, and also made an appearance on Sky News !!! Well done to @imsmith and the guys from The Unlimited. Fantastic campaign !!! And to think it all got going at the last 27 Dinner in Durbs :)
- Finally, and definitely not least. I now have a full complement of tractors on my farm in Farmville. Now THATS geeky :)
Pigeon Race 2009
Today is the big day. Today is the day Winston takes to the airs to try and beat Telkom in the race against data.
Winston is a Pigeon who will be flying from Howick, in the KZN midlands to Gillits in Durban, and then transported to Hillcrest via PigeonMobile. The cool thing about Winston is that he will have a 4GB micro SD card attached to his leg, and at the same time that he takes off, a 4GB file will start being uploaded via a Telkom ADSL line.
From there on it is a race against time, to see who will win. If Winston does take this one, it will prove a long lived theory, that the pre historic Pigeon carrier, may well be faster than modern day technology.
My money is on Winston to take the cake in a time of 44mins 21 seconds.
To follow Winston on his travels today, keep an eye on Twitter (#PigeonRace2009), and become a fan on his Facebook fan page. For the full low down, follow Winstons blog at http://pigeonrace2009.co.za/. For a look at the route that Winston will be flying, download the Google Earth KML file I created for the race
Flickr iPhone App
The guys from Yahoo & Flickr have just released a new Flickr iPhone app(Open iTunes), which enables you to easily share the photos you’ve captured with iPhone’s camera, geo-tag them, and add them to sets. 
You can also view your Flickr contacts pictures, as well as view recently uploaded pictures by your contacts. You can also comment on your contacts pictures & videos, as well as an option to search for photos from within Flickr.
Overall the app has a very easy to use interface, which allows users to control their Flickr stream and activity from the iPhone. I also enjoy the slide show on the front page, which shows your contacts (who have the app installed) Flickr stream in a slideshow. Very cool to watch
To download the app, click here, or you can scan the QR Code at the top for a direct link
iPhone Home Screen Icon
A cool little tip I came across for the iPhone earlier today was how to get your own personal icon on the home screen on the iPhone. What I mean is if you have a website, that you want your users to view on an iPhone, you can create a customised icon for them to use everytime they want to access your site. It looks like an application button on the homescreen as well.
So for example, if you visit my site on your iPhone Safari browser, you will see a rendered mobile site, using the MobilePress WordPress plugin. Now if you really like my site (*hint* *hint*), you can add an icon to your home screen on your iPhone, by clicking the plus button at the bottom of the screen, and then selecting “Add to Home Screen”.
This will then add an icon to your home screen and allow you a one touch “click” to my site.
Now if you have a site that you would like this nifty little feature, you need to follow the 3 very simple steps below:
- Create a PNG file, which is 57×57 pixels big. This can be any image you want. Don’t worry about the rounded edges and glossy icon. The iPhone takes care of this for you.
- Save the file as “apple-touch-icon.png”
- Upload the PNG file to the ROOT directory of your website, and then visit your site on your iPhone to test it out.
A very simple little trick if you want to ensure your visitors come back to your site over and over :)
Flickr Photos
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