Tag: Tips & Tricks

  • 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.

  • Making QR Codes smaller

    I have always been a HUGE fan of QR codes, and there is so much potential in them. I still think they will become part of our daily lives in the future as it allows us to display loads of information in a small image, using our cellphones to display the info.

    I have just finished updating my South African iPhone apps page, and discovered a neat little trick when creating QR codes. Using the Kaywya QR Code Generator, I found is, that when the URL you are pointing to is quite long, the image size gets bigger. So for instance, I want to link back to the apps page, which is https://www.marcforrest.com/south-african-iphone-apps-directory/;

    If I use the full URL in a QR Code image, it turns out to be quite a big image size wise (214 x 214)
    qrcode

    BUT, if I shorten the URL using Bit.ly, it makes the image size a whole lot smaller (135 x 135) , but with exactly the same info in it

    Use it don’t use it ;)