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Luminance - micro review

As the editor of iPhography.com I have seen & tested hundreds of apps. So after testing this, I fail to see why it has rated so high by everyone including Apple (runner up for app of the year 2011). It’s not my intention to bag this app but merely provide some balance to the rediculous amount of 5star reviews for what I would give a 2 to 3 star rating for.

My guess is the app maker either has a lot of friends (in high places) or people haven’t tried the much better apps that are available

The filters are ok if you don’t want to edit the photo yourself but other than that the only editing feature I like is tone curve. It’s really quite limited. I don’t like the workflow or having to add each new adjustment (as opposed to just using it). There is also many basic adjustments missing, like sharpen, straighten etc

I’ve actually just deleted the app from my phone, I don’t think I’ll use it again unless it has a radical overhaul

You would be much better served by photogene 2, photoforge 2 or snapseed
Or if you like simple to use cute filters try pictureshow

I fail to see why Apple one of the best designed product companies in the world would choose to showcase what their amazing products are capable of by highlighting this under-performing app. It’s average, not great

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iPhography By Howard Duffy “Rooftop. Affinia Shelburne Hotel. Saturday evening.” Taken on iPhone 4 using Camera App (Non-enhanced)

iPhography By Howard DuffyRooftop. Affinia Shelburne Hotel. Saturday evening.” Taken on iPhone 4 using Camera App (Non-enhanced)

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iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - ”Town Hall Sydney”. Taken on iPhone 4s with snapseed & Autostitch

iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - ”Town Hall Sydney”. Taken on iPhone 4s with snapseed & Autostitch

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iPhography by Funky Love Bunny ”You spin me right round, baby right round”. Taken on iPhone 4s with photogene2

iPhography by Funky Love Bunny ”You spin me right round, baby right round”. Taken on iPhone 4s with photogene2

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iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - ”China town Sydney”. Taken on iPhone 4s with snapseed & pictureshow

iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - ”China town Sydney”. Taken on iPhone 4s with snapseed & pictureshow

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Suggestions for Path

If you haven’t tried it yet, Path is one of the best of the new breed of sharing / social apps & we highly recommend you put it in your stocking this Christmas

But here are some suggestions we have so far

When I tap a photo to see it bigger. Please please don’t auto rotate it, let me decide if it’s necessary. Also can we pinch to zoom on the image please

In the settings where it asks for photos, can you add a small thumbnail so we can see what our current pics are. Because what is “set picture”? Is it my profile pic or is it a background

Oh just tried it, it’s profile picture. Then why don’t you call it profile picture or picture of me etc

The background photo for the main feed with everyone in it should be different to my own path

When I click on the smiley instead of saying seen by no one, it says seen by 1 friend & has a picture of me. I don’t love myself enough to call myself my own friend also I’m pretty sure I know what I have seen or haven’t, seeing as I put it there

A Japanese social network called mixi uses the term ‘footprints’ (when translated) instead of ‘activity’. Seeing as your app is called path, I think the analogy of seeing mine & my friends footprints would be more appropriate & friendly. “Activity” sounds like something you make up to keep bratty children occupied

With the add icons - the symbolism of a camera is old, especially seeing as its taken on an iPhone & also it could be motion pictures (video). As its about my path in life, the things I see, say, hear, where I am & the people I’m with or meet, then I think the camera should be an eye to represent what I saw, the note icon should be an ear for what I’m listening to (because it might not be music) & the speech bubble should be a mouth, I would then group the eye, mouth, ear together (1st, 2nd, & 3rd place in the pop up) & follow with the where (map) & who icons & keep wake/sleep at bottom (not sure if there is enough space but it should be a sun/moon icon, not just moon)

I can’t find within the app any info on what version I have or any help files or anything about path

Also, what are your policies?? For example if the path of my life includes running around at the beach naked with friends or a sexy picture of my girlfriend waking up, would I be deleted even though this is part of the path of my life. In other words, will you control & censor my life (path) like Facebook & Apple or will you be way more cool & tolerant like tumblr. I’d at least like to be able to find this info within the app & not be deleted for something I’m not aware of. Maybe you could add a NSFW/M tag or button (Not Safe For Work or Minors) which obscures or mosaics the image until it is taped incase I’m on a train/bus or someone is looking over my shoulder. It would be my friends responsibility to tag it, if they continue to not, I can unfollow them or tag their image to ‘obscure/cloak’ on my wall

After all if, I’m sharing my path with my friends, shouldn’t it be between them & me as to what we as a group have deemed acceptable?

We hope you won’t be big brother, but will instead encourage my friends & social network to be self responsible & not remove that decision making process from them. Morals & acceptable beliefs are a moving target, what one group deems acceptable or even nice such as sun baking wearing a cute brazilian bikini bottom & no top, would in another community be perfectly acceptable to arrest or even kill you. These are not decisions for anyone other than the members of that community to decide, not their governing bodies or infrastructure providers or app makers. (although I strongly suggest that killing someone for dressing in what they were born in to be completely illogical, inhumane & unproportional in action & intent - besides, my girlfriend is hot)

If you really wish for us to share our paths or lives, then clearly let us know in a short easy to read policy that you will do so. Don’t give us a bait & switch like many other companies

PS so glad you didn’t use corporate blue for your colours like everyone else. Blue means “don’t trust me, we just want your info or money” in my book

PPS feel free to hire me as your usability expert :P

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iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - “Sunday sessions”

iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - “Sunday sessions”

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iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - “Atomic Slip & Slide”

iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - “Atomic Slip & Slide”

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FX Photo Studio by MacPhun LLC, Version 4.2 - Review

The first thing you’ll notice about FX Photo Studio is the user interface is wonderfully clear & optimised for the retina display, plenty of clean space around buttons that are logically laid out & with appropriate icons. I’ll emphasis that it really is clear & simple to use.

The cute little flower on the splash screen actually has a live view of you through your front or rear iPhone lens, although not necessary, its a cute addition. The splash screen greets you with a few clear choices: Take a photo, camera roll, import photo (from doccuments or facebook). Also the options/setting page to select your output size etc, a like heart for facebook, twitter etc to share with friends

The adjustments are basic but a nice addition for what is essentially an effects app

When using the coloursplash (selectively make some areas of the iPhograph colour & some black & white) you can’t make the selection brush very fine, but I like the addition of the loupe to see what your doing close up (even if you did call it a loop)

Some simple rotation tools are included although oddly a 5% rotation increment tool tool is in the seperate crop section. This should be a free rotation or a straighten tool & more logically placed in the rotation section. Also I think it should have the rotation icon in front of the crop icon in the main tool bar for a better workflow eg.. rotate/straighten then crop

I would also like to see the gamma adjustment replaced with levels (this could also replace the brightness/contrast and then fill that brightness/contrast slot with a sharpen / denoise tool instead)

Now as mentioned before, the main purpose of this app is the effects. I like that it uses a generic image to show you a preview of the effect so you don’t have to wait like in some other apps to generate all the previews. I would recommend a better sample image that has more colours to better show the filters. The sample image included is apart from a blue sky & small green patch of grass pretty much monotone. I used a crowded street scene I took in an lane way in Nakano Japan

Although the many effects can be sorted by category. My suggestion for serious iPhographers is that the best way to not get information overload is to use the ‘All Effects’ section grab a nice sample image you may have & spend an hour or 2 testing all the filters, then use the really really handy favourites feature to mark the ones you like, you’ll then be able in the future to just dive into your favourites folder & pull out the iPhographic you were looking for. We were going to put a list of all our favourites but decided that it would spoil your fun of exploring. But I will say that I hope the teddy bear & scary face filters die a quick but painful death

After you have tinkered with your iPhograph you can save the settings as a preset. Eg.. You may wish to make all the images you took on an occassion to have the same feel or perhaps you know that all iPhographs you take at the beach will look good with a certain effect setting 

The ability to paint in the effects to selective areas & not the whole picture is a nice touch. Also applying the effects was fast & saved quickly on our iPhone 4s (sorry we havent tested it on our 3gs yet)

I had an early version of FX Photo Studio when this app first came out & I’ll be honest, I found the effects a little bit limited & didn’t like the interface so I have been using another app for a long time & because I had this app deleted, I didn’t know it had been updated until the app makers contacted us (I couldn’t find within the app who makes it or a link, but I can tell you it’s MacPhun LLC)

It’s amazing what time (& a bit of clever hard work) can do. I have to admit now that the new interface is excellent, you don’t feel like your drowning in useless features & although many of the filters are similar to the old version, the new ones as  well as the adjustments and ways you can apply them, make them so much more useful & you can get some really great results. I would even go as far as saying that the editing is fun & not a tiresome chore that it sometimes can be with other apps

FX Photo Studio Version 4.2 gets a highly recommended award from iPhography.com & we will be putting it back into our favourite iPhography apps folder on our iPhone (& bumping the other FX app we were using)

I’m off now to do exactly what I told you guys & am going to take a good sample image & try out all of the filters with it. I maybe gone for a while but I have corn chips, avocados,  wine supplies & a comfy beenbag. Now if only I could get paid to do this…. Life would be rather sweet

This post will be updated later with some sample effects

(Source: iphography.com)

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Big Lens - Gets an iPhography Highly Recommended

 

We will be posting a review soon but didn’t want you to have to wait till then to try out this fantastic app. You can find ‘Big Lens’ by Reallusion Inc on the App Store

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iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - “Rock the casbah”

iPhography by Funky Love Bunny - “Rock the casbah”

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