When needing to be creative, for design work or writing, it helps to free the mind from the four walls of the office. It isn’t always possible to take a walk around a area that has influences of what you need. We have always subscribed to a variety of designer magazines which can be fun. Just seeing how others have solved a problem can be energizing.
Using the built in feature to save to library, I like to grab images from Web sites I visit on the iPhone. Tap and hold gives the option to save the image. You can look at it later in your normal Photos area. Since I can’t sort images in the Camera Roll, I set up more folders of groups of images via iPhoto/iTunes. This process requires a sync, sorting on the computer and then syncing again. I end up with folders of different themes that I can shuffle through later to jump start the idea engine from anywhere. Handy when sitting in a coffee spot…
I have been wishing someone would write an app to make this process better. A few days ago I found Photo+Folders, just released and just right.
I go through the normal process of collecting photos, either from the iPhone camera or sites visited. Then, in Photo+Folders, I set up the different areas (labeled folders, you name and can rename when you wish) for the type of images.
Open one of the folders, choose to ‘import’ (second folder icon on the bottom of the page) takes you to your Photo’s Camera Roll. Choose a image to move a copy of it over to the Photo+Folders folder. You can stay on that import page till you close it so you can click on each image you want to move without leaving the photos area.
Once you have the folder built of images, you can remove those photos from the built in Photos area. Now you are able to look at an overview of the images in the folder, choose one and sweep through the images. Never needing to touch iPhoto/iTunes or your desktop computer.
This would be a great app for putting together family member or event photo albums too. From within the Photo+Folders app, you can select one or all to share with others, move to another folder or delete. You can also take an image with the iPhone camera directly from the app to cut the step of importing from the Photos Camera Roll.