One tap photo enhancing on the iPhone

I have been planning out a post on the many apps avail now that offer a ton of image tuning options for the iPhone. They offer filters, frames and coloring. Generally, these applications apply the filter to the full image rather than the specialized apps that let you tune a particular area.

One of those apps that offer a long list of filters is Camera+. It is being mentioned here today because of their latest update that includes ‘Clarity’.

I wont get into the science behind what Camera+ is doing to the photo to enhance it from the snapshot you took. Seeing is believing… starting with a image I took on Lake Como:

From inside of Camera+, you can choose to take a new photo or one from your Photos area. Right off, there is a new option ‘Clarity’.

Tap Clarity and seconds later you have the updated photo. You will notice the rocks pop more, the shadowed area are less dark and the background buildings are sharper.

Here is the larger view of the image saved from Camera+ (the image could have also been shared out through Flickr, Facebook, Twitter or via email) to the Photo area of your iPhone. I didn’t put the photos next to each other as a before and after. The new images isn’t always better, but it will always be different. It’s a great feature to throw at every photo to see if you like the result better. Camera+ doesn’t alter the original image so your not stuck with any changes you make if it isn’t what you expected.

A feature a co-worker brought up that I agree would be great. Image if you could apply the effect to the image and then swipe over the area you want to undo. In the image above I would undo the water to make it closer to what I would ultimately show others.

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Path on the iPhone, being social with family and friends

After using a social service like Twitter or Facebook for a while, just about everyone falls into the quantity game. Even the new PicPlz and Instagram have created a game of getting your pictures liked and thus seen by more people.

Path for the iPhone is taking a different approach with social image groups. By limiting your circle of viewers to 50, Path becomes more about personalized photo sharing than trying to second guessing the masses to self promote.

By forcing a smaller group of people your social with, Path encourages photo sharing that is really a life story or stream of happenings in your day. Your friends can view and rate your photos, which interestingly you can see how people are viewing your photos too (called ‘Activities’). I do wonder if the feature of watching people spend time on your photos takes us back to being encouraged to take photos that people like rather than what you truly want to share.

Finding friends through Facebook is supported but Path doesn’t post your full image ‘path’ to Facebook, choosing to only support single occurrences posts. There is also the ability to upload 10 second video which to me takes the social service even more personal. I find myself doing more since I know I’m only talking to a small group of close ‘friends’.

Like the popular social photo services, you can apply ‘lenses’ to your Path published photos. There is an extra charge for lenses though so I usually touch up my photos in other apps and then let Path broadcast them out to my circle. When friends post images and videos, the Path app pushes a notification to me so I can keep up in close to real time. Since I have even less than the 50 allowed, the notifications don’t keep banging on me all day like when I had notifications turned on for Facebook.

It will be interesting to see how many people are truly interested in sharing with only friends and family and aren’t motivated by the shiny gathering of the masses. I still use all the usual big name social services to broadcast out my thoughts and fun pics which I know get lost amongst most people’s thousands of ‘friends’ they follow. But, Path has a secure home on my iPhone to help me interact with those close to me who actually want to be involved in my day… and in return they share with me images from their lives.

 

Curved back and added protection for the iPhone 4

I can’t believe I missed this. Being a huge fan of vinyl skins on all of my Mac devices, I often create unique designs that Unique Skins prints for me. They are inexpensive enough that I can change whenever a new idea hits me. If you haven’t put on a vinyl protect skin on your iPhone, iPad or notebook yet, they go on pretty easily and come off without taking paint or leaving sticky gunk.

The part I can’t believer I missed is a type of vinyl skin called “Gel Skin“. Simply put, instead of just flat, thin vinyl, these have a bit more thickness curving down at the edges. And, like the name implies, they have a gel like feeling so they are slightly squishy. On the back of the normally flat iPhone 4, the Gel Skin adds a bit of a curve to it so it sits nicely in your hand.

The snaps I took of the co-worker’s didn’t turn out very well. I’ll grab a couple pictures and post them up when mine shows up in a couple days. This is an image from Unique Skin’s site. Yes, the basic vinyl order covers both the front and back of your iPhone, and are 50% off right now, no coupon needed (they don’t show when this offer will expire).

Pah! Brings a new sound to iPhone game playing

A whole new sound around playing games on your iPhone… the sound of Ahhhh and Pah! Both of which need to come from you. Sadly, the family is still asleep so I’m not able to do much more than quiet suggestions to the space ship in the new iPhone game ‘Pah!’. But when they are up, my “Ahhh’s” will control the space ship and “Pah” will shoot the gun.

This should be a hoot around the office today. Get a couple people looking at it in one office, folks start in and a crowd will follow. It will be a iPhone game, sound, crowdsourcing event. No one will be playing it for hours in their office without everyone knowing.

Foodspotting Blue Ribbon better than a Michelin Star

Michelin Guide star per wikipedia:

“The guide awards one to three stars to a small number of restaurants of outstanding quality. One star indicates a “very good cuisine in its category”, a two-star ranking represents “excellent cuisine, worth a detour,” and three stars are awarded to restaurants offering “exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey”.
A three-star Michelin ranking is rare. As of late 2009, there were 26 three-star restaurants in France, and only 81 in the world.”

If you watch many of the International cooking and restaurant shows, you will hear the likes of Gordon Ramsay keep talking up that a chef or restaurant is good enough for a Michelin Star. What does a star on a restaurant mean to you? You can grab a ‘guide’ and find those restaurants that a food specialist said you will like.

Enter, Foodspotting. A Web site, iPhone app and Andriod app that allows people to say what they like, at a individual dish level. There are no negative reviews, nor restaurant level reviews. The app allows the user to snap a photo, share what they liked about it and give dishes they ‘really’ liked a Blue Ribbon.

What this means to you and me is that we can search for a food type in an area and find only the dishes that are rated as worth your time to try. There is no fine print to read through to find out the reviewer didn’t actually like a dish. If your interested in Pizza, you don’t have to go to an high rated Italian Restaurant that is only good at spaghetti.

Along with the good does come some issues with Foodspotting. When the iPhone app first came out, it took way too long to enter a great food find you wanted to share. The new version of the app (released March 14th) has made the process much easier.

Generally when I hear someone mention Foodspotting in person or in an article, no one can avoid bringing up Foursquare. There is talk of employees shared across the systems, or developers working on one project moving to another. It doesn’t matter what is actually happening, the folks at Foodspotting really need to get on top of this since it only confuses people. Users of Foursquare ‘check in’ at a location that tells me nothing about how the food was. Foursquare s all about how many times a person visits a location.

While the iPhone Foodspotting app isn’t perfect, it does give you info on ‘what to eat’ very quickly. The automatic ‘near me’ hasn’t worked well for me, North Kentucky is a bit of a drive for me from North Texas. Getting around that is simple enough by dropping a GPS pin then looking for the food type I’m looking for around that area.

Like any service where your given a chance to tell other people your opinion, the Foodspotting service is only successful if people actually post what they like. Download the free app to use the free service and take a picture of your next ‘great’ meal so when I’m in your area I know where to go. Thanks!