iPhone App Review: Light Leak

Back in the good old days of 35mm, did you ever get your photos back from the processor with an advisory that your film had been exposed to light, and you had fogging and sprocket marks across some or all of your photos, or even worse you had lost some or all of them completely. Well in today's digital world of photography this is a thing of the past, or is it? With Light Leak you can introduce this effect back in to your digital photos, producing some very interesting and arty looking shots, and all quickly and easily.

Light Leak, the developers description

A light leak is what happens to the edge of film when a camera's seal is not shut properly.

This is a multi-threaded application for simulating an old plastic camera leaking light onto the film. Leaks are produced randomly and images can be processed in color or black & white. A small amount of extra contrast is added to produce rich graphic images.

Photos will resemble images produced by plastic cameras popular in the 1960s. Since the edges are randomly generated, you can process your image several times without producing the same result.

The App

Launch the app and you are presented with a relatively clean and simple interface. Across the bottom of the apps screen you will see three icons, Capture, Edit and Above: The three screens of Light Leak.Save, and touching these will reveal options across the top of the screen. Touch on Capture and you have the choice of either loading a photo from the Album or taking one with the Camera. After you have loaded or taken a photo, touch edit and Color+ and Gray+ appear across the top giving you the choice of applying the light leak effect to your colour photos or convert the photo to black & white, and apply the light leak. If touching either of the Color+ or Gray+ light leak effects does not give you enough, then touching the Color+ or Gray+ again and again, applies a second, third, fourth.... douse. Now the downside of this effect, is if you touch the Color+ or Gray+ once too much there is no going back, and the app has no undo, so you will have to start all over again!!

Once you are happy with the effect, simply touch the Save icon at the bottom of the screen and a Red Save icon will appear at the top of the screen. Tap this Red Save icon and it goes gray and then changes to Done when complete, and that's it you've just created and saved your fogged/light leaked effect photo.

To create the above photo, I first increased the photos contrast using HiCon Pro, then added a 35mm frame using Photogene and finally processed the image with Light Leak.So what did I think of the App?

Light Leak is an interesting app, that if combined with effects from other apps can produce some unusual and interesting effects, and turn a naff photo in to a cool photo. Whilst Light Leak does not get the iPhoneography recommended award, I would give the app 3 stars out of 5, and this app will definitely remain on my iPhone for the foreseeable future.

AppStore Link: Light Leak - Price - £0.59/$.99

Comments

[scw]

I see a higher res update in the future for it should be noted it saves at a low res of 320 x 480 like Foto Muse.

[Glyn Evans]

@SCW, the file size of the current version of Light Leak (the version reviewed here) saves at 1600 x 1200, which is the same for HiCon Pro (review coming tomorrow), but as you correctly pointed out is not the same as Foto Muse which as you say, only saves at a poor 320 x 480.

[scw]

@Glyn I stand corrected you are correct & as well tested on 3GS & saves to 1536 x 2048 !!!

Cheers

[Theresa]

I recently purchased this app after seeing it reviewed in a manual and I'm disappointed to realize that it won't stay open when you try to edit existing photos. I see on the recent reviews that this is a common problem. Does anyone have this issue on this site?