App Update: Filterstorm Pro

This iPad only app, goes from strength to strength, as Filterstorm Pro gets more features as well as some essential bug fixes.

So what's new and fixed?

New Features:

• Images are no longer reprocessed if they have already been processed with the same settings.
• Curves, Hue/Saturation, Temperature, and Black & White controls have live previews
• Curves control now supports multitouch
• Can now remove curve point by dragging it significantly off the top or bottom of the curves box
• Text search within collections
• FTP speed and reliability improvements
• Increased working image size on iPad 2
• Many IPTC fields can be read when importing photos
• Export tab now has button to process photos within the library without sending them.
• Creation Date and SubLocation IPTC fields added.
• Import from iTunes now preserves original file name.
• JobID field renamed "JobID (Trans Ref.)"
• UI tweaks

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed bug causing max of 5 images to be stored to the photo library at once.
• Added backup thumbnail generation method during import for situations where the library fails to provide a requested image.
• iTunes import now shows a progress bar.
• Cancel button more responsive during FTP timeout.
• Fixed bug causing crash in IPTC sets popover under certain circumstances
• Fixed bug causing keyboard to not reappear if rotating iPad when the text entry HUD is visible

App Store Link: Filterstorm Pro; Price: £8.99/$14.99/€11.99

Comments

[jacob]

Was going to pick this up when it was released for $10. But life interfered, and next thing I knew, it was priced at $15. While this looks like a wonderful app, $15 is making me ponder this decision. If you own this app, would you comment on how much you like it and if you find it worth $15. Thanks.

[John Farnsworth]

Check out the video on the April 08, 2011 post on this blog. It sold me. And I'm glad it did. See my first result, a quickie, on http://whenapaintersnaps.wordpress.com/ the May 06 post.

[Dimitris]

I ' ve used FilterStorm for a long time both on the iPhone and recently on the iPad and a while ago decided to get the pro version. Was it worth the extra money? Definitely. The controls and tools are plenty (curves,Hue,W/balance, blur, sharpen,BW,clone,tone ,Straighten and others) and grouped in a very nice way & easy to navigate . I do a lot (or most) of my processing on Filterstorm now and really think it is comparable to desktop apps

The thing that this app really lacks is fx. Although you can manually achieve almost any result with the tools provided, this missing feature makes me switch back and forth to other apps to get some quick results. On my wish list besides Fx would be magic wand and layers which I think the iPad 2 can handle.

To sum up, Filterstorm is a great Tool but I wouldn't say fun to play with.

On the other hand you could try Iris Photo Suite for iPad which was just released for 2,39euro and post your thoughts.

Hope this helps.

Dimitris
May 7, 2011 | Dimitris

[jacob]

John & Dimitris,

Thank you for taking the time to submit your comments. They did help. Eventually I know I will be picking this up. Perhaps if the dev ever has a sale ;-)

[Albi Kl]

While this is all well and good, I wish the dev would show some love for iPhone users who haven't seen an update in months.

A UI update would be nice (taking a page out of Adobe Ideas slick and clean UI perhaps), a fix of the memory issues (where edits are lost when the device doesn't have enough RAM to hold them all, having the add border feature stop cropping the image when it's too large, feathering support for color range mask, inclusion of levels adjustment, a magic wand tool or just any selection tools would be nice, etc, etc

In all honesty the iPhone user base dwarfs that of the iPad. If Filterstorm's UI could be fixed, features fine-tuned and maybe even the inclusion of some automatic filters, the app stands to make the dev a lot of money (and a lot of iOS users happy).