App Review: King Camera part 2, the Photo Desk
Monday, June 13, 2011 at 10:00AM | Glyn Evans In this second part of my King Camera review, I take a look at the apps photo editor, Photo Desk.
Photo Desk is the place where King Camera saves the photos taken with the its camera app, but also the place where you can import photos from the iPhones camera roll. From here you can tap a photo to edit it in one of 2 modes, "Quick Matik" or "Pro Matik".
Quick Matik is a one click, quick fix solution, that offers a range of pre-defined effects/looks broken down in to 4 groups, color, monochrome, grunge and themes.
Having selected and opened a photo in Quick Matik mode, and then the effect/look you want, you are presented with a preview of your photo with effect/look applied, with 5 options. Just below the photo you will find a slider, which lets you adjust the intensity of the effect, and below that you will find the remaining 4 options. From left to right you will find cancel, which as the name suggests, lets you cancel the effect and back out of the screen. Then you have an 
icon that lets you add one of 3 frames/borders, colors, artsy or cute. Next you have a crop icon and finally the save icon.
When saved you are automatically taken back to the Photo Desk, where you will find your edited photo stacked on top of the original image. This is one of the nicest features of Photo Desk, as each edit will be added to that photos stack.
Many may find the Quick Matik a little limiting and even disappointing, especially when compared with the quick fix effects from King Camera's competitors, and this is where Pro Matik takes over.
Pro Matik lets you adjust the photos white balance, exposure, contrast, the black areas, the bright areas, shadows, saturation (red, green, blue or all), and vignette, and all with the aim of sliders. Just as with Quick Matik mode, you can also crop, add a frame and add/adjust grunge effects, before saving.
One of the nice features of Pro Matik, is when you save your photo, you are given the option of also saving it as a Quick Matik look, for future quick fixes.
So what do I think of King Camera's Photo Desk?
As photo editors go, it's OK. The Quick Matik has some nice effects like the grunge ones, but also some duffers, like the "Cute" frames, and for me does not come close to the quick fixes found in Camera+.
The Pro Matik is good, but then so is the editor found in ProCamera, with the best bit, being the option to save you custom effects as a "Quick Matik Look".
I do like the apps ability to stack photos, which helps keep the Photo Desk tidy.
Final thoughts
Overall King Camera is a nice app, but not a great app. Yes, it has features not yet found in it competitors, like stacks on the Photo Desk and time-lapse in the camera module, but the quick fixes are not as good as those in the current number 1 camera replacement app, Camera+. Also, and unlike its competitors, the camera module, which is the main reason people by these types of apps, suffers too much from time delays between shots, to make this app a serious contender to what still remains a 2 horse race.
In the first part of this 2 part review, I gave the camera module 3 out of 5, and so it's only fair that I rate the Photo Desk module, which has enough likes for me to give it 4 out of 5, and King Camera in its entirety 4 out of 5.
King Camera in iPhone App Review
Reader Comments (6)
The filters in King Camera simply look like a last min ute attempt at making this app a so called all in one app. They are for the most part simply dull & uninteresting. The grunge filters might be the only ones with little standouts & the borders & frames which some are awesome, are a complete let down with the apps branding down the sides, thus in a rare case would I ever use them & in no case would I ever save, send or share them with anyone. So for me this is the Only portion of King Camera that I'd ever care about or use, the rest of this "all in one" app to me will never see the light of day in use. And unfortunately this portion needs major improvements. But al in all, as a v1.0 it is a nice release for many, but for me I haven't used it since the day it was released.
We'd like to point out that contrary to your observation on ability to delete complete stacks, there is a feature that do allow to delete a complete stack. When you select a stack and tap Delete, you are being offered a choice between deleting only the top photo, or the complete stack.
Also, you will be happy to hear that v1.01 is currently in review at Apple, and it contains a fix that speeds up the Camera module: the shutter speed is now on par with the competitors. We've also added additional quick fixes from user comments, such as Mr Timmey's request of removing the King Camera name from the few borders that contained it.
v1.02 is also in the works, and it will be submitted as soon as 1.01 is Live. 1.02 will contain additional speed optimization, such as pre-rendered thumbs for the Quickmatik which will reduce user waiting time by almost 20X in some cases.
We are committed to make King Camera the best possible user experience. We invite users to send their comments, or bugs to our Support Center: http://www.saycheezzz.com/contact-support/
Thank you! And happy shooting!
Martin Perreault
It's good to hear an update with improved camera performance is on the way, and I look forward to testing this and the other features.
- Single select a stack, Tap delete: 3 options are offered (top photo | all photos in stack | Cancel). Cancel will bring user back to Photodesk.
In Multi-Select Mode, if you tap delete, it will delete all content in selected stacks. There is also the Cancel button available.
About 1.01 performance: performance is indeed increased a lot in the Camera Module. And 1.02 will increase the Photodesk performance greatly: thumbs generation will now take around 2 seconds (as opposed to the current 5). We are testing 1.02 at the moment and we will submit as soon as 1.01 is Live on App Store. More performance tweaks were also added in 1.02 (complete list will be available as soon as 1.02 has been submitted). For the complete list of 1.01 tweaks, you can check our Blog.
Thanks again and best wishes,
I hope to see a massive amount of unique filter effects added soon, not subtle ones as the large majority of yours are. As well adding the option to layer effects. Apply effects & save photo to the stack, then taking that photo with all ready applied effects, textures etc & then applying other filter effects, textures & borders to it. That to me is an essential reason for having a photo desk of stacks.