Create Cinemagraphs on your iPhone with Kinotopic

Kinotopic is a new and innovative app from Placehugger, that lets you create Cinemagraphic images on your iPhone, and then share them via Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook.

What are Cinemagraphs? Cinemagraphs are still photographs in which a minor and repeated movement occurs.

Kinotopic is easy to use, requiring just 3 simple steps to create and share your very own cinemagraphs.

1. Create a 3-4 second static video, or use one from your camera roll, that contains at least one element of movement.
2. Select and mark the area of the scene that contains the movement that you want to reveal.
3. Let the app process your Kinotopic/Cinemagraph, and then share with the world.

Kinotopic is currently priced at £1.49/$1.99/€1.59, which for me, is an OK price for an app that offers something as different as this.

For ideas and inspiration on creating your own unique Cinemagraphs, then check out cinemagraphs.com, or you can see more of my Cinemagraphs here.

App Store Link: Kinotopic; Price: £1.49/$1.99/€1.59

Please note: To use Kinotopic, you will need a Facebook account.

Update @ 14th January: You no longer need a Facebook account to use Kinotopic.

Update on Friday, January 13, 2012 at 7:29AM by Glyn Evans

*** PLEASE READ ***

When I posted my thoughts on this app, I had not realised how Facebook intrusive it was. Whilst I knew and commented that you needed a Facebook account to use this app, I was not aware at the time of writing that the app placed your Cinemagraph on your Facebook wall. I apologise if my comments mislead any of you in to buying this app, this was not my intention. The good news is, that the dev has responded to all the negative feedback, and has submitted an update, that removes the Facebook requirement [see comment from the developer below].

"Hi guys,

I'm the developer behind Kinotopic. I want to apologize. My intention was to make it as pain free as possible to create an account and start creating kinos.

This was the first version uploaded, 1.0, and it was immediately featured. I did not have time to realize that ignoring manual signup was a big mistake.

I pushed a version with manual signup 20 minutes ago, but it's probably going to take Apple 7 days to accept it.

However, if you are OK with using Testflight I'm more than happy to send you an invitation to get the new build.

I really am sorry, I had no idea how big of an issue this is.

Radu Spineanu"

Once again, I'm sorry if I mislead any of you - Glyn

Update on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8:56AM by Glyn Evans

*** UPDATE ***

Good news, you no longer need a Facebook account to use Kinotopic, however, please note, this app does NOT allow you to save your Cinemagraphs to your camera roll.

Comments

[james bern]

Very cool app I work with lomo products so I could spot quality with the kino style. And this app is very good tidbits price. Thank you!

[BowStreetWhiskey]

You MUST link this app with your Facebook account in order to use it. There is no option to save to camera roll and your clips show up on the Kinotopic website and app for public viewing with no privacy options. Waste of money IMHO.

[Craig]

The Facebook requirement is a big FAIL in my book. I was ready to buy, too. Not everyone uses FB or wants to associate it with third party apps. Looks like the app creates some pretty cool photos though. When they drop the FB requirement and allow photos to be saved to the camera roll I'll be ready to buy it.

[Marlene DeGrood]

Anything involving a requirement to link to Facebook scares the poop out of me and I quickly run in the opposite direction ... too bad I would have bought this app.

[Julie]

This looks like an amazing app. Would you share how it is embedded in your blog? I think it might be more useful that way, thanks!

[Skip Hunt]

You can't save them to your camera roll?! Didn't mind the facebook requirement, but the privacy and not being able to save them to your own device is a deal breaker. Pity. Maybe someone else will come out with one that does the same thing but without all the tie-ins.

[Marc Roman Bravo]

If it can't save to the camera roll forget it. Who would use a camera that doesn't save your photos?

[Mike]

This is a copy of the review I placed on the Apple iTunes website:

I really need to stop paying attention to product promotions and reviews from the iPhoneography website. Every time I see a review and am excited about a product and purchase it, I'm ultimately disappointed in the purchase of what turns out to be a useless and intrusive app--despite the glowing reviews of someone who was either paid for received the app for free from the developer. Kinotopic is one of those apps. Why in the world should I have to share every image to my Facebook account if I don't want to, except to promote the app for purchase in a very underhanded and sneaky way by the developers. Brilliant marketing strategy but poorly thought-out consumer research.
Don't download this app unless you want to waste your $$.

[Miege]

I'll pass--already have a GIF making app.

[Marcel]

nice. Downloaded it, and noticed that you have to link to facebook in order to use the app. I will definitely NOT do that, if the developer pushes me to do so.. And that for a paid app :/
I agree with BowStreetWhiskey and Craig.

[Kappa]

Facebook. Ugh.... No way. Great Idea, but no way. Left that pit a long time ago. Otherwise would have plunked down 2 bucks.

[Radu Spineanu]

Hi guys,

I'm the developer behind Kinotopic. I want to apologize. My intention was to make it as pain free as possible to create an account and start creating kinos.

This was the first version uploaded, 1.0, and it was immediately featured. I did not have time to realize that ignoring manual signup was a big mistake.

I pushed a version with manual signup 20 minutes ago, but it's probably going to take Apple 7 days to accept it.

However, if you are OK with using Testflight I'm more than happy to send you an invitation to get the new build.

I really am sorry, I had no idea how big of an issue this is.

[Geoff]

In the app store it says it will be removing the Facebook issue in a soon update. I will wait till is does. Looks like a good app tho.

[Glyn Evans]

Apologies from the iPhoneography blog

Hi guys and gals, when I posted my thoughts on this app, I had not realised how Facebook intrusive it was. Whilst I new and commented that you needed a Facebook account to use this app, I was not aware at the time of writing that the app placed your Cinemagraph on your Facebook wall. I apologise if my comments mislead any of you in to buying this app, this was not my intention. The good news is, that the dev has responded to all the negative feedback, and has submitted an update, that removes the Facebook requirement.

Once again, I'm sorry if I mislead any of you - Glyn

[David Bingham]

I've just been testing this out on my 4S for about an hour with very poor results. It is very difficult to avoid distortion of the image and proves virtually useless to me. In my opinion, I don't recommend it at all I'm afraid.

[Gordon Fraser]

I have been wanting to make full size images like this for ages. I even made some test pieces using the available animated giff creation apps out there. None work at anything like full res though. Does this app? The animated giff app guys say that it's not possible to make theirs run at full res as the processing in the phone is not up to it. I think that sounds like bullshit myself....
How much masking adjustment do you get in this thing?

[Richard Bailey]

I was interested in this app until I saw some of the results - too many of the examples exhibit a jumping or jitter effect in the animated area. Not having bought the app I don't know whether this is down to user skill or a limitation of the app's tools - could someone please enlighten me. Many of the examples on the devs website also show a clear misunderstanding of the process and end up looking like regular videos. In my opinion the most effective examples are those that would normally have plenty of movement in the frame which gets "frozen" apart from a small area which remains subtly animated as here:
http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/post/4778641278/busy-day-in-manhattan-but-theres-always-time-for

[Glyn Evans]

Gordon, at this time the images are low-res :(

[Geoff]

Richard Bailey,that is so cool,thanks for sharing,is this app supposed to do that ? If so I'm getting it once updated.

[Radu Spineanu]

The low res quality of the web images is because of the GIF format. GIFs support only 256 colors, while a normal JPG/PNG consist of millions of colors. Kinotopic has two versions: one for the iPhone, a mov file, and one for the web, an animated GIF. On the iPhone the kino is high quaity and the file size is significantly smaller. If there would be a browser that had an option of playing video files automatically I would serve them as videos. (Just thought of this, maybe there is something to it for new videos and HTML5).

The sometimes jitter effect is caused by camera shaking. When you make a video your hand shakes and the frames don't overlap perfectly. I'm using a technique from computer vision to remove this, and it's able to do a moderately good job. If you disable the video stabilizer you'll see it's a lot worse by default. It's definitely one of the areas I'm working on. When you make an animated gif from the whole video it includes the camera shaking, which is very visible in a Kino.