My Apps up close and personal: Perfectly Clear

Following on from the success of my posts "645 PRO: my settings up close and personal", and "What's in My Camera Bag", I've decided to run a new series of posts, that bring together and expands these previous posts. In this new series called "My Apps up close and personal", I will discus all the apps I use (not just the core ones), and why, and how I use them.

If you have been taking photos with an iPhone from the very beginning, then you will be well aware that exposure in both the 1st and 2nd generation devices was very poor, which resulted in dark and dull images. This spawned a number of applications that attempted to correct/improve the exposure/brightness of these dark and dull images. Whilst most of these applications did a really great job, in August 2009, Athentech Imaging released Perfectly Clear, bringing their "Dynamic Range Correction" technology to the iPhone, and quickly becoming the number one app in its class, setting new standards in image correction.

Despite massive improvements of image and exposure quality with each new version of the iPhone, Perfectly Clear still remains part of my core camera bag apps, because there are still times when either I incorrectly set the exposure, or the iPhone itself incorrectly exposes the scene, and so when this happens, I use Perfectly Clear to salvage the image.

There was a time when the app fell from grace, and was cast out in to the wilderness due to poor stability and lack of full-res support on the iPhone 4S, but thankfully, the team behind the app have resolved all past issues, and the app for me anyway, is back on top of its game.

So now you know a little bit about Perfectly Clear, and why I use it, but how do I use it? Well the app is real simple to use, and whilst it does have the ability to take and then correct photos, like many apps that interface with the iPhones default camera app, I never use this feature, I only use the app to load and correct photos from the camera roll. If you are unfamiliar with Perfectly Clear, then correction is done simply by launching the app, tapping "Open Photo", loading a photo from the camera roll/photo album, and then waiting while the app does all the cleaver stuff. When it has analysed the image, the app will present the results in a split screen, showing you the before and after. Now for me, 99% of the time, the results are spot on, so I just have to hit save and I'm done; but for that 1%, the app allows you to manually tweak the exposure, contrast, colour vibrancy, sharpness and tint, by tapping and opening the tray found on the right of the preview screen. For an extra fee, you can also unlock the apps noise reduction tool, and whilst I have paid and unlocked this feature, because I rarely shoot in low light conditions, I find myself almost never using the "Noise Removal" tool.

Above: Before and After Perfectly Clear

Well, I hope you enjoyed my first first app, up close and personal, and if you want to read more about the apps I use and how I use them, then look out for more from this new series over the coming weeks/months.

If you are interested in finding out more about Perfectly Clear and the technology behind it, then head over to the Athentech Imaging website, or if you want to buy the app, then it is available from the App Store, priced at £1.99/$2.99/€2.39.

Please note: All images in this post have been taken with and edited on an iPhone 4

Comments

[Barbara Gentry]

First, let me thank you for all the info you post , it is appreciated.
I use Perfectly Clear all the time, I take many Sunrises and Sunset, sometimes the shot will pick up grain, so I use just the default settings(no noise setting is need) and it is just right
I included a URL from Instagram hope you can view
Once again thank you

[Matt]

Impressive before and after example. Thanks for the article and info.

[Josh wardell]

I also recommend acdsee camera flash, it has the same functions as perfectly clear but with one slider, and can go much brighter. I still use perfectly clear most of the time, but if you really have dark shadows acdsee is better.

[Christian]

If you have Snapseed already you can enhance an image with it using the app tools, tune up image, ambience works great...

[Editor]

Hey Christian, I know I could use Snapseed, or any number of other apps to lighten/enhance, but Perfectly Clear uses a much cleverer, industry standard algorithm, and that's why it's my app of choice for this function :-)

[MomentsForZen]

Has the app overcome the memory management issues that it had a year or so back? To use it, you had to shut down and exit almost every app, and even shut down the device and restart. Not impossible to do - just awkward.