More Retro fun, with Instant110

From the developer of the excellent Cameramatic and Monochromia, comes Instant110, another square format retro toy camera app. With the option of selecting one of 8 lenses, 5 films and 3 developers, this app will be compared with apps like Hipstamatic, however unlike Hipstamatic, Instant110 lets you import existing photos from the camera roll. By varying these lens/film/developer combinations, Instant110 lets you "take strange and beautiful pictures".

Instant110 features:

• Intuitive navigation.
• Lens, film and developer are changeable after you take a picture.
• Import images from camera roll.
• Save images in high resolution to camera roll.
• Share images on Twitter (iOS 5 required), Facebook and Email.
• Send images to Instagram and other apps directly.
• "Shuffle Shooting" randomize lens, film and developer combination when you take a picture.
• EXIF support

App Store Link: Instant110; Intro Price: £0.69/$0.99/€0.79

App Update: Monochromia

Monochromia, one of my top black and white apps has recently been updated, with developer youthhr adding the effects of traditional black and white filters to his app. Now in addition to the already impressive presets, you can apply either a red, green, blue, yellow or orange filter, giving you even more control over the final look of your B&W photos.

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

iPhoneography meets iCreate Magazine

Issue 87 of iCreate magazine which is published here in the UK by Image Publishing has a nice article all about iPhone photography called "iPhone 4 Photography: Tips, Tricks & Apps".  The article is pretty good, covering some top apps with readers photos, as well as a small section from me, called "My top iPhone photo apps".

Now due to space limitation, not all of my top apps were published, so for those interested, here is my article in full.

My top iPhone photo apps by Glyn Evans, editor of iPhoneography.com

The iPhone 4 is not just any old smartphone. With its 5 megapixel camera and wide range of photo manipulation app, its a camera and darkroom in your pocket.

With so many photo apps in Apple's App Store, you may be wondering which ones are the best, so here are my top apps.

1. PictureShow: If you only buy one photo app for your iPhone, then I recommend PictureShow [App Store Link].  PictureShow offers 28 different filters/photo style effects, 20 frames, 10 different light and 11 different noise effects, which you can choose from, or let the apps "Shuffle button" do for you.  In addition to these predefined looks, you can manualy adjust the brightness, contrast or colour, as well as being able to add text, before saving and/or sharing via Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, Blogger or via email.

2. AutoStitch: Create sweeping panoramic photos with AutoStitch [App Store Link]. Simply take a series of photos with your iPhone from a single viewpoint, panning as you take them.  Then once saved, simply open AutoStitch, select the images and let AutoStitch go to work. When complete simply crop and save, and there you have a panoramic photo. It really is that easy.

3. Photogene: Photogene [App Store Link] is like having a desktop photo editor in your pocket, giving you the ability to truly edit your photos on the go, letting you crop, sharpen, straighten, rotate and add frames to your photos, as well as manually or automatically adjust histogram levels, gamma correction, RGB balance, the colour temperature and saturation.

4. Pro HDR: Pro HDR [App Store Link] lets you create tone mapped HDR images by taking one under exposed photo, one over exposed photo and merging them together, right on the iPhone.

5. TiltShift Generator: Available for both the iPhone and iPad, TiltShift Generator [App Store Link] lets you create photos with a limited depth of field or selective focus, creating that fake miniature look, reminisant of Tilt-shift photography.

6. Black & White apps: If you like shooting Black & White, then there are 3 apps that I would recommend.

• Vint B&W [App Store Link] is a camera replacement app that offers the best tonal range of any Black & White app currently available for the iPhone.
• Spica [App Store Link] is a one trick poney Black & White app that lets you create high contrast, grainy and gritty photos.
• Monochromia [App Store Link] is a Black & White editor, letting you adjust the contrast and brightness, as well as add vignette and film grain to you photos.

These are some of my top apps, which you can use singly, or why not mix together to create soemthing extra special!

App Review: Monochromia - Black & White Photography

What is Monochromia?

In the developers words, "Monochromia is an app for people who love Black & White photos, and lets you turn your colour iPhone photos into impressive monochrome ones".

Monochromia include the following features:

• film simulation
• contrast control
• brightness control
• vignette control
• gamma adjustment
• ultra high contrast mode
• output size: 320px to original size (full-res on iPhone 4)
• output format: High Quality JPEG, Low Quality JPEG, and PNG
• photo editing: move and scale
• supports Facebook, Twitter, and Email so you can easily share your photos with your friends

The App

The first thing you need to do after launching Monochromia, is enter the settings menu (which is accessed via the gear icon found in the bottom left of the screen) and turn on/off the features you want, as well as set the output settings.  Foe me, I have the output settings set to high quality, and all but camera and edit mode turned on.

Having configured the settings, take or load a photo by tapping on the camera icon, and begin making your adjustments by sliding the contrast, brightness, vignette and/or film grain sliders.  Having made your adjustments, all that remains is to save the photo, or share it via email, Facebook or Twitter.

Extras

This app is more than just a basic black and white app, as tucked away under the filter options in the apps settings, you will find some colour filter options.  There are options like sepia, chocolate and a range of vintage looks, and these all add a single colour to the photo, but it is the red, green and blue highlight options that offer something different.  Selecting one of these highlight options, will bring that colour back in to the photo, which as the 2 samples below show, the blue sky remains blue, and the reds show through, letting you create some great black and white photos with a splash of colour.

Above: The original photo, plus the red and blue highlight filter versions

So what do I think of Monochromia?

OK, I'll start of with my only complaint for this app, and that is, "I'd like to see a yellow highlight filter option", yes that's right, this is my only complaint.

So that's my only niggle out the way, but what do I really think?

You may remember I commented on this app when it was first released back in June 2010, and whilst I said "this app has some potential", I also said it had "the worst vignette effect I have seen in any app".  Since then Monochromia has had 8 updates, is now an iOS 4 ONLY app, but the vignette, grain effect and whole interface for me is now one of the best out there, and in fact Monochromia's potential has matured, making this my default black and white app, sitting alongside Vint B&W and Spica on my iPhone.

Just like XProcess and SkipBleach, which is from the same developer, this app gets a 5 star rating from me, but I would also consider this as "a must have app for anyone wanting to create black and white photos on their iPhone".

App Store Link: Monochromia; Price: £1.19/$1.99/€1.59

New iPhone Photo App: Monochromia - Black & White Photography

Description from the AppStore: Monochromia lets you turn your iPhone/iPod touch photos into impressive monochrome ones.

You do not need any difficult setting, all you need is just take photo or choose from the photo library. Monochromia automatically adds effect.

It's also easy to create grainy and high contrast photos by controlling a few parameters.

FEATURES:

• film simulation
• contrast control
• brightness control
• vignette control
• gamma adjustment
• ultra high contrast mode
• output size: 320px to 1200px (maximum width)
• Share the pictures with others by Email.
• Automatically activate camera function when launching BinaryCamera. (optional)

AppStore Link: Monochromia - Price: £0.59/$0.99

Editors comments: This app is better than some of the black and white apps in the AppStore, but it is nowhere near apps like MonoPhix.  It has a simple interface, using sliders to adjust the contrast and brightness, just like MonoPhix, and there is a slider that controls the vignette effect, however this has to be the worst vignette effect I have seen in any app.  On a plus side this app does save at full-res on the iPhone 3G (but not on the 3GS), however I found the results very grainy and fuzzy (even with fuzzy mode turned off).

Whilst this app has some potential, if you are looking for a good standalone black and white app now, then I would suggest checking out MonoPhix.