I’m a bit of an iPhone photography addict and since I’ve been participating in Fat Mum Slim’s Photo A Day Challenge I’ve been regularly cruising the photography section in the app store trying to get my hands on the next hottest thing before it becomes mainstream. I’m just so current like that. I generally post about 1 to 3 Instagram photos per day (because everyone is so interested in my lunch/outfits/rustic cups of coffee) and I get asked all the time about the apps that I use. Here’s a list of my 6 favourites – just click on the titles to go to the app store.
Picfx
I put this one first because it’s probably the one that I use the most. You can upload a photo from your camera roll and go nuts. They have classic filters, vintage filters, cross processing, textures, scratches and an awesome light section where I get a lot of my bokeh from.
Tip: I often use two or three filters from Picfx on the same photo by simply saving the photo to my camera roll and reloading the photo back into Picfx. Sneaky.
Lumie
This is a beautifully designed and simple app that provides a selection of light filters including an assortment of bokeh and things like disco lights or streaks.
Camera+
I never shoot with anything but Camera+. I then edit and crop within Camera+ and then export the photos to my camera roll.
Diptic
I’ve used a few other framing apps like Pictureframes and PicFrames but Diptic has a more interesting range of frame options and you can also adjust the size of each frame after uploading your photos and do things like flip an image within the frame. I do still use the other frame apps because they each have different options but Diptic is definitely my default.
MoreBeaute2
Theoretically speaking I’m a bit cautious of this app because air brushing gives me the heeby jeebies BUT if you don’t have great light or you’re having a bad face day this app can be a real life saver. Whatever you do don’t just publish right after it’s airbrushed you. It likes to go a little bit mental and will eat your features. I always let it do an auto adjust and then I bump it back quite a lot, just so it looks like I had better lighting on my face. I also only use this if I’m doing a stylized photo.
Color Splash
This one is really cool and quite underused in my opinion. I use this for particularly colourful photos that are begging to be turned into something a touch more interesting. Basically you make a photo black and white and then colour in the bits you want.
Here are a few filter combinations I’ve used in the past so you can see how using editing, filters and even cropping can turn a pretty ordinary photo (see the original one of me dying my hair – you’re very lucky I’m sharing with you) into something a bit more special or at the very least not completely horrifying.
Picfx ‘lush’ filter + PicFx ‘olden’ filter
Crop + RealBeaute2 + Lumie + Instagram ‘amaro’ filter
Picfx black and white ‘inverted’ filter
PictureShow ‘vivid’ filter + Instagram ‘rise’ filter
RealBeaute2 + PictureShow ‘calm’ filter + Picfx ‘bokeh 1’
If you want to have more of a sticky beak at my photos you can like Smaggle on Facebook or follow me on Instagram… I’m smaggle!