If you are an android phone owner who loves editing and sharing photos online then you must try out this newly released photo editing app – Instagram. Within 24 hours of release on the play store, this app recorded a whooping 1 million+ downloads. What makes instagram unique from the rest of the photo editing apps for android, is its unique user interface, 17 sets of amazing pre-installed filters and the huge platform for sharing your masterpiece – Instagram’s own photo sharing social network. At last not to forget, the high brand value behind it’s name with the apparent news of Facebook buying the photo editing and sharing service for 1 billion USD ! It is insanely easy to use instagram on android. This post walks you through the major steps in editing and sharing photos online using instagram on android.
How to use the instagram app on android ?
Step 1: Before using the app, you have to register an account with instagram. This would hardly take a minute.
Step 2: Choose the camera icon from the bottom (yes, the third one from the bottom). Now either take a new picture from camera or load one from the gallery.
Step 3: One limitation of instagram is that, the photos will be resized to square shapes before applying any filter. This directly affects the resolution of your photos being edited.
Step 4: Apply your favorite photo editing effect from the pre installed set of 17 filters with ridiculous names
Once applied, tap on the forward blue arrow icon on the top of the screen. Now your image will be processed and automatically saved to the gallery within a folder named instagram. This is the annoying part of the application, it does not allow saving the edited picture with its main user interface. The photos are saved silently in the background on your SD card once you tap the forward arrow icon to process the photos.
Step 5 (optional): Give your photo a name and share it online by tapping the green upload button. This will upload your photos to instagram’s own photo sharing network. Nevertheless, you can also choose to upload your artwork on popular social networks like twitter and Facebook by signing into your respective accounts and granting access to Instagram to upload your photos there
Although using the same app on an iPhone felt way more polished and smooth, we were not disappointed at all using it on an android for the very first time (especially when the app is still in its early days of development). We wish the developers at instagram could make some improvements like the addition of more photo editing filters and the ability to save picture directly to the SD card in the upcoming versions of the app on the android market.
For those who believe that an iPhone is the one and only mobile phone that captures stunning photographs – think twice !!Android powered cameras are no behind. In fact, photos captured and post processed by an android device look far better than that processed by an iPhone.
In this post, I have shared some really good snaps taken by HTC Wildfire S and HTC Explorer. It’s the time for some serious competition with iPhone photographers…Have a look !
#01 Sunlight penetrating the leaves of a tree (Captured with an HTC Wildfire S | 5 Megapixels | No post processing performed)
#02 Cloudy Sunrise (Captured with an HTC Wildfire S | 5 Megapixels | HDR post processing)
#03 White Rose (Captured with an HTC Wildfire S | 5 Megapixels | No post processing performed)
#04 Candle Purity (Captured with an HTC Wildfire S | 5 Megapixels | No post processing performed)
#05 Glowing Sunset at Orissa (Captured with an HTC Explorer | 3 Megapixels | HDR post processing)
#06 Colorful fountain at New Delhi (Captured with an HTC Wildfire S | 5 Megapixels | Heavy HDR post processing)
#07 Breezy Morning (Captured with an HTC Wildfire S | 5 Megapixels | HDR post processing)
So how was that? Amazing…right ? Comments are always welcomed And if you are also an android photographer like me, then do post your masterpiece here !
The stock android camera app is good enough to impress first time android phone users. But if you are bored with this stock camera app and want to try out some really awesome and feature-rich android camera apps then this post is for you. All the apps listed in this post are free to download from the android market…
Pudding camera comes with pre-installed camera filters and a variety of camera reels. This camera app is freaking awesome, all that you have to do is select the type of camera, feed it with the desired camera reel and start shooting. The only downside is – the hard time locating the settings icon(near the search button) and restriction of the highest image size to 1280px. Otherwise the app is great. Here are a few screenshots I took while testing this app.
If you have developed a taste for old film photography, then the retro camera app is for you. Like pudding camera it also comes with a number of preinstalled and awesome camera filters. This app is a must try for every android user, it will change the way you take and share snapshots of your loved ones!
Retro Camera comes with amazing shutter sounds, amazing clip styled gallery and detailed camera information available for every camera filter that you are going to use. This android camera app is fabulous.
Camera 360 Ultimate has been recently updated to a feature-rich and ad-free version on the android market. It is a great camera app and offers a variety of features operating under six basic modes to choose from – Effect, Scene, Funny, Tilt Shift, Color-Shift and the Normal mode. Here are a couple of screenshots I took to illustrate each mode of operation.
This light camera app is a modification of the stock android camera app. Quite obviously it has incorporated some added features and functions that the stock camera lacks. Unlike the aforementioned camera apps, this camera app does not provide those eye candy effects. Camera Mod can be installed on any android phone(it’s not just for the Xperia PLAYstation).
With the use of these awesome camera apps, your android phone can be easily converted into a photography powerhouse. You don’t really need a point-and-shoot or a DSLR to capture wonderful shots, when there are so many fantastic camera apps available in the android market for free !!
Taking HDR(High Dynamic Range) photos with an android phone is a lot more faster and easier than doing the same job with a digital camera (which of course involves a lot of post production work on Adobe Photoshop). You must be thinking, how is this possible for a basic android phone camera to take HDR photos and process them within a few minutes ? Well..Google’s android market features some pretty decent apps developed for taking stunning HDR photos (these apps do all the pre-production and post-production work needed to bring out an HDR photo). In this post I will be reviewing some of the handpicked HDR apps and the way to use them to get awesome HDR photos on your droid.
We have grouped these HDR apps into two basic categories. The first category belongs to those apps which are like normal camera apps and produce HDR photos right after a click (just like you shoot your photos with the basic camera app), while the second category belongs to those apps which do only the post production work (i.e adding an HDR effect to a pre captured photo).
>> Category 1 (regular camera apps creating HDR photos right after a click)
This amazing HDR app for android, developed by ‘Almalence’ comes with two versions – free and paid. I will always recommend to go for the paid one over the free one because it has a lot more added features like the ability to choose flash, geo-tagging, ability to mute shutter sound, etc..
Here's is how to configure the HDR settings for the best possible experience. (leave color vividness, local contrast, micro contrast, noise and exposure to default and set the rest of the parameters as shared in the screenshot below..)
Configured these settings ? Ok..Now you are ready to take awesome HDR photos with your android phone
This HDR app created by EyeApps LLC, failed to work on our android devices – Desire HD and Wildfire S. Unfortunately we were unable to review this app for our readers as it crashed every time with a force-closing error.
Our suggestion: Read the review on EyeApps website and try out this app on your phone. Don’t forget to share the results with us !!
This is the third app in the android market, capable to capturing HDR photos. Though not primarily a dedicated HDR app, this little app offers the functionality of capturing HDR images under the effects menu. There are hardly any settings to configure, and the process of getting HDR photos is straight forward.
If you have any other HDR tip for android to share with us, then please comment on this post. With an android phone, you can always carry the HDR power with you…forget bulky cameras, Photoshop editing and all…Shoot like a pro
Android Market has plenty of photo editing apps that can really add some liveliness to your pictures. Some of the hand-picked and best(plus free) photo editing apps are reviewed in this post. We have set 7 criteria for rating the current free picture editing apps in the android market. These 7 criteria are:
Effects, Customization, User-Interface, Option to Save/Share, Ad supported, Online/Offline and Ability to move to SD card.
“It is a really decent photo editing app available in the android market. Though its user interface is not that smooth, this little app offers tons of photo editing filters to spice up your picture.
Effects: 5/5 This photo editing app offers several artistic effects, literally more than any other free plus offline photo editing app available in the market.
Customization: 4/5 Customization refers to the added tools and plugins that can be used to personalize the overall look and feel of the photo. Little photo offers some simple tools in this category, but it comes nothing close when compared to competitors like PicsArt and PicSay.
User-Interface: 4/5 The user interface of little photo app is quite simple and straight forward. There’s no option to select effects the very first time an image is loaded. Tapping on the touch screen brings the full list of effects and customization it offers.
Saving and sharing Options: 5/5 Users can easily share their masterpiece via Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and Gmail.
Ad-supported: Yes (3.5/5) This app sponsors some of the mobile advertisements. Advertisements popups in free apps are a big turn off for many users like me(who love to see a clean UI). But these advertisements support the developers to keep up the good work.
Offline: Yes (5/5) Using an offline application is advantageous to the users who want to save their data usage costs.
Movable to SD card: Yes (5/5) Internal memory is precious. No one wants their smartphones to perform poor due to low internal memory space. So phones with small internal memory should try this free photo editing app for sure
PicsArt photo studio is a very powerful photo editing app developed for android powered devices. The quality and quantity of effects plus the customization this app offers are unparalleled to any other photo editing app in the market. The user interface is rich in functions, but it may require a powerful phone like GALAXY S2 and Samsung GALAXY Note to work like a charm. Android tablets users should definitely try out this wonderful photo editing app (bigger screen of tablets powered by strong processors adds a wow factor while using this app)
Effects: 5/5 There are plenty of effects ranging from lomo, sepia, pop colors… to even HDR. The effects offered by picsart photo studio can easily win the heart of any android user. The new version even features a photo correction option which can be used to fix blemishes, marks, change eye color, fix red eye, etc..
Customization: 5/5 The user enjoys the freedom to personalize the photos with so many awesome effects like collage, pen drawing, paint brush, beautiful borders, stickers, custom texts etc. This app is the best free app in the market when it comes to photo customization. But some of the customizations may need network access to work properly!
User-Interface: 5/5 The highly neat, flexible and easy to use interface of this app, makes it stand out of the crowd.
Saving and Sharing Options: 5/5 PicsArt Photo Studio allows saving the edited photos to the SD card as well as it provides the sharing options( share via Bluetooth, Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, etc.) to the user.
Ad-Supported: Yes (3.5/5)
Offline: Yes, but requires network access to load graphics like stickers and frames (4.5/5)
Movable to SD card: Yes (5/5) This app can be moved to SD card after installation, but takes around 3 MB of storage space.
PicSay is the best editing app for those looking for the funky image customization in form of banners, stickers and thought clouds..The user interface is very clean and smooth. Almost every android phone is capable of running this amazing app.
The true potential of this free photo editing app is realized when it is upgraded to the full version – PicSay Pro(which offers loads of effects and customization)
Effects: 3.5/5 This app offers pretty simple and elegant effects like distort, pixelate, tint, etc. But again, these effects are simply not enough for a photo editing app of it’s kind. It is better if one upgrades to the full version.
Customization: 3.5/5 PicSay offers a wide range of customization in the form of thought balloons, cool stickers(hairstyles, hats, eyewear, etc.) But the list of stickers is limited in the free version. Again, there is a reason to upgrade to the full version.
User-Interface: 4.5/5 The user-interface is pretty simple and cool, but it’s not that good as compared to that of PicsArt app. Although the app is much lighter to run flawlessly on any android phone.
Saving and sharing options: 5/5 This photo editing app also includes interactive options to save and share your creations instantly.
Ad-Supported: No (5/5) This app is completely free from ads, adding to it’s clean user-interface.
Offline: Yes, but may require network access to load graphics and stickers(5/5)
“FX Camera is a fun photo editing app that primarily aims at replacing the stock camera of your android device with some pretty cool effects like fish eye, toy camera, lomo effects and so on ” This app tops the cart of the android market with the highest number of user rating so far in the free category.
Effects: 3/5 FX Camera comes preloaded with five basic effects under the name – toy camera, polandroid, fisheye, symmetric cam and Warhol.
Customization: 3/5 (Supports less flexibility to personalize)
Who is not aware of this most popular photo editing app ? With so many posters and frames to choose from, this app is a top choice for those who want to get their photos featured on magazine covers, attractive billboards, museums art-works, advertisements and much much more !!
Effects: 5/5
Customization: 1/5
User Interface: 4/5
Saving and Sharing options: 5/5
Ad-supported: Yes (3.5/5)
Offline: No. It obviously needs an active data or Wi-Fi connection (3.5/5)
Movable to SD card: Yes (5/5)
Please Read…
Disclaimer: The ratings given to above apps are purely subjective and these may vary from one person to another. This post is for educational purpose only and it has nothing to do with biased ratings or review. All these apps are fantastic and have unique features when contrasted to each other.
And if you are also an android photographer like me, then do post your masterpiece here !
