Nokia has taken a look at the photo-enhancing applications available on the Windows Phone marketplace, and has a top five list to share. To no surprise, and actually a superb application, the Nokia Lumia exclusive Creative Studio application is at the top of the list. We have the article down below, along with download links for all of the mentioned applications.
We want to mention that Fhotoroom and Phototastic Free are definitely great photo-enhancing applications. They are reliable, offer a lot of features, and are quick and easy to use. Be sure to check out our Phototastic review (paid version) for more information.
Download Links: Creative Studios, Fhotoroom, Apict, Phototastic Free, MyComic
Exclusive – and free – for Nokia Lumia smartphones, Creative Studio is Nokia’s home-grown photo-enhancing app. With Creative Studio you’ve got the option to perform three separate alterations to any photo: Face Warps; Live styles; and Panoramas.
With the Live styles option you can warp what the camera viewfinder sees before you’ve taken the photo. This is perfect for pulling people’s mouth wider apart, giving people a big nose or just twisting their entire face around.
Live styles enables you to add fuzzy edges, change the colour of any image so that it looks like it was taken in the 70s or to cartoonize something so that it looks almost unreal.
In the Panorama section you scan the horizon with the camera. Then this app will take four images automatically when each image is in position. At the end of the shots, Nokia Creative Studio will stitch them all together into one long wide-shot, ready to save or upload to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr if you wish.
With more than 130 high-quality filters in the full version you’ll find it easy to find a filter for any occasion.
Styles like tilt shift allow you to give the appearance that you’re looking at something very small, when in fact it isn’t. Textures can make it look like you’re looking at something wood. And, Vignette gives you that “pin-hole” look, where the edges and corners are darkened, only revealing the middle – a favourite of mine.
Filters aside, you’ve also got more features available within the camera section. One of them is being able to set up the camera on a timer, which is always handy when trying to take a self-portrait.
Once you’ve captured and edited your photo, you can share these on your SkyDrive, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr accounts.
Fhotoroom is Free to download.
Sure, having 130 or more filters is great, but sometimes you just want one. Apict doesn’t bother with all the fancy filters and instead gives you just the Polaroid filter.
Apict is really simple. Load up the app, select the camera option and take a photo. From here you’re given the ability to resize the image and add a caption, then it’s off to your Facebook, Flickr or Twitter account to share with all your friends. Or, you can just save it locally on your phone if you’d prefer.
Costing just £0.79, it’s a popular choice in the Windows Phone Marketplace with a rating of 4.5 stars.
This app provides something slightly different to the other photo-editing apps. Rather than just adding a frame to photo, it makes collages from your images.
By selecting one of portrait templates to begin with, you can then choose from your photo gallery the images you’d like to stick into one frame. For example, the solo top image could be an entire family portrait and the two lower photos could be of individuals.
Once you’ve selected the photos to use, you can assign filters to each of those photos individually or as a group.
Naturally, after you’ve completed that, sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket and Tumblr are just a click away.
Phototastic is free.
For the most part, when you take a photo it probably just sits in your picture gallery gathering digital dust. Here’s a fun way of using those photos.
With MyComic, you can take those old photos (or new ones) and add a little caption to them with various speech bubbles. Think of something funny or uncharacteristic of that person to totally change what was being said the moment you took the photo.
Save those comic-ized photos to show your friends, or upload them to the MyCominc gallery for everybody to see. Once they’ve approved the photo – as to remove any foul content – you can then share it with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.
MyComic is currently free to download, although it appears that might change soon. So, grab it while you can.
I use 4 of these apps. I’ve never had a use for apict. I would add fantasia for more complex editing. 95% of the time fhotoroom does what I need, but fantasia fixes red eye and with the “painting” selection, it is a better way to do tilt shift and other effects where you want to separate the subject from the background.