We are going to start off by saying this: if you are looking for an all-in-one photo effects (and borders) application on your Windows Phone, Phototastic is on of the best applications to offer this to you. We took it for a spin and were impressed right away, without getting into the effects or borders yet, at how nicely presented the application is. Developer thumbmunkey did a fantastic job on the presentation, giving you the options you need when you need them on your screen, and as you make selections more will be presented to you. Phototastic really makes it easy to manipulate any photos on your Windows Phone, and with easy upload management to popular social networks, there is no other reason to ever leave the application until you are done using it. Continue reading for our review of Phototastic, developed by thumbmunkey, on the Windows Phone.
Starting up Phototastic takes less than a couple of seconds, a plus right away for a photo manipulation application. If we are going to use an application like Phototastic, we want to be able to snap a picture with our Windows Phone, open it in Phototastic to edit it, and send it right off to its destination, hopefully all within a matter of a couple of minutes. Phototastic keeps that in mind with its quick start up, bringing you to the borders selection screen. Right away, this first main menu is what got us thinking “wow, this application does this really nicely.” You are presented with a collage of either Classic style borders or Film style, with the borders applied to some generic images.
Film Borders
Film style will give you four different pages of different ‘film’ border styles. You choose among Polaroid, Photobooth, Grunge and Film specific borders. Once a border is selected, it will take up your entire device screen and is ready to be filled in with great images. Once your images are loaded, either directly through the application with your camera or from your media library, you can then rotate or apply effects to your images. All done? Hit the save photo button and choose from save to media library to uploading directly to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and/or Photobucket.
Classic Borders
If you select the Classic style you will be presented with five pages of plain white borders (don’t worry you can change the color). On each page you will find different layout possibilities for use with one image or up to six images. Pick your layout and it will take up your whole screen. At this point, as mentioned previously, you pick your image, apply your effects and save when complete.
Effects, Effects and More Effects!
Anxious to know what effects are available? We will simply name them as their options and possibilities are almost limitless in Phototastic. You have at your disposal the following: Lomo, Borders (many different border options to change – only available with Classic borders), Old Photo (with many styles contained within), Brightness & Contrast (simple effects that go a long way, always), “Cool Fx” (template effects suggested by previous users), Vignette (black or white), Tint (RGB color selector), and the very useful Remove Effects.
Phototastic Is Always Growing
As we mentioned before, there is not much else to Phototastic besides giving you what you intend to use it for. Great borders, great effects and great saving/uploading options. Developer thumbmunkey is also always adding to their applications based on user feedback (almost immediately in some cases), so feel free to contact them and give them some feedback/suggestions. If Phototastic doesn’t give you everything you want or need, all you need to do is send feedback and you’re pretty much guaranteed thumbmunkey will be sure to add it.
Wishlist
- Bug fixes – we did run into a couple of slider bugs in some effects where some sliders had to be tapped, because dragging them wasn’t working very well
- Undo button – for effects, in case we don’t want to remove everything but just that last effect that doesn’t look so good
- Autosave (or at least a notice) – we found ourselves accidentally (or intentionally) hitting the back button and realizing we lost all our work just as easily, some type of pop-up advising the user he hasn’t saved before confirming leaving the current editing screen would be perfect
We really couldn’t think of anything else this application could possibly be missing. Shout out below in the comments, or on the forum, if you give Phototastic a try!
Download Link: Phototastic Buy for $1.99 (Trial Available) – Developer: thumbmunkey – Version: 1.3.0.0
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