Saturday, March 2, 2013

PicTapGo

PicTapGo is one of my new favorite photo apps.  It was created by the folks at Totally Rad who make awesome PhotoShop actions and RadLab. And now it's almost like having Totally Rad on my iPhone--for a $1.99!

What I love is that I can take a cute pic like this:



And see a live preview of the different filters:


So many awesome filters:


And you can adjust the strength of the filter with the slider:


And if you want to compare to the original pic, just hold the left side of the pic:


Also, it's really easy to layer the various filters, you just tap a new filter and adjust the strength of the slider to your preference.  And if you want to see your pic before you applied the current filter, hold down the right side of the pic to see the previous effort:


After applying a combo of filters, you can save "recipes" of it for future photos!  Here's my combo of "Skinny Jeans", "Flare Up", and "EZ-Burn"--I called it "Warm & Brighten".  And bonus, you can share recipes with other PicTapGo users.


Even though PicTapGo doesn't technically have a photo editor, a lot of its filters accomplishes some editing desires (like exposure, saturation, contrast, etc).  For example, this late night pic was fairly underexposed but by selecting various strengths of "Lights On" (raised exposure), "Mama's Tap Shoe's" (gave rich sepia tone), and "E-Z Burn" (subtle vignette), I was able to edit this pic:


Into something that I'd want to share and post:


I named this recipe "Late Night Bar".

My only wish for this app was the ability for some cropping/transforming options (and I will concede it doesn't offer fun frames) but overall, this shortcoming is outweighed by its amazing features:

- LIVE previews (those apps with stock photos with their applied filters just keep me guessing)
- amazing value--anyone drooling to get Totally Rad's RadLab but can't invest in PhotoShop on their computer knows that getting this near-app version is a steal!
- excellent filter choices with simple, easy-to-use interface
- ability to view previous and original pix while editing
- ability to adjust strength of filters
- ability to layer filters
- save and share recipes

Any other PicTapGo folks want to share recipes?

2 comments:

  1. that lady kelli (from my blog) started using it but i had no idea what it was. looks cool but i don't want to pay for it. evan frowns upon paying for any apps. plus my smug mug app kinda does that, but their filters aren't that great. you have to pay for the good ones and they give you ugly ones free.

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  2. I would live to share recipes! Ig at daniellercampbell I just started using it.

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