10 Best Photo Apps (for the Novice)
Wednesday, February 13, 2013 at 5:00AM
I love taking pictures.
I am NOT a photographer.
BUT....
So much of our homeschool is documented in photos. My daughter loves her iTouch to take photos and stay in touch with other homeschool friends on Instagram.
Photos are a great learning tool and a wonderful tool for creativity, too.
I wish I had a fancy camera, but right now my iPhone 4s is it for me.
I am a photo novice.
There are so many apps out there that can turn your iPhone into a super photo productivty tool!
Most of these I've found along the way. A couple of them I just heard about from Amanda Padgett at The BEECH Retreat.
I hope these suggestions help you to snap better photos and make fun creations with those photos on your iPhone!
Camera+
For $.99 this is a steal. It basically turns your iPhone camera into a more fancy camera. It lets you do things to your photos that you could do on a "fancy" camera. I only use this app for taking photos now. Amanda Padgett recommended this to us at BEECH.
iWatermark
$1.99
We all know how important it is to watermark our photos. This little app lets you do it right on your phone. It allows you to easily watermark photos and save them to your camera roll. You can save your own standard watermarks, create as many new ones as you want, and completely customize them. This app saves me TONS of time!
I watermarked this photo, after adjusting the filter in Instagram, and it made for a really nice photo on my blog. It took me about 2 minutes.
speaking of Instagram....
I get SO MANY ideas from homeschool families during the day via Instagram. I can find out about project ideas, healthy snacks, favorite curriculums, and so much more.
Instagram is a homeschooler's GOLD MINE! And, it's FREE!
The app also lets you play with some fun filters for your pictures, too.
{are you following me?}
Photo Collage
Free
Since I host a weekly photo collage link-up (Collage Friday) I use this app A LOT. I can look through my photos from the week and quickly drag them into collages. There are lots of styles to choose from and they easily save into my camera roll.
Take your photos in Camera+. Drag them into a photo collage using Photo Collage. Watermark them in iWatermark. Then, link up with me for Collage Friday!
See how easy I made that for you?
Over
$1.99
Quite simply these app adds text to your photos. It is easy and fun. I highly recommend! I played with this a little last week and came up with something in no time.
PS Express
Free - although there are in app purchases for additional features
This is Adobe's simple photo editor.
You can snap your photos, edit, add effects, share, and much more.
I like that you can autofix your pictures for sharpness and contrast. You can crop and lots of other things, too. If you can't get to your Photoshop Elements (what I have on my computer) this can do some of the basics for you.
Color Splash
$.99
OK. You have to watch a 4 minute tutorial to get the hang of this, but once you do, it's REALLY fun. Be careful, it might become a time suck.
I can see using this sparingly and it being quite effective. What do you think?
Pic Stitch
Free, but lots of in app purchases, too, so be careful.
This is like the Photo Collage app on steroids. Truly.
Sometimes all of the features confuse and distract me, but if you want to adjust the aspects of your collages, make a FB cover photo, add stickers, change filters, etc...., then this app is for you.
It's A LOT of fun.
My daughter said, "Oh, I LOVE that app!"
Here's a quick little something I created, using Grant's new LEGO Story Starter Kit from Lego Education.
LensLight
$.99
This app has a lot of fun effects for lighting in your pictures. It takes a while to get used to it, but from what I understand (from a seminar at BEECH), bokeh is pretty popular right now.
I'm playing with it and like that you can share it to your favorite social sites once you have played with your pictures.
Camera Awesome
$.99
Yes, it's well worth the $.99, because it's AWESOME!
You can edit photos and just make them awesome. Enough said. You have to play with it to see what I mean.
Don't you love this puppy picture I played with?
Awwww......
Let's review.
I made a nifty picture (which you can Pin if you'd like - wink) which is a screeshot of my iPhone 4s Photography folder.
Do you have a favorite iPhone Photo App?
*First image credit
Reader Comments (5)
I have a very fancy camera that I love and it has its place but its place is not in our day to day life. It is for capturing amazing detail on beach nights or trips that we take. It takes fabulous portraits. It has a zoom lens. But for our day to day life, there is no better camera than the iphone. All my pictures of the storm were iPhone created. I never even took my fancy camera out!
Instagram is still my favorite app. I love how it connects us in such a positive way. Like you I have learned so much from what others post.
Thanks for the info!
Thanks for sharing all of these Mary :) I haven't gotten out my regular camera in ages! I use my phone all the time, and I love Instagram.
(As an aside note, I am interested in that Story Starter Lego kit you mentioned...off to check that out!)
Good post. I love taking pictures with my iPhone and editing them is so much fun. Now I will download all these apps as well to have better affects for all of my pictures
Thanks for sharing these apps. I am always looking for another way to feed my iPhone addiction. ;)
A great app if you want to take better photographs is the iPhotography Assignment Generator. It's got so many cool assignments, great example images, and tons of random objects and scavenger hunts items. And if you are doing a photo 365 challenge, you can set up a daily reminder to keep you on track!
It's helped me improve and get more creative with my iphone!
Jenny M