Saturday, September 21, 2013

Use Landcam before you Instagram

This iPhone photo editor provides a rich array of tools underneath a flat, minimalist design.

By now, if you are a regular user of Instagram, then you have likely used each and every of its 19 filters. (Well, maybe not Kelvin; it's the worst.) To add some new wrinkles to your Instagramming ways, check out Landcam, a 99-cent square photo editor for the iPhone.

After snapping a shot with the app or loading one from your Camera Roll, you are forced to crop it into a square. Next, between undo and redo buttons, you'll find three buttons for accessing Landcam's vast collection of editing tools. To get the full complement of tools, you will need to like the app on Facebook.Landcam boasts the flat, minimalist design that iOS 7 promises, but beneath its plain veneer is a powerful photo editor. You can use the app to snap a shot, and its camera mode lets you choose either the rear- or front-facing camera and enable the flash. Tap the settings button to turn on grid lines or enable a double-exposure shot, which is not something you'll find on every iPhone camera app.
(Credit: Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET)
The first section of editing tools are dozens of filters. Swipe to the right to choose to browse through either color or monochrome collections. I found the filters, on the whole, to be more subtle than Instagram's, and each comes with a slider to adjust the intensity of its effects.
(Credit: Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET)
The next section lets you make adjustments to your photo's exposure, brightness, contrast, color, and so on. Again, each of the 12 tools comes with a slider, giving you fine control during the edit process.
(Credit: Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET)
The third section is a collection of gimmicky add-ons that let you add a border, choose a font to write something on your photo, add a hokey sketched object, among others. Two tools here might be of use: Light Leaks and Transform. Light Leaks can be rotated and positioned in different spots, and you can adjust their intensity, while the Transform tool lets you flip and rotate your photo. Also, I found it easy to resize and reposition writing on a photo, after selecting from the fun selection of fonts.
After tweaking your photo just so, you can save it to your Camera Roll, open it in Instagram, and share via email, Facebook, or Twitter. There is also a button to open it in other apps on your iPhone, giving you a great deal of flexibility.

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