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iPhone Photography app review: Photogene
Daily Ink
Stored in: Tools
Posted On: December 02 2008
By: Bryan Partington
Photo © striatic
Photogene wasn't the first iPhone based photo editor I tried. Its seeming emphasis on wacky cartoon balloon captions wasn't really what I was looking for, but after reading through the feature list carefully I realized that photogene was actually a very powerful mobile photo editor with advanced cropping tools, levels and saturation sliders and many other features supported by robust "undo" functionality.
The user interface is clean and intuitive, with the toolbar switching from the bottom to the side depending on if you have the phone in portrait or landscape orientation. The levels adjustment has three handles, and provides a lot of flexibility in terms of defining exposure and contrast. If you reverse the positions of the far handles, a negative effect is achieved. Colour saturation can be dropped to nil, and the sharpening tool can be used with quite a bit of finesse. The iPhone has problems with white balance at times, and so the colour correction tool comes in handy on many shots.
The developer, Omer Shoor, continues to pour out new features, and the app gets better with every iteration. There's even a clear roadmap outlining which features are coming out in the next version.
Not only is Photogene possibly the best photography application for the iPhone, it is one of the best iPhone apps, period. The interface shows an ease of use and polish that rivals any mobile application I've ever seen. That the application is only $2.99 makes it even more worthwhile.
If there's any problem with Photogene, it is that it doesn't take into account the inherently social nature of mobile photo editing. If you're editing a photo on your phone, it is likely because you're about to immediately upload it to flickr, or email it to a friend. When this isn't the case it makes more sense to edit the photo at home when you're not pressed for time, using more advanced desktop software. Another iPhone editor called Naked Touch [iTunes link] has a built in flickr/facebook uploader,
and I think photogene would benefit from similar functionality, as well as the ability to email a photo from inside the application itself. Currently you have to exit photogene to upload and email your edited photos, which is slightly time consuming.
This is a minor complaint, however, and I highly, highly recommend this application for anyone who is interested in iPhone based photography.
Photogene [iTunes link]
Otherwise, in Tools:
- Previously: Human as Camera
- Next: "Steamr" and Utility Photography
Utata Ink is a daily publication edited by Bryan Partington (striatic). Photos used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and obtained via the flickr API unless otherwise noted. To make a contribution to Ink, please visit Ink Me.
