The recent 1197 Mobile Photography Conference, hosted in San Francisco, revealed an intriguing set of applications meant to help iPhone and iPad users to show off their painting skills even if they don’t have any. Particularly if they don’t have any, some might say. The event was dedicated exclusively to iPhone and iPad photography and the attending public was eager to adopt the nickname of “iPhoneographers”.
Patrick May, reviewer for MercuryNews noticed hundreds of fans of the genre paying attention to the recent developments and the apps releases. The growing number from the interested audience was due to the fact that “the simplest apps are seducing amateur point-and-shooters, providing them easy-to-use tools that can lead to dazzling images that are printable, shareable and instantly suitable for framing”.
Probably the most impressive app demonstrated at the event was AutoPainter, that allows the users to apply one of the four filters to their photos and instantly transform them into a look-alike painted masterpiece. By instantly, we mean that the rendering takes about 90 seconds to give the picture the look of an impressionistic painting.
Another app, Diptic, allows the iPhone users to apply any of the 19 layouts to a specific picture and then after the use of effects, they can easily share their visual stories. Blurb Mobile also takes care of the story-telling over the iPhone or iPads. With this app users can take up to eight photos (for more photos there is an additional upgrade fee), add text and audio on each of them, a soundtrack for the entire clip, a layout and voila, the mini story can find its way to the blogosphere.