Handy and Dandy - the iPhone

Since I started blogging on my iPhone people have been asking about the applications I use etc. etc. etc.

So here's a bit about me, my iPhone, and the apps I love.

First! I don't get a whole lot of town time, so power conservation is mucho importante to me.

As soon as I leave town airplane mode goes on. By doing this my phone will not search for any signal but will allow me to use all my apps. This will save power especially when I am in areas without signal, otherwise the phone would spend all day "Searching..." and drain the precious precious battery life.

Then I make sure the brightness is turned all the way down! This saves even more power! It means I can hardly see diddly squat during the day, but that's why I wait until evening to edit photos.

And of course once my battery gets below 10% I use the solio to charge it up (it doesn't quite charge the whole thing...but almost).

Finally, I turn the phone off at night.


Okay.

The apps.

For blogging I use BLOGPRESS:



Currently it is $2.99 in the app store. I think it's worth it though. I can write in it:




Manage, save, and when I have reception pull up old posts:



It allows you to choose what blog to post to. For instance I have two blogspot blogs, I am logged into both of them through this app, and I can just choose which one to post to under settings:



This app allows you to post to blogspot, wordpress, and others. (I do use my Tumblr app, which is free, to post to my tumblr blogs, which are currently being sorely neglected)

You can load lots of photos to each post and you can mess with settings on each photo.

Downsides to this application: I have noticed that if I load too many photos sometimes the app freezes and exits, loosing the information up till the most recent save. This also happened when I wrote within the app for too long. So I do not compose my blogs within the app any more.

I do all my writing in Notes (it is free and is already loaded on every iPhone). This also easily allows me to not have to save all the time. And since I am an atrocious speller I can zip back and forth between notes and my dictionary.com app (it's free):



I also love the thesaurus feature:







PHOTO APPS:


CAMERA (comes on the iPhone)
All the individual photos I take I use the regular camera app for. I would rather have blank slate photos and edit them as I choose later. I have the 3gs which allows for macro and slight exposure choosings.


TILTSHIFT GENERATOR ($0.99 by Art & mobile)



It has the blur feature:



You can choose between linear and radial blur, you can move the blur around, adjust its size, and adjust the amount of feathering.




(super blurry if you want!)

There are also very basic image controls on the app for saturation, brightness, and contrast:



Then there is also the vignette tool, which I love:




Finally, you can save or export:



Voilà!




I Looooove this app.



PHOTOGENE ($1.99 by Omar Shoor)




You can crop:



Rotate:



Filter (I've not used any of these):



Add bubbles, arrows, or symbols...



...which is all control-able and tweakable:



Add type to the symbols:



Border/frame options:



Basic color controls:



There is also undo, redo, and save:




Often I will edit a photo in the tilt shift generator, then I will save it and bring it into Photogene for a border and some other tweeking.

Pretty simple, but essential.


MILL COLOUR (free by The Mill)



If you want to do serious color control, this is the app! It does have some sweet presets, but it also has full control of Red/cyan, green/magenta, and blue/yellow separated into Lift, Gamma, and Gain. You can also control the levels via the Lift, gamma, and gain. It also has a saturation control.

It doesn't have any features other than color control, but is the best color control I have found (and it's free). I take the color corrected photos and put them into Photogene for the borders and such.


LO-MOB ($1.99 by aestesis)



I haven't been using this app much lately, but it has a lot of fun modification filters.

Example:



(one of the slide filters, border in photogene, palm trees in LA)


TOY CAMERA and OLD CAMERA ($1.99 and $0.99 respectively, by Art and Mobile)



This doesn't modify exsisting photos, you just take photos within the app and they are transformed. Simple but truly sweet. Toy Camera modifies in color, old camera in b&w.

Examples:




(taken with Toy camera, a boy and his banana at the Texas state fair)



(taken with old camera, My friend Iman in front of the Benjamin Button house in New Orleans)


QUADCAMERA ($1.99 by Art & Mobile)



Are you noticing a pattern? I love the Art & Mobile apps.

Okay so this is how I do my series/panoramic photos.

You can choose from 4 in a row, four as 2x2, 8 in a row, or eight as 4x2:



You can also pick the color the and the time in between each shot (from 0.1 seconds to 3 seconds).

Example:



(the subdome and halfdome at Yosemite)

I do go back into photogene with the series and put borders around them.



Finally, once the blog is posted I tweet about it on TwitBird (free) and I post to FB.

These are the main apps I use, but I also use Camera Bag occassionally, and I want Hipstamatic as well!


Hope this helps! Please feel free to ask me any questions!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone