With varied features and editing options, Camera
Awesome makes phone-shooting fun and fast
What you’ll need…
iPhone/iPad/iPod touch
iOS 4.3 or later
We used…
Camera Awesome app and iPhone 4
You could try…
Instant110
aremaC
WoW Camera Pro
What you’ll learn…
How to shoot, edit and share with more control
Shoot, edit and
share with Camera Awesome
The quality of images taken on today’s cameraphones is going
from strength to strength. It’s little wonder that we get so excited when we
find apps that fuel our imagination and kick-start our creativity. The Camera
Awesome app from SmugMug is one such app giving smartphone shooters a bounty of
choice.
The app provides dozens of hand-on controls for capturing
scenes, such as Self-Timer, Big Button Shutter, Interval, Burst modes and more.
You can also have the ability to independently control focus and to exposure,
harnessed simply by touching areas of the screen. Furthermore, the app offers
in-shot aids such as a horizon level, compositional guides, instant
post-processing and image stabilization.
There is also an exciting editing suite to play with,
including extensive palettes of presets, filters, textures and frames that mean
once an image has been taken, the fin can really start. While there is a bevy
of freebies to be had, the app also contains an array of purchasable style
bundles costing a cool £0.69/$0.99 each.
Once you’ve taken your shot, you can upload your masterpiece
straight to Twitter, Facebook, Picasa, Flickr or the producer’s own
image-sharing site, SmugMug.com, which provides a catalogue of print options.
Once snappers have explored all of that, it’s time to switch to video mode and
do it all over again.
Shoot, edit and
share with Camera Awesome
1. Start by pinching and pulling the exposure and focus
tools to take your shot. The green square represents focus and the blue circle
is exposure.
Step 1
2. Tap the downward-facing arrow at the top to select
aids such as a horizon level and composition grid (Rule of Thirds, Golden,
Trisec and Square).
Step 2
3. Now tap the wand icon to edit. To change each of the
settings, tap on the option and tweak away – there are choices for textures and
filters here too.
Step 3
4. When you have finished, you can export it to the
Camera Roll, or upload it to a social network site by hitting the Share icon at
the bottom.
Step 4
Playback
Tap on the image at the bottom to retrieve your last shot.
Here you’ll find plenty of options for editing, sharing, exporting and selecting
Post processing
To change the look of your shot, head for the fix folder and
scroll through the huge array of presets available
Instant share
To share your snap immediately via text, email or a social
networking site, hit the Share icon at the top right if the screen
Focus and exposure
The blue circle identifies the area you want to expose for
and the green square shows the area you want to focus on
Video mode
If you like using the app to school stills then why not give
the video mode a try? Simply move the slider to video and hit record
Shoot, edit and
share with Camera Awesome
3 of the best…
Edits using Camera Awesome
Presets
With over Presets to choose from you’ll have hours of fun
stylizing your pictures. The current edition offers 9 free Presets and 99 other
option that cost £0.69/$0.99 each.
Filters
The filters gallery is great for changing the colour
information of your frame. There are lots of options to choose from, including
black and white, portraits and retro-inspired filters.
Textures
Adding extra energy to your images, the Textures Gallery
sports dozens of almost-tangible styles which you can apply to your snaps, transforming
them into masterpieces
Apps for Android
Pixlr-o-matic
An easy-to-use equivalent for Android, Pixlr-o-matic from
Autodesk Inc is perfect for instantly adding retro and stylish effects or
filters to your shots. Using effects, overlays and borders and with 2 million
possible finished, you’re guaranteed to never have dull and lifeless image ever
again.
