News: Making Art on Your iOS Device, Part 5: Photography

There are seemingly endless photography apps for the iPhone—it is perhaps one of the most popular arenas for application developers. We've covered a few in Giveaway Tuesdays, but nothing comprehensive.

We would be remiss to omit the two most popular frontrunners—Hipstamatic ($1.99) and Instagram (free)—but everyone and their grandmother is familiar with these, so I'm mentioning them now, and leaving them out of the list below. For the few remaining people out there who are unfamiliar with these apps, in a nutshell: both allow users to apply a variety of nostalgic filters to their photos and easily share via Flickr/Facebook, etc. Instagram has a greater emphasis on the sharing/social aspect.

iPhoneography is a good site for getting the full rundown on all of the latest photography apps and updates, but for a one-stop list of 10 of the most highly-rated choices, check out the selections below.

1. ProCamera

ProCamera is listed first and foremost for a reason—it has been voted #1 photography app again and again, highly praised by reputable sources. Many attest that the app is a fully functional replacement for your camera. Features include:

• Anti Shake—for shot stabilization/capturing the sharpest photos possible
• Power Zooming—get extreme closeups with 6x zoom
• Self Timer
• Virtual Horizon/Grids—crooked pictures no more
• RapidFire Burst
• Editing features such as filters, effects, brightness, saturation, contrast, cropping, rotating, etc.

ProCamera also stores the time and place of each photo using satellite maps of the locations where you've been snapping away. Visit the website to see the full feature table broken down by device (iPad, iPad 2, iPod 4, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4).

Cost: $2.99
Compatible: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

2. Photogene

Photogene is one of the best selling/highly reviewed photo editing apps available. It offers a wide selection of editing tools, including:

• Crop and straighten
• Sharpen and noise reduction
• Color adjustments (including levels and curves)
• Red-eye correction and healing tool (for unwanted blemishes/spots)
• Special effects/filters (Dodge & Burn, Blur, Grayscale, Sepia, Charcoal, etc.), which can be applied overall or in specified areas of the photo-- "apply filters or color adjustments by 'painting' them on specific areas of a photo"
• Text boxes or bubbles of different styles, colors and fonts
• Frames in various shapes/colors, with optional shadows and glows
• Viewable EXIF metadata, including geo-tagging
• Resize photos as you export to Flickr, Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, FTP or mail

Cost: $2.99 (iPad); $1.99 (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch)
Compatible: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

3. Camera Plus Pro

Camera Plus Pro shares much in common with ProCamera, with the added bonus of video recording features, such as time-lapse and filters. Also highly reviewed by reputable sources, much of the features are neck-in-neck with ProCamera's (listed above). Check out the video demo/review by the Daily App Show below.

Cost: $1.99
Compatible: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

4. Adobe Photoshop Express

A must-have for any Photoshop junkie, Adobe Photoshop Express is your photography/image editing & creating software on-the-go. One of the cooler features is the ability to access your entire online photo/video library from a Photoshop.com account. 

The free version offers:

• Basics—Crop, Straighten, Rotate, and Flip
• Color—Exposure, Saturation, Tint, Black and White, and Contrast
• Filters—Sketch, Soft Focus, and Sharpen
• Effects—Vibrant, Pop, Border, Vignette Blur, Warm Vintage, Rainbow, White Glow, and Soft Black and White
• Borders—Rectangle, Rounded, Oval, Soft Edge, Vignette, Rough Edge, Halftone, and Film Emulsion

And for an extra $4.99 (in-app purchase/"Adobe Camera Pack"), you will receive:

• Reduce Noise—smooths out those flaws to quickly improve your photos
• Self Timer
• Auto Review—gives you a quick look at your picture to make sure you got a good shot/need a re-take.

Cost: Free (basics)
Compatible: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

5. Magic Shutter

Magic Shutter is perfect for those low light situations when you want to avoid the iPhone's glaring flash. The application allows you to extend the amount of time your iPhone's sensor is activated, enabling you to capture long exposure and repeated exposure photographs.

The app has a couple basic features, including anti-shake and a self timer. To use, set the shutter speed to 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, 60 seconds or unlimited. See it demoed:

Cost: $2.99
Compatible: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

6. Pano

Pano is a really neat app that allows you to combine up to 16 photos to create one large panorama. It provides a semi-transparent guide to help you line them up & merge. The alignment, blending and color matching is pretty seamless, and the finished panoramas can be saved at a resolution of up to 6800 x 800. Numerous stellar reviews; check out the impressive Flickr group here. 

(*Note, currently on sale—so grab now!)

Cost: Currently on sale @ $1.99
Compatible: iPhone, iPod touch

7. Toy SLR

Toy SLR simulates a SLR camera by blurring the background, focusing on the subject and applying a "Toy Camera-style" effect. The finished result makes the scene look like a miniature/tilt-shift world. The interface seems intuitive, and the sample photos are impressive. You may also want to check out the comparable/competing app, TiltShift Generator.

Demoed/reviewed by YouTube's grandhustler32:

Cost: $0.99
Compatible: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

8. MonoPhix

MonoPhix is an app that converts your photos to vintage-inspired, high contrast black and white images. With an intuitive interface and high quality processing (supports high/full resolution), it's considered the top black and white photography app by many.

Cost: $0.99 (iPhone, iPod touch); $1.99 (iPad)
Compatible: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

9. Snapseed

Just this month, photography company Nik Software released Snapseed, a photo enhancement and sharing app with a myriad of intuitive features. Filters include effects such as Drama, Vintage, Grunge, and more. The interface has been well reviewed, and the sample results are stunningly high quality. The app for iPad supports RAW photos. Check out the company's video tutorials here.

Cost: $4.99
Compatible: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

10. Filterstorm / Filterstorm Pro

Filterstorm is a powerful/professional grade photo editor for your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch; Filterstorm Pro is a $10.00 upgrade for the iPad with more "pro" features. The app is geared toward professional photojournalists, complete with a serious set of tools, including:

• curves manipulation
• color correction abilities
• noise reduction
• sharpening
• vignetting
• tone map (Simulated HDR)
• black and white conversion fine-tuning
• all filters can be applied with a full range of brushes, colors and gradient
• EXIF support for JPEG and some RAWs
• IPTC support (for a full list of supported metadata tags, visit their website)

Cost: $14.99
Compatible: iPad

**Tune in tomorrow for Part 6, Museum, Gallery & Street Art Guides. Check out the past four segments on Drawing, Painting, 3D Modeling and Cool Visual Effects & Tricks if you missed out.

Did we leave out a great photography app that you recommend? Please list in the comment section below.