Art in your hand with Camera360 for Windows Phone 8

Final week Camera360 striking the Windows Telephone Store. It'southward a very popular app on both iOS and Android (with an average rating of four.5 on both platforms). So when nosotros launched on Windows Phone we were very eager to play with information technology. This is another 1 of those apps that applies filters to your photos, only it does so in a brilliant and beautiful fashion. Permit's cheque it out.

A lot of you guys and gals complain about 'filters' in the comments. Then permit's address that from the showtime. Why would you want to use filters to your photos when the images from sensor on phones like the Lumia 920 and HTC 8X are astonishing? Easy respond: artistic option. Everyone has their own estimation, only if Ansel Adams idea a red filter was adept enough for his Monolith prototype of Half Dome in Yosemite, they're expert enough for yous and me. He used a red filter to help heighten the tonal contrasts in that image. That's a very good reason why a lot of people like to utilise filters today. Still, you can just slap a physical filter onto the front end of your lens –it'southward non very applied. That means we get apps similar Lomogram and now Camera360.

Filters galore

Camera360 has a wide diversity of filters (which it groups into vi "shooting themes") to choose from. What'southward nice nigh this app compared to some others is that the furnishings are displayed in real time while yous're using the camera. Information technology helps you lot determine which filter works best for a particular scene. Let'due south look at the half-dozen themes and the filters available inside each section.

Auto: Information technology'southward auto, you can edit pictures later, and this is just a fast way to become a shot if you lot're in a bustle.
Portrait: Sweetness, Natural, Sunny, Fresh, and B&W
Macro: Pure, Retro, Elegant, Maple, and Emerald
Nighttime: Enhance, Foggy, Purple, and Fall
Food: Dream, Warm, Normal, and Reversal Film
Scenery: Autumn, Pure, Enthusiasm, Blackness Storm, and Colour Sketch

The on screen controls to switch betwixt the different filters is really slick. On the bottom or side (depending on your phones orientation) there is a dial. That dial is used to switch between the shooting themes. Then you might select 'Food' if you're taking a picture of that huge burrito you're most to destroy. From there you lot swipe left or right (or up and down) in the center to switch between the filters within that shooting theme. Each time you change a theme or filter the consequence is applied instantly to the viewfinder on your screen. It'south great to see what you're getting. You tin ever just shoot in 'auto' and apply those filters later on, but that's not very fun is it?

Camera360 sample image: Complete with the vignette frame and a bit of thumb for 'artistic' flair.

More controls

While non equally total featured as some other apps (like ProShot), Camera360 does provide a full controls on the overlay UI to help you get the look yous want. The first is an exposure slider. Y'all can increase or decrease the exposure by selecting it, it'due south a handy characteristic if the in camera metering isn't getting the look yous want for a item scene. At that place are too controls to switch betwixt the principal camera and forepart facing camera, besides as cycling through the wink options. Some other cool feature is the ability to add frames to your shots (again, another creative determination). On the bottom right y'all'll see a square looking button that lets you cycle through the bachelor frames. They're a nice little feature to give your photos that cheesy faux-Polaroid feel.

Calendar view and sharing

Like most modernistic photograph editing apps, afterwards y'all've editing a photo you can share to various social networks. And there are a ton of networks to output your photos to. You get Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, SinaWeibo, TencentWeibo, QZONE, Renren, Evernote, Kaixin, and Huaban. You lot're probably scratching your head at a few of those. The developers are primarily based in Asia and y'all'll notice that when reading the app clarification in the Store. You tin can blame Bing or Google translate for a few laughs yous'll get.

The other interesting part of Camera360 is the 'photograph diary'. The gallery view within the app is displayed in date format. It'southward a dainty layout and you can browse your photos by day. You'll find photos from your photographic camera whorl showing upwards in there as well, so if you wanted to edit them with Camera360 even though you didn't originally have them with the app yous totally can. However, if you try editing a photograph that y'all originally shot with a filter in Camera360, that filter stays applied throughout future edits. That's one scenario in which you might want to lean on the 'automobile' camera in Camera360 if y'all programme on trying out diverse filters.

Wrapping it up

I actually like Camera360 a lot. The layout is really nice and I similar the minimal approach to the viewfinder layout. Switching betwixt filters is actually fluid, with an occasional lag while the filter is being practical live to the scene. The app shows up in your Lens selection in Windows Telephone viii, but y'all'll be missing a double wide tile and lockscreen support in this version. As well, in the Android and iOS versions in that location is support for the newly launched cloud portion of Camera360. While probably coming in a future version, it would accept been nice to examination it out on my Windows Telephone and not iPhone. That really might have been a good thing though, since the entire site is in Chinese and I can't exactly read information technology.

Those little nibbles aside, Camera360 is a great app to get creative with and output to your various social networks. The price is right with the app costing zippo. Unfortunately the app is only available for Windows Phone 8 at the moment and probable future. You can blame the poor camera back up in Windows Phone 7 for that since Camera 360 needs to employ the filters in existent time.

Yous can download Camera360 for free right here in the Windows Phone Store, use the QR code below, or swipe to the correct in our app.

QR: Camera360

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