Top 5 Photography Apps For The iPhone

Sofia Fontes | Tue, Dec 8, 2009

One of the biggest complaints about the iPhone is the camera quality and even with the new and improved 3MP camera of the 3GS it seems that this feeling still stands. I have to say I wholeheartedly disagree with that sentiment because not only I believe the iPhone’s camera has a lot of hidden potential but also because there are numerous apps that unleash its true capabilities. Here are 5 of my favorite photography apps:

1. Photogene ($2.99) is basically a mini Photoshop for the iPhone and a must-have app, in my opinion. It comes with a full range of editing features like color correction, cropping, special effects and customized frames and when you’re done you can email your photos from the app itself. This application is very intuitive and makes it extremely easy to edit your photos and have some fun with some of the silly frames and text bubbles included.

Similar apps: PhotoForge

2. Camera Genius ($1.99) expands the iPhone’s camera capabilities with quite a few options that help you take better control of how you take your shots: timer, digital zoom, anti-shake (very useful for taking better pictures in the dark), alignment guides and even location and timestamps. But one of my favorite features is probably that the Camera Genius saves your pictures in the background so that you can immediately start snapping, without having to wait for each picture to save, like with the standard camera app.

Camera Genius

Similar apps: Night Camera, Darkroom Premium

3. Panorama ($9.99) makes it very easy to take beautiful panoramic photos by overlapping your shots so that you can align them properly. The app then stitches all of your shots together, while doing some adjusting to make everything seamless, and outputs them full size creating breathtaking landscapes that will be sure to impress your family and friends.

Panorama

Similar apps: Pano, AutoStitch

4. The Best Camera ($2.99) is one of the elements of the three part eco-system (the app, the book and the community) based on the concept “The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You™” created by renowned photographer Chase Jarvis. The app includes a set of gorgeous filters that you can apply and reorder to your heart’s desire to get the best possible effect. When you’re done you can share your creation on Facebook, Twitter or with the online Best Cam community. For some inspiration you can check out the book, a beautiful celebration of iPhone photography.

The Best Camera

5. Perfectly Clear ($2.99) is a great app to get your photos clearer and brighter with just a touch of a button. The app applies a number of automatic corrections to your pictures making them look more vibrant and it lets you easily compare the the results by seeing the “before” and “after” side to side. If you’re still not perfectly happy with the results you can then adjust all the parameters yourself and make sure you get your photos looking perfect. The fact that you can get gorgeous results so effortless makes this app a winner for me.