This Holiday season, add a new spin on the traditional Christmas photo! Retro, panoramic, quick touch-ups: a short guide to the best apps you need to install on your phone and create an outstanding Holiday photo album!
Photo apps are to mobile phones what accessories are to cameras: they let you bring your imagination to life. While most are not free, they are still very affordable, regardless of whether your operating system is Android or Apple.
The old school look is a great way to showcase your festivities! To add a retro or Polaroid effect to your holiday photos, use Hipstamatic, an app that will let you choose between hundreds of different effects. And if you want to add text or illustrations (stickers, patterns, pictograms) to your snaps, check out Retromatic. Your Christmas party photos will look more like posters!
Taking photos in the dark with a phone is a real challenge, given the lack of a powerful flash. The NightCap app rises to the challenge by increasing the exposure when you take a photo, and letting you know if you moved! This will help you to snap nighttime scenes as though it were day, and take festive photos like never before. And if you’d like to surprise your guests, use an app to do light painting, like Slow Shutter Cam, which recreates the effects of long exposure on a light source. All you need to do is get creative with a flashlight and there you have it!
To impress your friends with really cool photos, use an app that applies a fragmented effect, like KaleidaCam, which will transform your iPhone into a kaleidoscope. What’s more, if there are teenagers at your party, you can amaze them by automatically transforming your photos into scenes from a Japanese cartoon with Manga Camera. Lastly, you can entertain your guests with Capagram; an app that lets you embellish your pictures with mini-photos and colours in the style of a comic book.
They have become go-to references when it comes to taking photos with your phone. The very popular Instagram app lets you take, touch-up and share photos. As for the very efficient Camera+ 2, it offers all the technical options of a real camera: colour balance, cropping, framing and about a dozen filters to make your photos more original-looking.
Need to take a photo of your large family at a long table? Now you can get everybody in the same picture thanks to apps that offer panoramic views, like 360 and 360 Panorama. Press the camera button, scan the scene with your mobile’s camera lens, and presto!
Once the party over, all you need is to pick your favourite photos, add some effects and design your annual Holiday photobook.
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