Amazing Photo Effects with 100 Cameras in 1 – PadGadget iPad Photography Series

By Juli | June 15, 2011 | No comment yet

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Part of PadGadget’s continuing series Become An Expert With PadGadget’s iPad Photography Series.

There are hundreds of apps that add various filters and effects to your photos, but even in a sea of similar apps, 100 Cameras in 1 for the iPad is a fish that swims alone, with colorful, imaginative effects and an almost poetic feel.

When you open the app, you can import your own photos, take a photo (iPad 2), or play around with the photos that 100 Cameras in 1 provides for you. To instantly change between over 100 filters, simply swipe to the left, which scrolls through them. Swiping to the right goes backwards. There are some effects that are great for people, and some that are great for landscapes. A little experimentation goes a long way, and you’re sure to get great results just playing around with all of the features of this app.

Each applied effect can be further edited using the Yin (texture alterations) and Yang (image layering) buttons to control features such as overlay, multiply, luminosity, hue, dodge, and more. There are also buttons to add a vignette (darkening of the edges) and to control the contrast and brightness of your image. All of these adjustments are controlled with just a slider and it only takes a tap to change which one you’re using, so the interface is self-explanatory and uncomplicated. You can also add a glow to each image, as well as rotate it, and if you make a mistake, starting over is as simple as tapping the reset button in the bottom left.

With all of the adjustment options for each filter, there are thousands of different photo looks that can be achieved. If that wasn’t enough, all the photo effects can be stacked. Hitting add effect allows you to take the current edited image and layer even more filters over it.

When importing a picture, the app warns you if it is oversized and in danger of eating up too much memory. You can automatically import a smaller size to work with, or “crash and burn,” importing the original size, which is what I chose to do without any problems. Your photo may take a few seconds to load into the app, but don’t worry, to keep you from getting bored, 100 Cameras in 1 shows you a picture of some delicious looking candy, with the amusing loading message, “Making Truffles. Mmmmm.”

Every filter is different, and some of them are truly lovely effects that I haven’t been able to achieve in the same way with any other photo editing app. As a bonus, each filter has a clever name, which makes this app just plain fun to use, like “the sky wept in crimson waves,” “going back for more ice cream when no one is watching,” and “the first smell of summer chlorine,” which, by the way, does look exactly like summer.

There are ten different groups of effects in all, grouped cleverly by mood: Zen, gentle (people), serenity (landscapes), longing (people), anxious (world), madness (landscape), dreamy (world), fantastic (landscape), quixotic (world), and daring (the beyond).

When you find favorite effects, you can save them for quick access in your favorites menu by tapping the star on the top menu bar. Your photo creations can be saved in shared in numerous ways, including email, printing, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Dropbox, Smugmug, Instagram, SketchBook, Photogene, GoodReader, and your native photo album. I should note that this is currently the only photo app that I know of that directly exports to Instagram, which is a huge bonus, if you’re like me and use Instagram fairly often.

An Explore feature in the app gives you some instructions and tips on getting the most out of the app, plus some videos to watch. Usually, achievements in apps are reserved for games, but that’s not the case here. There are over 35 achievements to get while using 100 Photos in 1, from saving a photo between 5 and 6AM to using the app during an earthquake. And as a side note, no, you can’t get that one by shaking your iPad and using the app at the same time. Don’t ask how I know.

The kaleidoscope of filters and the poetic titles are surprisingly fun to play with. This is not the most fully featured photo editing app I have, but it is one I reach for when I need a quick filter for a Flickr, Twitter, or Instagram photo. Beware, though, you will need a separate app for functions like zooming and cropping your photos. Snapseed and Photogene are both apps that I’ve reviewed for the PadGadget Photography series, and they’re both great choices as a companion app to 100 Cameras in 1.

What I liked: I was amused by the whimsical naming and the achievements, not to mention all of the really high quality filters. 100 Cameras in 1 is definitely the most unique photo editing app out there.

What I didn’t like: I’d like to be able to crop my photos in app, and I wasn’t thrilled with the beeping when tapping menu buttons. I generally used this app with my sound off.

To buy or not to buy: If you like to add fun and interesting filters to photos, this app is wonderful and infinitely useful. I certainly wouldn’t want to do without it now that I’ve had a chance to use it.