Instagram has developed a comfortable cult following on iOS, thanks to its range of options and a mysterious ability to make awful photographs look almost professional. Now that Instagram has arrived on Android as well, a new legion of potential photographers have picked up the app.
But we shouldn't forget that there were already a few excellent photography apps on Android before the second coming of Instagram. We take a look at five of the best.
Photo Effects Pro
Photo Effects Pro provides over 40 photo effects that you can apply to your pictures, including the usual suspects such as Lomo, Fisheye, Thermal and others. If you wish to preview your effects, you can do so almost instantaneously, as well as laying multiple effects over each other. This is very similar to Instagram, but still a worthy alternative.
Price: £2.19 | Link: Photo Effects Pro
Vignette
Vignette is one of the best camera apps on the Android Market, as it has a wide range of options. For a start, it adds to your phone’s camera capabilities. At its heart are the filters – there’s 68 effects and 56 frames in all, which range from vintage to trendy LOMO style shots.
Price: £2.49 | Link: Vignette
Pixlr-o-Matic
Pixlr-o-Matic will help you spruce up your images in just three steps. The first is by adding adding filters, then lighting and finally a nice border around your image. Admittedly, most apps can do this but the amount you can do to your images is still impressive, as is being able use the app on photos you have already taken. To do this, simply load the app up, choose your gallery and you are away.
Price: Free | Link: Pixlr-o-Matic
Retro Camera
You can throw all the megapixels at a digicam you want, but it won’t give you the nostalgic warmth of images taken with a Polaroid. Lucky then the Retro Camera app brings back old-school shooting with a vengeance. Load the app up and you get five cameras to chose from: The Barbl, Little Orange Box, Xolaroid, Pinhole Camera and the FudgeCam, all of which give you very different, authentic retro photographs.
Price: Free | Link: Retro Camera
PRO Paint Camera
PRO Paint Camera is a jack of all trades when it comes to taking pictures. It gives you contrast correction and a few filters, as well as more technical camera options such as flash and focus controls. Uniquely, it also provides a great range of clipart, text fonts and lets you draw and paint over your pictures.
Price: Free | Link: PRO Paint Camera
source: http://www.t3.com
