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| My favorite photo app in the Android Market. Download it, too! (images via Android Market) |
Look at me go, a whole week of themed posts! Let's see if I stick to it.
I am really excited about an app specifically for android that I discovered last week while reading an article about the best apps for 2011. As you may know, I love my Google products, but I've been insanely jealous of iPhone users as of late due to Instagram only being available on that platform. Yes, I have a *decent* digital camera (but I still SWOON). Yes, I have Photoshop and I am trained to professionally edit cool vintage effects into photos. Yes, I have downloaded almost every app in the Android market that can mimic the look of Instagram, but I still felt like a mobile photography outsider.
Enter: Lightbox. I have found myself using this app more than any other camera app that I've had in my three years as an Android owner. As a designer, I appreciate the clean, easy-to-navigate UI. As a human, I appreciate that it doesn't take 30 seconds to load the camera. Seriously.
The camera, a separate app called 'QuickSnap Camera,' has nice, intuitive features. The shutter button is large, and the settings button that allows for brightness and focal adjustments is right where your thumb rests on your phone, so it's easy to reach. In addition, the settings are within a single, organized list of radio buttons so they are easy to find on the fly. Yay, you won't miss the photo opp!
Integrated with the camera is the Lightbox Photo app itself. It comes pre-loaded with nearly 20 different photo filters that range from vintage (Lomo, Georgia) to artsy (Fisheye, Dotty) to simple (Instafix, B&W). Scroll through the filters and quickly preview your image, then crop, rotate, upload and share to various social media sites at the push of a (well-designed) button.
In addition to social media sharing, the Lightbox app also automatically uploads your photos, either privately or publicly, to the cloud. You can manage the captions and sharing for all of your photos in an easy-to-use and well-designed online web gallery. Much like Instagram, you're able to find and follow friends from other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. I am currently only following big names in the field, however, I would definitely add friends to my stream if the app gets more popular within my personal social network.
The Moral of the Story: Look forward to more fun (and beautiful) pictures of everyday things on The Art of Life now that I don't haaaate my phone's camera app. Win-win!
Pictures and pretty things,
P.S. Looking for an even more advanced way to edit photos on your Android phone? Try this or this.
