Geek Beat: 3 Free Photography Apps for iPhone (and One for Android OS)

Many of us love taking pictures with our handheld devices. iPhones and iPod Touches make it so simple to do, especially with their front-facing cameras (after all, one of our favorite subjects to take pictures of is ourselves). That said, it’s no wonder that you can find dozens of different photography apps — free and paid alike — in the App Store. So if you’re new to the iPhone/iPod Touch — or if you’ve just never really paid much attention to the idea of playing with the pictures you take — here are a few fun and free apps for you to experiment with.

First, the baseline. Here’s the original photo I took before using any of these apps:

 

Instagram:

“[Instagram is] a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your iPhone, choose a filter to transform the look and feel, send to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr – it’s all as easy as pie. It’s photo sharing, reinvented.”

Pros: Tilt-Shift lets you add extra effects to the pictures, choosing where and how you can blur certain parts of the image. Saves to Camera Roll without having to actually upload the image.
Cons: Instagram has been slow to release new filter effects, so using the same effects over and over can get boring.
Tiarra’s thoughts: This is my favorite photo app, even moreso than some of the paid apps that I’ve tried. It does get frustrating that there aren’t a huge selection of filters, but there are enough to keep me satisfied; however, I would gladly pay money for packs of new filters. That’s how good this app is.

 

PicPlz:

“Picplz offers a simple way to take photos and upload them in just a few clicks. It’s easy to add a caption, tag your location and check in. Connect and share with your Twitter, Facebook and more.”

Pros: Allows you to send pictures to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous, Foursquare, and Dropbox.
Cons: No option to email the photo, does not save the photo to your Camera Roll.
Tiarra’s thoughts: A lot of the filters are kind of similar to those offered by Instagram; but I really like the ability to send photos to my Dropbox. Also, this app is available on iPhone and Android phones.

 

Old Photo PRO:

“Old Photo PRO is a fully functional and free application for transforming photographs. Find out how your photos would look like if you took them decades ago! You can let the application do the whole work, or choose to edit the photo manually, changing its saturation, paper type, film color and more.”

Pros: Automatically adjusts photo to make it look old, or you can go in and edit it to make it look the way you like. Can save photos to your Camera Roll or email them.
Cons: Interface has a few bugs, you can’t connect to any other social media like with Instagram and PicPlz.
Tiarra’s thoughts: I love that this app gives photographs a really old look. I’m not talking 70s retro like with Instagram and PicPlz, but some of these filters make the photographs look like they were taken in the late 1800s or early 1900s, and that’s pretty rad. I do wish there were some social media sharing options, however.

 
 
So, there you go. There are a lot of great photo apps out there for both iPhone and Android OS — both free and paid — but these three free apps should get you well on your way to turning your mundane, every-day photos into creative pieces of art.