The best Photography Apps for your iPhone

From LifeHacker


With the quality of cellphone cameras approximating that of yesterday's point-and-shoots, you can take some amazing photographs on your iPhone. It gets even better with the right apps. Here are our favorite photography apps for your iPhone.

Camera Plus

Your iPhone's default Camera app is pretty great, but it doesn't do much to solve the problems that are inherent with cellphone cameras. Camera Plus adds a few helpful features that do. Two of the most notable are burst mode and anti-shake. Burst mode lets you take a series of photographs quickly to help you get the best possible shot, and anti-shake lets you know when the camera is stable so you can avoid taking blurry photographs. The regular version is free, and the pro version will set you back a reasonable $2. [Camera Plus / Pro; iTunes App Store]

Darkroom

One of the biggest cameraphone annoyances—frankly, it extends to consumer cameras in general—is poor low-light performance. Darkroom is an app that seeks to alleviate this pain. It's specifically geared to take photos in low light. While that's pretty much all it does, it does it well. Darkroom will wait until your iPhone is steady before it snaps the picture, leaving you with the sharpest possible image. When you're done, you can save your photo or upload it to an online album.

[Darkroom; iTunes App Store]

Hipstamatic

Hipstamatic is a blast and can be very addictive (so don't say I didn't warn you). It's a camera app that simulates a bunch of analog cameras (mostly of the plastic variety) and creates some pretty stunning effects (check out the Hipstamatic Flickr group for some evidence). While the $2 app includes some starter lenses, flashes, and film stock, you'll quickly find yourself buying new ones from the in-app store if you're not careful. While Hipstamatic is, by far, my favorite camera app on the iPhone, do not buy it if you're not prepared to either restrain yourself or sink at least an extra $5. The fun of Hipstamatic is in making your own camera configurations, but you'll end up with beautiful pictures no matter what configuration you choose. [Hipstamatic; iTunes App Store]

CameraBag

CameraBag makes photographs look like they were taken with a variety of different cameras. Some of the filters are similar to what you'll find in Hipstamatic, but there are a couple of key differences. First, CameraBag offers a more diverse range of effects. Second, you can take a picture within the app but preview the effects before saving them. While the entire process takes a bit longer and doesn't have the quick-snapping fun of Hipstamatic, CameraBag ultimately provides you with a lot more control. It'll run you $2 to give it a go. If you're looking for something between Hipstamatic and CameraBag, take a look at lo-mob. It's very similar to CameraBag in functionality, but provides numerous types of film stocks and camera effects that are closer to what you'll find in Hipstamatic; it's also $2. [CameraBag. / lo-mob; iTunes App Store]

DSLR Remote

DSLR Remote is a pretty amazing piece of work. It lets you use your iOS device to snap photos with your DSLR. You can control all its functionality and even access live view mode on certain cameras (note: this is only available in the pro version). It works by connecting your DSLR to your computer via USB and running a server application. Both your computer and iOS device connect to the same network, letting the server accept instructions from the client. Photos are saved where you specify, and there's very little lag between shots since everything's transferred very quickly over USB. For a walk-through of the whole process, be sure to check out our how-to on DSLR and iOS wireless photography. DSLR Remote is an affordable $2 for the lite version, and a considerably less affordable $20 for the pro version (although I'd argue it's worth it). [DSLR Remote Pro / DSLR Remote Lite; iTunes App Store]

Photo Scatter

Taking photos with your iPhone is great, but they're kind of useless if they just sit on your phone for the rest of eternity. While the built-in iPhone camera app offers a few sharing options, if you want to get your photos on photo-sharing sites, you may want to give Photo Scatter a try. Photo Scatter works with Flickr, Shutterfly, PhotoBucket, Picasa, Twitter, and Facebook (although, at the time of this writing, Facebook isn't working so well). You set up all the services in advance, and then you can upload photos in your camera roll to any of them with just a few taps. Even better, you can use the app to take photos and upload them immediately after. Photo Scatter is free and is a great app, but it's worth noting that they're having a few issues with Facebook and the developers are currently overwhelmed with fixing the issue. It might be a little while before things get resolved, but it's a free app so it's not as though you'll be losing anything by giving it a shot. [Photo Scatter; iTunes App Store]

Specialty Camera Apps

You'll find far more than three "specialty" camera apps in the iTunes App Store—some of which you'll find in the honorable mentions, butPano ($2), ProHDR (Free), and TiltShift ($2) are the three we'd download first to bolster our phone's camera chops.

Pano

Like its name suggests, Pano takes a series of successive photos, then stitches them all into a panorama. As you take your series of photographs, it'll guide you to help you make sure the edges overlap. While the results I got were better usingAutostitch, another panorama-making app, Pano's stronger feature is that it allows you to take the photos and helps you throughout the process. [Pano; iTunes App Store]

ProHDR

ProHDR brings HDR photography to more than just the iPhone 4, allowing 3GS users to get in on the fun. Even if you're an iPhone 4 user, ProHDR provides you with a lot more control than the default options offered natively in iOS. You can adjusts brightness, contrast, color, and more after taking an HDR photo, often allowing for better results. Plus it's free, so there's no harm in giving it a try. [ProHDR; iTunes App Store]

TiltShift

TiltShift is a little less practical than Pano and ProHDR, but if you like tilt shift photography, it's a fun choice for your iPhone photography collection. If you're not familiar, tilt shift photography is made possible by special lenses that use tilt to achieve a selective focus. This usually results in a miniaturization effect that's much easier to see than explain, so check out this Flickr group for some examples. While TiltShift isn't a proper substitute for the exceptionally expensive lenses you need to create official tilt shift photography, for a much cheaper price of $2 it comes close enough. TiltShift gives you plenty of effect options, like choosing different shapes for your bokeh (the rendering of out-of-focus areas of the photo, sometimes referred to as "background blur" even though that's not fully accurate). [TiltShift; iTunes App Store]

Honorable Mentions

There are too many awesome photography apps for the iPhone to list here, but we want to give a few more their due. Here are some honorable mentions worth checking out if the short list isn't enough to satiate your photographic hunger.

• Adobe Photoshop Express - Not the best of mobile photo editors, but it's free and can handle a few important tasks.
• Blendcam - Blendcam is a photo app that lets you combine multiple exposures easily. It's simple, focused, and free.
• OldBooth - OldBooth is a $2 app that takes old-fashioned photos. Beyond the aging effects, you can add new hairstyles to make your subject appear to be from a given era.
• Comic Touch - Comic Touch is a photo manipulation app that lets you distort faces in funny ways, add comic-style captions, and email your creations to your friends. $3.
• PhotoCurves / Free - PhotoCurves adds the popular curves color and tone alteration tool to your iPhone. The free version only allows you to work in the RGB colorspace. $2 for the full version will get you CMYK and CIELAB as well.
• Polarize - Polarize is a free app that generates Polaroid-style photos on your iPhone. You can write on them, too!
• PhotoCalc - If you're more of a pro, PhotoCalc won't actually take or manipulate photos, but it will help you calculate exposure reciprocation, depth of field, and flash exposure for your D/SLR.
• Animoto - If you're looking to make photo slideshows, Animoto is one of the best apps for the task. The app is free, but you can do more with a pro account.

Voila 3.0.3 | Mac Os X

Voila 3.0.3 | Mac Os X | 23.7 MB

Say goodbye to lengthy explanations! With Voila, you can now capture and record anything and everything that you see on your screen. Capturing your desktop, web pages, camera or recording your desktop, you name it, we do it. If quick captures are more your style, then assign shortcuts of your choice to snap and record.

Make your presentations more professional, informative and interesting with the host of Annotating tools. You can also choose from the host of Editing tools and Effects to make your captured images more attractive. You don’t have to be an expert to prepare great presentations. Just leave it to Voila and see the magic unfold.

We know how much your work means to you and how much your comfort means to us. Voila’s smart Organizer organizes your images and videos so that you have access to them whenever and wherever you want them, quickly. Thus we let you concentrate on what matters most and let the app do the house keeping

Let the world see your work! With Voila you can share your work as and when it is done and all with just a click. Choose to instantly share through various modes such as YouTube, Flickr, FTP, Mail and more. Or simply print it to get a hard copy of your work.

Compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later.

“

Version 3.0.3: Bug fixes: Bug fix related to selection capture when the screen is zoomed Bug fix related to selection capture in Video Recording when the screen is zoomed Bug fix related to Cross hair lines when the screen is zoomed

”

hotfile.com
filesonic.com

iFinance

iFinance 3.2.6 | Mac Os X | 45.5 MB

Start recording your income and expenses right now, be it a coffee during lunch break or a brand new car - finally, you'll get a clear overview of what exactly you spend your money for. Categories are there to help you distinguish costs for food from recurring expenditures for rent and insurances. Visualize your cash flow so you might track down areas that allow you to save money.

Of course, iFinance will import your existing financial data in CSV, QIF, OFX and MT940 formats. That way, your digital bank statement is integrated just as easily as the data from your previous financing software. In addition to that, iFinance mobile, available for your iPhone or iPod touch from Apple's iTunes AppStore, allows you to add spendings to your list right when and where they occur.

iFinance requires a Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later.

“

Version 3.2.6: NEW: import and export of categories (Categories and their structure can be transferred from one database to the other) NEW: step the transaction date forward or backward a day with a single click Improved CSV import: your system's date format is automatically recognized in CSV files Several improvements in the interpretation of MT-940 and QIF files Other improvements and fixes

”

hotfile.com
filesonic.com

3D Studio Max 2010 with V-Ray 1.50 SP4 Portable

3D Studio Max 2010 with V-Ray 1.50 SP4 Portable | 452 Mb

Create stunning 3D models in less time with Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2010 software. This full-featured 3D modeling, animation, and rendering solution is used to produce top-selling games and award-winning film and video content. It’s the tool of choice for quickly generating realistic characters, seamless CG effects, jaw-dropping games, or top-quality film and television content. Enhanced toolsets let you create your 3D environment the way you want, manage complex scenes, and take advantage of improved software interoperability and pipeline-integration support.

V-Ray is a rendering engine that is used as an extension of certain 3D computer graphics software. It is a rendering engine that uses advanced techniques, for example global illumination algorithms such as path tracing, photon mapping, irradiance maps and directly computed global illumination. The use of these techniques often makes it preferable to conventional renderers which are provided as standard with 3d software, and generally renders using these technique can appear more photo-realistic, as actual lighting effects are more realistically emulated. V-Ray is used in the development of film productions and multi-million dollar game productions. It is also used extensively in making realistic 3D renderings for architecture.

Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design 2010 software for 3D visualization offers new and enhanced features to communicate and validate design intent with impact. With 3ds Max Design, architects, designers, engineers, and design visualization specialists will find the toolsets they need to take their design ideas from concept to final, fully animated photorealistic rendering.

Features

• 3ds Max Design User Interface
  
• Data and Scene Management
  
• Modeling
  
• Polygon Modeling and Texturing
  
• Spline/Extended Spline Modeling
  
• Multiple Rendering Options
  
• Rendering Controls and Effects
  
• Light Simulation and Analysis
  
• General Animation
  
• Character Animation
  
• High-Level Animation
  
• Modifiers
  
• Space Warps
  
• Dynamics
  
• Cloth
  
• Particles
  
• Hair and Fur
  
• ProSound
  
• MAXScript
  
• Connectivity and Integration

V-ray 1.5 features:

RENDERER

• Support for motion blur on Particle Flow systems with both translational and rotational motion blur.
  
• True instance rendering for motion blur with Dynamic default geometry for drastic reduction of memory requirements when 3d motion blur is used.
  
• New Reinhard color mapping mode.
  
• Sub-pixel and per-pixel color mapping modes.
  
• More inteligent ray sampling to reduce noise when combining multiple blurry effects (e.g. area light illumination seen in glossy reflections etc).
  
• Full floating-point output support in 3dsmax 8 and higher.
  
• Support for unlimited number of render channels.
  
• "Overbright" or invalid colors produced by shaders are much less likely to affect render quality.
  
• Fully compatible with Autodesk® VIZ®.

GLOBAL ILLUMINATION

• Detail enhancement for the irradiance map. This works similar to an integrated ambient occlusion pass, but is more physically correct, rather than just producing a "dirty" effect, since it calculates correct light bouncing.
  
• Adaptive path tracing mode for the light cache can concentrate samples in important areas to reduce noise in difficult situations (e.g. GI caustics) .

RENDER ELEMENTS

• The 3dsmax Render Elements interface is now supported by V-Ray. The old G-Buffer settings have been removed. V-Ray supports nearly 30 render elements including z-depth, render ID, material ID, velocity, reflections, specular, diffuse etc.
  
• VRayMtlSelect render element allows the user to extract a given material to a separate render element. This can be either a top-level V-Ray material, or a sub-material of VRayBlendMtl.
  
• VRayWireColor render element allows the user to create masks with specified colors.
  
• Color mapping per render element. Color mapping can be turned on or off on a per-element basis.
  
• Render elements are fully supported in distributed rendering mode.

MATERIALS

• VRayBlendMtl material allows the layering of several different V-Ray materials. This is a lot faster than the regular 3dsmax Blend/Shellac/Composite materials and generates correct V-Ray render elements. The different layers of a VRayBlendMtl can be extracted to different render elements through the VRayMtlSelect render element.
  
• VRay2SidedMtl material allows the simulation of thin translucent surfaces like paper, cloth etc.
  
• VRayFastSSS material for simulating the sub-surface scattering in materials like human skin. Works best if layered with a regular diffuse/specular VRayMtl through VRayMtlBlend.
  
• VRayOverrideMtl material allows the user to specify different materials for reflections/refractions/GI.

TEXTURES

• VRayDirt texture for simulating dirt or ambient occlusion.
  
• VRaySky environment texture works either with VRaySun or regular direct lights to simulate the natural sky illumination of the Sun. For best results, use with the V-Ray physical camera.
  
• VRayCompTex texture for combining textures in additional ways not available in 3dsmax (e.g. difference, division etc).
  
• VRayColor texture for specifying precise floating-point RGB color values.

LIGHTS

• VRaySky light for simulating the natural illumination of the Sun. Works in conjunction with the VRaySky texture. For best results, use with the V-Ray physical camera.

CAMERAS

• VRayPhysicalCamera simulates an actual photographic camera with real-world settings.
  
• VRayDomeCamera can be used to render images to be projected on hemispheric dome screens.

RENDER TO TEXTURE

• V-Ray has its own texture baking elements, which must be used instead of the standard 3dsmax ones.
  
• Color mapping can be applied on a per-element basis.

V-RAY FRAME BUFFER (VFB)

• Enhanced stability, user interface improvements.
  
• sRGB option for display in 2.2 gamma space.
  
• Support for pixel aspect ratio different than 1.0.

MAXSCRIPT

• Direct export of V-Ray proxy meshes from MaxScript without a GUI dialog.

MODIFIED FEATURES

VRayLIGHT

• Support for IBL (image-based lighting) - VRayLight in "dome" mode can be mapped with a HDR image with optimized importance sampling for both diffuse and specular lighting.
  
• The dome light can be made spherical or hemi-spherical.
  
• Accurate light emission units (lumens, watts etc). For best results, use this feature with the V-Ray physical camera.
  
• Separate "affect diffuse" and "affect specular" options.

VRayFUR

• Added mapping for many parameters - fur direction, density etc.
  
• Optimized performance.

VRayTOON

• Support for including/excluding objects from the toon effect.

VRayDISPLACEMENTMOD

• Better displacement for meshes with large triangles

DISTRIBUTED RENDERING

• Improved stability.
  
• Render elements and G-Buffer channels are now supported in DR mode.
  
• Animation is supported in DR mode.
  
• Support for X-Ref'd scenes.

Single link, 452 Mb:
3D Studio Max 2010 with V-Ray 1.50 SP4 Portable

101 Mb volumes:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Part 4 | Part 5

iDocument

iDocument 1.5.19 | Mac Os X | 4.8 MB

iDocument makes documents managing as easy as creating them. It helps you to organize and manage documents on Mac; it puts all of your documents in order in its library. With Tag, search, smart folder and flag features, iDocument not only gives you full range of the managing function for you to manage documents on Mac, on top of that, it is the first semi-automatic document management program in the Mac world, it can record your operational habits, and batch process it automatically.

Requirements
Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later.

“

Version 1.5.19: Optimized the report bug feature, added log information in the report; Drag and drop documents to desktop from list view; Fixed the bug of record sort status in list view; Fixed the bug of do not support enter key in Description input; Fixed the bug of wrong area selection for smart rules; Fixed the bug of delete after import issue in incoming folder; Fixed other small bugs.

”

fileserve.com
filesonic.com

Skype 5 Multilingual Portable

Skype 5.1.0.112 Multilingual Portable | 14.84 MB

We all love something for nothing. With Skype’s software – by the way, it works seamlessly with your internet connection – you can chat away with free Skype-to-Skype calls and never worry about cost, time or distance. Share the love and get your friends to download Skype so you can talk, chat or make video calls for nothing. You can also make local, long distance and international calls to phones and mobiles at great rates too. Better than a phone? Yep, you betcha! Skype isn’t just about free Skype-to-Skype calls and nice, cheap local, national and international calls to phones and mobiles. You can also do much, much more.

Features:
· Make free calls to anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world
· See who you are talking to with free video calls
· Chat with up to 100 people in group chats
· Conference call with up to four people for free
· Call ordinary phones with SkypeOut
· Superior sound quality
· Works with all firewall, NAT and routers – nothing to configure!
· Friends list shows you when your Skype friends are online and ready to talk or chat
· Super-simple and easy to use
· Your calls are encrypted “end-to-end” in order to safeguard your privacy
· Based on cutting edge peer-to-peer technology developed by the creators of Kazaa and Joltid

Getting started is simple
There are many ways Skype can help you connect.

Finding people
Adding friends and family to your contact list is simple – search, select, add.

Free video calls
See who you’re talking to for free. And check out our new

Making a call is easy
Simply select the Call Phones tab, enter a number and hit the green button.

Great call quality
Get superior sound quality with a headset. Many models to choose from.

Home page - http://skype.com/

Letitbit

Vip-file

FileSonic

MarsEdit 3.1.6

MarsEdit 3.1.6 | Mac Os X | 6.55 MB

Browser-based interfaces are slow, clumsy, and require you to be connected to the internet just to use them. Browsers are perfect for reading web content, but not so great for creating it. If you're serious about your blog, you need a desktop blog editor. If you're lucky enough to have a Mac, nothing is more powerful or more elegant than MarsEdit.

Feature Overview
Rich And HTML Text Editing
Whether you love HTML or can't bear the sight of it, MarsEdit's editor will thrill you. If you prefer the best of both worlds, you can switch easily between the two.
Wildly Compatible
Works with WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Squarespace, TypePad, Movable Type and dozens more through standard MetaWeblog and AtomPub interfaces.
Perfect Previews
Build a template to match your blog, then let MarsEdit's live preview show you how your posts will look before you publish them. Use Markdown? MarsEdit will preview that, too.
Your Editor Or Ours
Combine the power of MarsEdit with your favorite editor. Integrates cleanly with BBEdit, SubEthaEdit, TextMate, TextWrangler, and any editor that supports that ODBEditor suite.
Media At Your Fingertips
Quickly scan your iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, or Flickr libraries, and insert images into your blog post with the click of a button.
Easy File Uploads
Upload images and files directly to your blog, or attach them to a post for automatic upload-on-publish. MarsEdit will even resize them to suit your needs.
Re-Blog It!
Add our "Blog This" bookmarklet to your browser's button bar. Now when you discover something cool, you can start a new MarsEdit post with the click of a button.
Offline Freedom
Write when you want to, without an internet connection. Fine-tune your masterpiece on the boat, plane, or train, and publish when you get back online.

MarsEdit 3 requires Mac OS X 10.6