As a pro photographer, I am just plain awful at taking snapshots with my camera gear. Either a shot is worthy of rocking the heavy camera and then hauling the image into Photoshop and messing with, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, the moment passes, and I am snapshot-less.
As a Mom, you probably have a TON of snapshots that are going unprinted and unseen by the masses (or at least your Facebook friends.) You may even own Photoshop Elements but can’t find the time to make your images snazzy between trips to the doctor, the vet, the school, the ballet classes, and the grocery store. Understood.
There’s a solution for both of us: the iPhone polaroid! While real Polaroid film costs $24.00 per pack of 10, iPhone polaroids are free, fun, and downright artsy. The best part? They look great straight out of the phone camera!
A quick review of my favorite iPhone apps for Polaroid:
1.) Polarize
For the slightly-green, true blue look of Polaroid film that hasn’t expired, Polarize is the bee’s knees. This app includes the Polaroid’s distinctive white border, and is also free.
Unfortunately, this app also tends to punch contrast too much on dark or underexposed images, resulting in black blobs where the regular iPhone camera picks up detail. This quality sent me looking for another Polaroid app in my iPhone arsenal.
Polarize iPhone sample images
2.) ShakeItPhoto
I’ve got to be honest, here: this app makes me squeal with delight, just like regular Polaroids do! Once you take the image, it drops onto your screen as a gray square, then develops before your eyes. Just as you would with a real Polaroid, waving your iPhone about makes the image show up just a teensy bit faster.
This app uses softer contrast, and more closely picks up on the colors associated with the SX-70 line of Polaroids : dreamy pinky-orangey-vintage-y color. It costs 99 cents, and has a killer website to back up your purchase and make file-sharing easy. (Read: buy this one!)
Unfortunately, the Polaroid border I so love is not featured with this app, so it produces a simple square with white border.
ShakeItPhoto sample images
Yah, I know, more pictures of Hermione. YOU get a puppy and take pictures of something else for the first 10 days of living with her, okay?
Finally, a straight-up side-by-side comparison of the original snap, the Polarize version, and the ShakeItPhoto version.
original iPhone image, Polarize, ShakeItPhoto samples
show hide 1 comment