Photography

Fuzel Pro brings snail mail back in style

It is the holiday season and, inevitably, you will be snapping lots of photos at the dinner table, the bar, and your favorite aunt Suzi's house. Truly, the best of times and the worst of times are captured digitally and you need to share that giant family portrait everyone loved by the Christmas tree. Aside from the usual, Facebook, Twitter, and everyone's favorite social app to hate, Instagram, you can try sharing photos the old school way, with snail mail. Blending tech and print, Fuzel Pro, App Store Best of 2012, creates picture collages and mails them straight from your iPhone...

Instagram returns to original ad terms after fallout

Things have been pretty rough for Instagram here lately. Earlier this week, the photo sharing network announced an update for its TOS (or terms of service) that included talk of "advertising" and "your photos." Obviously, this didn't sit well with many of its users, and mayhem ensued.

To stop the wildfire, co-founder Kevin Systrom published a blog post assuring the community it was all a misunderstanding, and that Instagram would be changing the language in its TOS to clear things up. Now its reverted to the original terms to try and get everything back to normal...

Instagram responds: ‘your photos are your photos’

There has been a whole lot of hoopla surrounding Instagram's newly updated terms of services, with commenters warning the new rules might give the popular Facebook-owned photography service the right to share your data with third-parties and - worse - sell your Instagram photos without compensating you. Does Facebook really intend to turn Instagram into a stock photo service that doesn’t pay a dime to photographers?

Cowed by privacy outrage, hours after releasing the new terms the company's co-founder responded by shedding more light on the matter. In a blog post, he makes it clear that Instagram does not intend to sell its users photos while sharing interesting tidbits concerning Instagram's advertising strategy...

Instagram wants to sell your photos to faceless corporations. Great, now what?

As we told you yesterday, realizing it needs to start making money the Facebook-owned photo sharing service has added an interesting clause to its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

The updated rules give Instagram the right to sell access to your photos to advertisers and share your profile data with third-parties. The change enraged some to the point of closing their Instagram account.

The vast majority of users don't appeaer to oppose the decision with such drastic measures, but there's no doubt that the company is playing with fire. The move already has backfired. A major backlash ensued and the misstep is now threatening to snowball into a PR catastrophe...

Camera+ finally gains full-res sharing

Camera+'s inability to share snaps at full resolution on Facebook has been ticking me off for some time. I prefer to share my images in full-res whenever possible, but the otherwise perfect Camera+ app stubbornly kept insisting on reducing my uploads to a paltry 1,024 pixels horizontally.

Thankfully, the annoying limitation is gone now. What's more, developer tap tap tap has also bumped up the quality a bit for Twitter, Message and web link sharing, meaning you’ll get higher quality shares even if you don’t change a thing.

The iPad version now does a better job handling atypical image formats and the team is already talking about the upcoming version 3.8, "which is right around the corner".

In addition to "a few other really cool things", this will be the update you've been waiting for, one that will finally converge the features in both iPhone and iPad version of the program...

Yahoo updates Flickr app with the obligatory Instagram-like filters

Following Instagram's update that added a new Willow filter and yesterday's big refresh of Twitter's iOS client that now lets you crop a photo and apply up to eight brand new filters before tweeting it out, Yahoo too has joined the fray by revamping its aging Flickr iOS client this morning. And guess what? The redesigned app also touts filters as Yahoo attempts to stay relevant in the social photography space. There are sixteen unique camera filters to choose from, twice as much as in Twitter's app (and also powered by Aviary). More features and screenies right after the break...

Twitter app update with Instagram-like filters now available for download

As I reported yesterday, Twitter has updated its Android app with the promised Instagram-competing photo filters, a first for the micro-blogging service seeking to supplant Instagram as your favorite photo sharing service. That, my friends, is a pretty tall order given Instagram's popularity, the Facebook backing and a growing number of new features Instagram's gaining. Be that as it may, Twitter has waited until this morning to roll out filters to its iOS client.

You're gonna love the ability to snap a scene, edit the photo with the filters supplied by Aviary and tweet out your work without jumping back and forth between Twitter and your go-to iPhoneography app. You can grab the free download right now from the App Store. More on other features right after the break...

Just like a clockwork, Twitter rolls out photo filters to its mobile app

Twitter certainly knows their timing. Just as Facebook pushed an interesting Instagram update with improved photo editing/image taking features coupled with a brand new photo filter, Twitter too has updated its Android and iOS apps with - you guessed right - filters. Powered by Aviary, there are eight to choose from: Vignette, Black & White, Warm, Cool, Vintage, Cinematic, Happy and Gritty. Twitter makes it easy to choose one by comparing live previews in a grid view or by swiping through them.

The usual suspects such as various light and color settings should appeal to casual fans of iPhone photography. Those that totally hate fumbling with options can use the nice auto-enhance wand that automagically improves your photos so you don't have to. Filters are a great addition to your social media toolkit: you can now snap a photo and touch it up quickly before tweeting, provided you're a fan of Twitter's mobile app. More info and a cutesy video can be found right past the fold...

Instagram gains enhanced camera, new Willow filter, nice little tweaks

iPhone photography fans, rejoice. Instagram today pushed an incremental update to its mobile app for iOS and Android, bringing a few improvements in the camera department, a brand new filter and more. The camera interface has been revamped with a nice Instagram-themed shutter button. The camera now displays a preview of the most recent photo on your camera roll and you can turn on an optional grid separately for the camera and the scale & crop screen.

You may also appreciate the enhanced Camera Roll picker as it now lets you quickly access the last photo taken, though that capability is inexplicably available only on the iPhone 5. More on other changes and the new Willow filter right after the break...

Snapseed goes free, gains new filters and Google+ sharing, hits Android

Lots of good news today for fans of the popular iPhone photography app Snapseed that Google acquired back in September. Snapseed 1.5 has just been released, featuring built-in sharing to the Google+ network, a huge boon for Google's Facebook killer. By the way, the search firm in today's blog post called Google+ "the fastest-growing network thingy ever". Snapseed, Apple's iPad App of the Year, also has gained an updated Frames filter with new photographic frames that can be colorized, in addition to a brand new Retrolux filter.

Basically a Hollywood style filter, Retrolux includes a bunch of different film styles souped up with a range of "different scratches and textures as well as light leaks to create a truly retro look for your photos". And if you happen to be on Android and have been yearning for Snapseed, you can go and download it straight from Google's Play Store right now...

Glif+ iPhone 5 tripod mount review

Yesterday, I finally received my Glif tripod mount for the iPhone 5. For anyone who's ever tried to take respectable photos or videos using the iPhone, then you know how indispensable a good tripod mount can be.

For someone like myself who's constantly shooting video, a tripod mount is an absolute necessity if I ever desire to switch from a DSLR and shoot video with my iOS device. Perhaps you noticed a few videos in the past where I've incorporated video from my iPhone 5? Needless to say, it wasn't a very pretty sight.

Although other tripod mounting solutions exist, the Glif from Studio Neat was among the first to solve the problem. It's also one of the easiest to use. Take a look inside as I examine it on video...

Facebook starts rolling out Photo Sync for everyone

We told you a couple of weeks ago that Facebook had begun rolling out its new Photo Sync feature which, predictably, lets the Facebook app automatically upload your photos, ready for viewing on the Facebook website or inside any of the company's apps. Turns out Facebook was rolling it out to a select few, testing the feature with plans to roll it out to everyone at a later date. That date is today.

Announcing the move on its blog, Facebook today said that its Photo Sync feature will be available to all, with all the magic already built right into the existing Facebook app for iOS. The social giant needs to activate your account on their end, and voila, you've got a new feature.

Pretty nifty indeed...