The new app is essentially a ground-up redesign and rebuild. All operations are significantly faster, the built-in lightbox mode is nearly unrecognizable and has some very nice power-user features like flagging and filtering by flagged/edited states. ![]() ![]() And as a launch special, all 16 packs can be bought for the price of 6. Owners of the previous paid app can unlock the original 10 legacy filters in the new app, which is a nice touch. Presets is a strange term to carry over from VSCO’s Lightroom and Aperture products, where they really are Presets. A pack consists of 3 presets, which are really more like filters since their results cannot be accomplished by tweaking any of the editing parameters. The new version of VSCOcam (a separate download in the App Store) is a free download, and now contains a store with 16 packs of “presets” for download at 99c each. The good news this week is that version 2 of VSCOcam greatly improves upon those editing tools (specifically by giving operations such as adjusting brightness more precise ‘steps’ of control, and making them non-destructive within the app new adjustments like rotation have also been added), and takes the original’s 10 built-in film looks to another level. Skip the other basic editing tools included they’re not up to scratch yet, but the package is an easy buy at $0.99. In the latter post, I said of version 1 of VSCOcam:Īs flawed as it is capable, this low-priced alternative to the VSCO company’s pricey desktop plugins is pretty good at giving photos a realistic film look no light leaks and crazy cross-processing here, just subtle color shifts, fade operations, and real grain overlays. I’ve been a fan of VSCO products for awhile, and have written about using their VSCO Film presets with JPEGs from consumer compact cameras, and recommended the last version of their VSCOcam iPhone app in my rundown of Essential iPhone Photography Apps. It’s still faster at this workflow than VSCOcam! Hopefully the team at RNI are still iterating on it right now, although I sort of doubt it. Load > Stage 1 Edits > Stage 2 Edits > Save as new copy. The app could use a few more features and a streamlined editing UX that allows for people who’d want to save versions, for example, but as of right now it gets the basics done about as well as the earlier generations of iPhone filter apps. I’ve been very pleased with the presets, and they look the way I expect them to. In comparison to $49, we’re talking about a near giveaway. At about $3 per in-app purchase pack, they are more expensive than those in most other filter apps on smartphones, but come on. Perhaps they have been tuned to the qualities of the iPhone’s camera for best results. I haven’t compared them, but I’ll guess that the iOS app produces results very close to the desktop product, at a fraction of the cost. Unlike VSCOcam, which intentionally avoids naming its iPhone filters to match/cannibalize their more expensive Lightroom presets, RNI’s new app offers the same film simulations by name: Kodak Gold 200, Fuji Velvia 100, etc. Their Lightroom presets are based on close study of classic films, they use real film grain scans and simulate old lenses with blurring, individual packs retail for $49 each (there are 5?), and online chatter from professionals indicate that their work is well-regarded as being competitive with and maybe even better than VSCO Film, now the biggest player thanks to the profile of their iOS app. RNI Films falls into this general category easily. Mattebox (when it was for sale and updated) did a marvellous job of handling exposure adjustments in a very film-like way, VSCO Film in their desktop products are designed to emulate certain classic stocks, and a couple others like PicTapGo come from companies that also produce pro-grade Lightroom presets for a day job. ![]() Sure, we already have VSCO, Rebelsauce, Faded, Afterlight, Litely, Priime… but there’s always room for one more if it does the job really well the job being accurate reproduction of film characteristics. So this is just a quick post to help you, my reader, discover a new app that brings realistic analog film simulation to your iPhone photos. I came across this app a couple of weeks ago but can’t remember how, and since then it’s struck me as somewhat criminal that more people aren’t talking about it.
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