By Graham K. Rogers

The massive number of apps for photography and image manipulation on iOS devices ranges from the really simple to rather complex apps. While some users may want to edit and export images after some serious photo-editing, others are quite content to add a simple effect or two and export to a sharing site.

Background

In between, there are a great many apps that apply effects to images already in the Photo Album or to photographs taken with the camera. Many of these use filters. One of my favourites is the free app, Pixlromatic, from Autodesk (the same people who make AutoCad) with a beautifully designed interface and some pleasing filters.

Despite the excellence of many apps already available, there is room for more, especially if they bring something new to the table. Over the last few days, I have been looking at another free app, FilterMania 2 from Dropico, which has a satisfyingly full set of filter options with scores more available for free download.

FilterMania 2

The awesomeness consists (in part) of the Pic of the Day as the main part of the display. With icons to the left and right at the bottom of the screen related to a sharing service: Featured, Live Feed, My Photos (needs an "identity" and photographs to be uploaded) and Messages, should the developer send any.

There was one message already available concerning overloading due to usage. At the top of the Messages panel was a link to provide feedback and a button for more apps. When I tried this, none loaded: early days yet.

The camera tool is in the center of the icons, however, whichever panel is open. Pressing it once opens the camera screen with the perhaps unnecessary Say Cheese ;) at the top. At the bottom the camera icon is at the center and pressing this takes a photograph: all fairly obvious. There are two icons to the left of the camera, Browse and flip, with Flash and Back to the right.

Browse accesses the Photo Album so images already stored may be used. Flip switches between the front and read cameras while Flash has On/Off only. Back returns the user to the front screen.

Processing

The filter thumbnails are themselves worthy of more than a glance as each displays what looks to me like an old, perhaps 1950s, Chevrolet. This hints at a love of the product and the process by the developers, Dropico. There is no information on this in the app or on the web pages. Also take a look at the icon for the app (above): the work that has gone into this is a sign of the effort that has been put into this.

Applying a filter to an image is as simple as tapping the effect thumbnail. There is a moment or two taken for processing when a neat little water drop icon appears. As the process is completed, this fills with rainbow colours: a little more satisfying than a progress bar.

It was possible to apply more than one filter to an image and there was a button for this above the working panel specifically for this. Layering of effects like this can produce some unusual output.

Pressing the More filters icon reveals a page with 20 sets of filters. Pressing each icon brings up a selection of new filters. There is a slight delay while the effect is displayed, much reduced when the panel is revisited. Below is a yellow arrow for downloading those filters required. I added to my collection with another half dozen or so. Like any effects of this nature, some will suit certain users more than others.

A couple of times when downloading new filters (and only then -- not when using the app itself) it crashed and I had to go back.

When an image is completed, we press Done and there are two options, Sending to Facebook, or saving to the Photo Album. I experienced a slight disappointment here as the images were only saved in a small format of 700 x 700 (0.5 MP) with files sizes around 140 KB - 190 KB. The largest (192 KB) that I had created exported as a full size 8-bit TIFF image sized 9.7" x 9.7"

Comments

Export formats are limited to just Facebook and the Photo Album, although using the saved photos on an iPhone (or iPad) makes them available for several other sites: just not directly. It is not optimized for use on the iPad so displays in the limited size x1 and x2 screens.

As I have commented when reviewing other like apps, I was disappointed with the small file sizes. The iPhone can produce fairly large images and it is a shame to have the output from FilterMania 2 -- good as it is -- throttled.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.