By Graham K. Rogers

When I accessed iTunes on Monday evening, I saw that the page to the last app I hd downloaded was still open. Near the bottom of the screen was a list of photo apps that others had bought. I scrolled through and noted a couple of links for later examination. Then I saw an app with an interesting icon - always a draw. The app name was also intriguing: Distressed FX. When I looked at the page for the app and saw the screen shots, I was hooked.

Background

The bad comes from the thousands and thousands of images that appear on social networking sites having had effects applied without proper thought to the image being used or to the way the effect works with that image. Users would be better applying the adage, "More is less". However, once in a while, the product is well done and the result is pleasing.

One of the early imaging apps I downloaded, ArtCamera, allowed a user to change their photographs on the iPhone to images that resembled the output of great artists, like Monet, Picasso, Matisse and other artists. Some of the output worked.

The first hook for Distressed FX was the icon. If these are well-made they express the developer's care for the app. The name was also a draw as I had seen a BBC program on famous brands earlier in the evening and one of the major items was on the commercial values of distressed jeans, such as originally created by Diesel. Then I hit the iTunes page for the app and was further convinced by the screen shots that this was a must-have app: I am a sucker for these good photo apps.

The developer is shown as Sherryl Tarrant of Distressed Textures. There is a link on the iTunes Store and within the app, so if people are interested enough in this sort of virtual product on the iPhone, they may also be keen to try textures on other platforms. The site also has links to brushes that work in Adobe Photoshop

Distressed FX

When the initial screen cleared, the working panel displayed a photo that allows users to test out some of the effects. To the top left is a camera icon giving access to the camera and the photo library. Top right is an export icon. The effects are at the bottom. Just above these are two onscreen buttons. The one to the left is for the "Blur Style" to be changed. Options are Straight, Round and None. Experimenting with this showed me that a user needs to take care when applying these. However, as with all the effects and filters used in this app, what goes on, may just as easily be taken off.

Initially textures are displayed by default and a checkerboard icon is shown. Pressing this displays a lens/contrast icon and a number of filters are then made available. The app is simple to use, but the output can be striking.

When an image is brought in from either source, the user needs to adjust the height in the square (1:1) panel, moving it about for the best composition. We are told in the Information section (i) - which also has a link to the Distressed Textures website - that "Cropping your images reduces the saved picture dimensions". More on this below.

Once the image is positioned, the Choose button is pressed and work begins. There are 15 textures, plus None, with another 20 filters (plus None). Monochrome enthusiasts are not left out as there are two filters - Ansel and HDR B&W that produce worthy output.

Export Options

When I later used an image from the iPhone camera, the Actual size was given as 4 MB although it arrived as a 4.5 MB attachment. I opened that file directly from Mail into Graphic Converter, where the JPG image was shown as just over 14" x 14". I also imported that mailed image into Aperture and then exported as a full size 8-bit TIFF file of some 12.6 MB. In Graphic Converter the image had doubled its physical size to 28.4" x 28.4": good enough for a decent print.

Saved images appeared in the iPhone Library and were sent automatically to Aperture on the Mac (and iPhoto on my office iMac). In Aperture the size of the images varied. The smallest was shown to be 1282 x 1282 (1.6 MP) with a file size of 546 KB; the largest was 2048 x 2046 (4.2 MP) and a file size of 940 KB. Email gives larger output options.

I also tried with some faces, but the results were not at all pleasing. Using the app for portraits did nothing to improve the appearance of the subject. A couple of group shots of students working did look reasonable with careful selection of texture and filter. This sort of confirms my "less is more" comment earlier: many of the self-portraits posted to social networking sites might have been better in their original form.

Comments

Distressed FX also makes an interesting way to link to a product or service: if the user is drawn in by the app, how much more could be done with such textures?

As a novel way to enhance certain photographs, this is one of the nicest apps I have seen for a while. It is not an expensive buy at $0.99 and for that reason ought to find its way into the app collections of many users.

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.