By Graham K. Rogers

I have far too many apps for my iPhone and iPad, especially those apps that work with the imaging and photographic abilities of the iOS devices. However, when one of the developers of apps that I already use often comes up with a new offering, how can I resist? . . .

Background

I also had a look at Grid Lens, another app from Bucket Labs at the same time and was again suitably impressed by the app. These were both interesting concepts, well-executed and fairly easy to use. So when Bucket Labs produces a third imaging App, Stickr, the moment I saw it, I clicked on the Buy button. It was $1.99.

Stickr

The interface is really nicely put together. All the menus and buttons are in the style of paper labels in bright colours. On the iPhone these appear a little small. To start a new project the curled blue paper to the top left is used. When tapped this shows camera, import or sticker.

Bringing in an image from the camera or library is similar to other apps. Once displayed on the working panel - like a grey paper screen - there is access to a number of other controls in blue at the bottom of the screen: import (camera and library, which seems unnecessary; filter; and ratio. There is also a red button marked All Stickers. At top right is "Delivery" for export methods.

The filter button gives a user five filters plus original. Ratio has nine different frame sizes from which to choose. In conjunction with this, an image displayed on the screen can be resized and moved, including being turned 90 or 180 degrees, so that it can be made to fill the screen.

There are five sets of stickers to choose from: Basic, Shape, Illustration, Paper and Pain stickers. A sticker is displayed on the image and can be resized and moved using the fingers. Two controls appear for most stickers: a 90 degree icon (the sticker can be turned 90, 180, 270 and 360 degrees) and Trash. If the sticker doesn't look right, it is easy to dump it and try again.

When some of the stickers are selected, text controls also appear. These are a font selector (10 fonts), font colour, font size adjustment, and selectors to position the text on the sticker. When the user presses Done, the sticker is placed on the image. Tapping the sticker, brings up the angle and trash icons along with a Text control. Pressing this, reveals the full complement of text tools.

Exporting and Comments

There are no controls to provide information or to alter settings. The couple of test images I made in the app were made available to me in Aperture (via Photo Stream). One was at a resolution of 2048 x 1463 (3.0 MP) and a file size of 530 KB. The other was 2318 x 1656 (3.8 MP) and a file size of 609 KB. I exported the larger file as a TIFF image (8-bit). This produced an image of 11.8 MB and when opened in Graphic Converter gave me a respectable sized image of 32" x 23". When viewed at full size, one of the thin fonts I had used for lettering showed minor jaggedness.

The app installed on the iPad, but was not optimized, so displays in the x1 and x2 panels. It was easy to work with in the larger display and output was acceptable. A test image I produced with a 1 x 1 ratio was shown as 2580 x 2580 (6.7 MP) with a size of 1067 KB. The original image had been taken with my Nikon DSLR so the input file was larger.

It took me a couple of runs to become happy with Stickr, especially with the positioning and editing of stickers. It was also not obvious how the images might be manipulated in a frame. Once these were discovered, the app was much easier to manage. An optimized version for the iPad would be better for some users (I prefer the iPhone for most applications like this), but the app was certainly usable on the iPad in its non-optimized form.

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.