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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  8 apps to enhance your Diwali pictures
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8 apps to enhance your Diwali pictures

Add music, smarten the selfie, create a paintingeight ways to tell a different story with your Diwali pictures

Apps like Shuttersong help embed music into the images.Premium
Apps like Shuttersong help embed music into the images.

OTHERS :

Scores of apps can change the photographs you take with a smartphone by offering a few filters or collages. This festive season, however, try technologies that can modify your photographs and the story you want to tell through them.

We have collated a list of edgy apps that can turn your photograph into an animated image, a painting, even a song. Try these during the festive season and tell us which ones left your friends and family asking for more.

1. Shuttersong

This nifty app enables you to add up to 15 seconds of sound or music to any photograph, either a new one you take from within the app or one from your photo library. You can choose a soundtrack from your music library or record it live and then share the “shuttersong" with everyone through social media, email or text. Updated in September, the app has seen over 95,000 downloads on iTunes and is popular with teenagers, parents who want to record their children’s voices, and retired travellers. “We have teachers who use it in classrooms, musicians who promote their music with the app, and even a preacher who previews his Sunday sermon using the app and sharing it with followers," says Shuttersong chief executive officer (CEO) William Agush, based in Wellesley, US.

Free on iOS and Windows 8.1. Android and Windows Phone versions will release in November.

Shuttersong.com

2. Moju

Launched in May, Moju uses motion-sensing hardware to create stories of your photographs in a dashing way. It turns a bunch of your photographs (up to 24 frames) into a cool, animated image of sorts, something between a video and a photograph. All you need to do is twist your iPhone and the app uses the phone’s motion-sensing hardware to create the motion collage. “We want to help capture, preserve and share stories that matter with people that matter to you," says Mok Oh, co-founder and CEO of Moju Labs, Menlo Park, US. Next on the list from the start-up is an online platform, which automatically organizes, synthesizes and turns your photographs into personal stories, so that all you need to do is click.

Free on iOS

Getmoju.com

3. Facetune

Sparkle your selfies with Facetune, a photoshopping app to edit portraits. The app helps you remove wrinkles and skin blemishes from a face photo by moving your finger over the skin. You can whiten teeth with a swipe, remove dark circles, accentuate eyes and lips, fix grey hair, reshape the facial structure and expression. “Our app runs on a learning algorithm that distinguishes between lips and teeth, clones patches of texture from source to target regions, making it really easy for you to do magazine-level editing to your photographs," says Itai Tsiddon, co-founder of Lightricks Ltd, the Israel-based company behind the app. Updated in September, the app has been downloaded several million times and has been ranked No.1 in the paid-app category in both iTunes and Google Play.

$2.99 (around 180) on iTunes and 65 on Google Play. Amazon Kindle will launch soon.

Facetuneapp.com

4. Matter

Add some funk to your photographs by making them look like they are straight out of a science-fiction movie. Matter lets you add 3D objects to your photographs, giving a choice from four packs of models ranging from geometric to architectural 3D structures. Add them to the image, change the shadow, reflection and refraction, opaque or transparent, to suit the picture. “Considering the Matter app has many shapes that reflect and refract light, it may allow you to further enjoy the positive light created from the 3D shapes this Diwali," says Greg Albritton, marketing director, Pixite Apps based in San Diego, US. Once created, you can export your creations as photographs or video loops. It was launched in July and last updated in September, and the company is planning to add more 3D objects to keep the fun going.

$1.99 on iOS.

Matterapp.co

5. Trunx

Just photographs of an evening are so passé. Include a whole evening of conversations at dinner to the slide show of photographs, without the tedious task of recording a video. Head to Trunx, a photo storage and viewing app, which offers an innovative feature called EchoPix that lets you record and add up to an hour of music or sound to your photographs. The images are saved online on Trunx’s cloud so that your phone’s storage space is not used. “You can also use the SharedPix feature," says San Francisco, US, based Sandra Ponce de Leòn, vice-president, marketing, Trunx, “which lets everyone capture photos and put it in the same photo album online." Updated in September, the app has been downloaded over 400,000 times and has stored over 117 million photographs in its cloud. Trunx’s latest feature is Memori Lane, which automatically shows pictures you took a year or two ago so that you can relive the past.

Free on iOS and Android

Trunx.me

6. Brushstroke

Brushstroke is an app which has filters to convert your photograph into a beautiful painting. Choose from various painting styles, canvases to change texture and surfaces to emulate what the painting is “painted on". The palette schemes have been inspired by famous works from artists across the world. The Washed styles emulate watercolour-like paint properties on the surface, while others emulate a palette knife or oil property. “We use 3D height maps and lighting for the canvas surfaces to make them as realistic as possible," says Mike Wright, partner, Code Organa, creators of the app based in Philadelphia, US. Though the app, which was launched in March, offers you the ability to sign an artwork, have it printed and shipped to hang on the wall, the feature is not available in India yet. “We are hoping we can ship internationally in the near future," adds Wright.

$2.99 on iOS

Codeorgana.com

7. Camera51

Can’t bother to think composition when taking a photograph? Let Camera51 guide you on what all you should include in the image while taking it. The app’s sophisticated algorithms analyse the lines, shapes and content you’re framing and prompt you to move your smartphone for the best composition. “The algorithm in our app analyses the lighting, depth of field and composition and takes the best photo possible from your camera, making your phone camera smarter," says Shir Baor, co-founder and CEO, Camera 51, headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. Launched in October, the app has already hit close to 100,000 downloads. The company is currently developing an iOS version.

Free on Android

Camera51.com

8. Hyperlapse

Think black and white frames of a Charlie Chaplin movie. Now think of your own Diwali party rendered that way. Released by the addictive Instagram, Hyperlapse creates a time-lapse video, up to 12 times faster than reality. It stabilizes the end product, giving it a cinematic feel. Launched in August, the app can capture an entire sunrise in 10 seconds, or an all-day party in 30 seconds. All you need to do is to record videos when you’re mingling, smooth it out with automatic stabilization and hyperlapse it to up to 12 times the speed. You can even record a selfie-lapse with the front-facing camera.

Free on iOS

Hyperlapse.instagram.com

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Published: 21 Oct 2014, 07:40 PM IST
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