Taptaptap has brought out a killer app that is Camera+.

There are plenty of camera apps we have reviewed in the Photography apps section. But, with all the apps that come out sometimes one app makes you stop and play with it a little longer.

Camera+ did that for me. (I am reviewing this app on iPhone 4 so it might slightly be different for 3GS/3G)

As soon as you launch the app, you will be greeted by a camera view that mimics looking through a DSLR. the LCD viewfinder has two options – Take Photo & Lightbox. And you have a Menu button in the bottom just like a camera button. The UI right at this point is gorgeous and it only gets better.

Menu

Let’s wrap up the Menu section first. Here you can turn on off Sound, Grid, configure sharing in facebook, twitter, or flickr. Sharing it on Flickr right from the camera app, a huge plus for me!

You can also choose to adjust the quality of images saved. Depending on what you plan to use your images for, you can save a ton of iPhone space by using the Optimized option.

Take Photo

Lets take a look at the most important feature of a camera app – taking photos. If you have a iPhone 4, you will see the usual flash option and front facing camera switch as-is.

The camera itself is a no-frills app except it adds an image stabilizer that turns green when you get a steady shot and is red when it’s shaky. Also, it does have the tap to focus and the 5x digital zoom you find the native Camera app.

You can continuously take photos and you will see a small image thumbnail on the left with a number badge showing your current count.

Now, go ahead and tap that thumbnail after you have taken your pictures. You have to hit ‘Save all’ at the top left to save all the photos you have taken so far to the camera roll.

You can also choose to tap on individual photos and hit save. I like this option as I can save only the photos I like instead of flooding my camera roll.

Lightbox

In the last screenshot you would have seen the menu when you tap on a photo. One of the options there is the ‘Edit’ option. This is where the app shines the most.

Lightbox feature lets you edit your picture in different ways.

• Scenes lets you give it different looks like Flash, Sunset, Night, Backlit, Portrait, Beach, Scenery, Concert, Food, Text. All these presets apply a different look to your photograph instantly.
  
• Crops lets you crop your picture in different ways. You can do a freeform crop by dragging the ends or do a golden or square crop.
  
• Effects gives you more control with options like Colors, Retro and Special effects.
  
• Borders lets you add different kinds of borders like a white border to vignette, etc.

Now, that you have taken a classic shot and applied some cool looks and borders, use the Share option to share it with the world through Facebook, Twitter or Flickr!

The app has high resolution graphics for the iPhone 4 retina display and looks gorgeous. It also has support for multitasking in iOS 4.

Sometimes the app seemed to take a bit of time for processing but it is on par with other effects-processing camera apps.

Even though you can get a lot of these effects and crop features in the free Photoshop iPhone app, Camera+ offers it in one neat package and in an elegant interface at an incredible price of $1.99. I highly recommend it for those who use their iPhone cameras a lot and have fun with it.

Rating: 4.5 out 5 stars

Availability: App Store

Price: $1.99 (was $2.99)

Reviewed at version: 1.1

Naturally, I listen to a lot of photography podcasts and Rick Sammon’s Digital Photo Experience is one of them. And I came to know that Rick has released an iPhone as well.

Here is a quick review of this excellent Rick Sammon’s 24×7 Photo Buffet iPhone app.

Rick has over 30+ years of professional experience and he has jam packed this little app with photography advice, tips and techniques he has collected over years.

The app is meant to be a reference on the go while you are out shooting as well as a searchable guide to find a quick fix for a tricky photographic situation.

The app has been organized into 5 major sections

• Seeing – Focuses on showing how to see a picture before you snap the shot. Talks about composition, framing and lighting.
• Making – Find out how to make a great picture with tips on exposure, color balance, flash, filters.
• Editing – Tips for your digital darkroom showing how to make your pictures pop by tweaking white balance, levels, saturation and contrast and selectively controlling sharpness.
• Tips – Search Rick’s tip from A-Z with advice on everything from Aerial shooting to panoramas.
• Help – Powerful search function to find anything in the app quickly with link to Digital Photo Experience website with extra content.

If you are a photography enthusiast like us and wonder what f-stop or ISO or shutter speed is right for a situation where your kid is running around or to take pictures in low light without blur or to take a close up of a spring wildflower, etc, then having an app like this in your pocket will make it so much easier.

In fact, Rick has included a section for taking pictures with your iPhone. Oh and you want to learn about HDR, Rick has you covered.

Rick Sammon’s 24×7 Photo Buffet is an excellent resource for a photography enthusiast and with already over 100MB of content in the app and with new additions coming from time to time, I think it will be a $4.99 well spent on your passion.

With this app, I am looking forward to going out more with my camera knowing I have all the help I need right in my pocket to get my creative juice flowing.

Also, visit our photography blog and follow us on Twitter –@theCamerani – for more tips and news on this topic.

Giveaway

Just Tweet this message for a chance to win a Rick Sammon’s Photo Buffet iPhone app promo code.

Retweet for a chance to win @RickSammon ’s 24×7 Photo Buffet iPhone app from @theCamerani. http://bit.ly/cvwJiz

Screenshots

Rating: 4.5/5 [starreview tpl=16]

Availability: App Store [iTunes link]

Price: $4.99

Now, I have found a free app I can use to stream pictures from my iPhone to my TV through the PS3.

iMediaShare lets you stream your iPhone photos to your TV screen through your gaming device like Playstation 3, Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii or any UPnP enabled device.

Just install the iMediaShare app and turn on the server in the app. You can select the images you want to see on your TV from your photo album and they will automatically appear on your gaming device. Use your gaming controller remote to copy your images to your device or just view as a slideshow.

It even auto-rotates pictures taken with the iPhone in landscape mode.

The app description says that you should be able to view your entire iPhone photo album but I just found a way to share specific pictures.

This is a great way to easily way to view your iPhone photos with a group of people in your living room.

You could get the iMediaShare Premium app ($1.99) to share pictures from your Facebook, Flickr or Picasa accounts.

Rating:

Availability: App Store [iTunes link]

Price: Free

Camera Vault Features

• Geotagging support
• Set timed delay for shots (0s, 5s, 10s)
• Burst mode – take 3 shots in a row
• Digital zoom (1x, 1.5x & 2x)
• Built-in level to get a balanced shot
• View pictures without closing camera and delete ones you don’t like
• Stores pictures in Camera Vault library skipping default photo library

Camera Vault differs from other camera iPhone apps in that it offers a full featured photo library that has galleries, slideshows, import from standard Photo Library, exporting images to email or standard Photo Library and Social networking sites like Facebook & Twitter.

You can passcode protect your photo library so others can’t snoop in on your pictures when you leave your iPhone on the table.

The app has a menu in a bar in the bottom that has 4 options: M – number of burst shots, Z – digital zoom and T – timer. You also get a slider that shows a history of pictures you took recently.

Geotagging pictures lets you see the pictures you have taken in a map from within the app.

Camera Vault sells for $1.99 and could be a worthy investment if you want the privacy feature or if keeping a separate photo library is important to you.

The app itself is pretty intuitive and simple to use. If you are into eye-candy in a app, Camera Vault falls a little short in that area but it functions as advertised.

I am not sure if the Camera Vault Photo Library will also be backed up by iTunes on sync but can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t.

Screenshots

Rating: [starreview tpl=16]

Availability: App Store [iTunes link]

Price: $1.99

GorillaCam is a free iPhone camera app made by Joby, the makers of the popular digital camera accessory GorillaPod.

GorillaCam Features

• Self-Timer: Set a custom delay for timed pictures with audible countdown timer.
• Time lapse: Take multiple photos from 1 second apart to upto 2 minutes apart! Catch your colleague stealing your candy.
• Continous Rapid-fire: Take unlimited rapid fire pictures at 1.6 frames per sec. Just press and hold to take continous shots
• Auto-save: Just keep shooting without waiting for every shot to save to memory.
• Screen is the button: Tap anywhere on the screen to take a picture. Great to photograph yourself.
• 3-shot burst: Takes 3 quick photos in rapid succession.
• Grid overlay: Do you follow the rule of thirds in photography like a stickler? Use the grid lines to line up your perfect shot.
• Bubble level: Lets you take steady and level shots every time!
• Share: Upload or share photos right from the Gorillacam app!
• Tips: helpful tips to guide you to take better pictures with your iPhone.

GorillaCam really stands out from its competitors with the auto save where you don’t have to wait for a shot to save before shooting the next picture.

It requires OS 3.1 to install.

Also, find out how to super macro your iPhone with DVD lens here.

Verdict: Must have!

Every iPhone owner should have GorillaCam and Adobe Photoshop Mobile for their photography needs. They are both free.

Rating: [starreview tpl=16]

Availability: App Store [iTunes link]

Price: Free

However, there was one major disadvantage in using the Flickr iPhone app – you could only upload 1 picture or 1 video at a time.

Until now.

Flickr iPhone app version 1.1 lets you upload multiple photos and videos at a time. This is excellent and makes the app almost indispensable for me.

Another new enhancement to this app is that you can now edit titles, description, sets, tags and privacy controls for your photos and videos!

Nice.

Rating: [starreview tpl=16]

Availability: App Store [iTunes link]

Price: Free

If you take a lot of pictures with your iPhone and love to share it in various sites like Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, etc., you may be going into individual apps to upload your picture multiple times.

PhotoScatter lets you upload your iPhone pictures to multiple sites in one shot. Simply take a photo or choose a photo from the library, select the sites you want to upload your picture to, optionally add a title and a description and click Submit.

That’s it!

PhotoScatter v1 supports

• Facebook
• Flickr
• Twitter (twitpic)
  
• Shutterfly
• Picasa
• Photobucket

I love the ease of uploading pictures to various services easily. I would love to see support for uploading to WordPress blogs via XMLRPC and Posterous as well.

PhotoScatter is available as a PRO version for $1.99 and also as a free version. The PRO version is ad free and comes with free lifetime updates.

Unique apps developed this application and has plans to add more services to the PRO version.

Rating: [starreview tpl=16]

Availability: App Store [iTunes link]

Price: $1.99 (free version available)

You get to enjoy excellent images & videos that you can enjoy and draw inspiration from plus it has a huge glossary of photography vernacular that you can now have in your finger tips.

Here is the App Store description of the key features of  Nikon Learn & Explore

• Images and Video: Scroll through galleries of images and view videos that both educate and inspire.
• Insights & Techniques: Learn the fundamentals of photography and get advice on shooting techniques that will help you improve your skills and take better pictures.
• Nikon World: Nikon’s quarterly print magazine is available complete with stunning images and audio slideshows from some of the top professional photographers working today.
• Photography Glossary: An easy way to find a definition for the photographic terms you’re interested in.
• Favorites: Store and retrieve your favorite images and articles for fast and easy access.

I really like the Insights & techniques section to peruse leisurely while waiting somewhere. It is rather short at the moment (~25 articles) but they do cover the important ones though.

Also, the photography glossary is going to very handy for me as I am always trying to remember the photography terms while playing with my Canon SX10 IS.  Plus, you can save your favorite articles, images, and glossary terms for immediate reference.

Canon has the Easy-PhotoPrint iPhone app but I have a feeling they will be coming out with their own Learn & Explore kind of app soon.

At the moment, if you are a photography enthusiast, grab this excellent app.

Screenshots

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Availability: App Store [iTunes link]

Price: Free

Photoshop.com lets you upload your pictures and edit them with a variety of rich controls through the web applications.

Now, Adobe has released a free iPhone app for Photoshop.com that brings a small subset of the functionalities to your iPhone.

Photoshop iPhone app has 2 menu bars. The top one has different effects and edit controls. The bottom bar has undo, back, forward and save button.

PhotoShop.com Mobile App Features

• Choose a picture in your Camera roll or take a new one
• You can now Rotate, Flip or Crop
• Crop brings a nice grid in the picture where you can drag edges to resize to the frame you want
• You can also apply effects such as Exposure, Saturation, Tint and Black & White!
• You can make your pictures look like a Sketch or apply Soft Focus
• Color effects – Vibrant, Pop, Border, Vignette Blur, Warm Vintage, Rainbow
• Works in Landscape mode for pictures taken in that mode
• Save to iPhone or Save & Upload to Photoshop.com

I have had other Photo Editing apps like PhotoBox to apply effects to my iPhone pics. But, the free Adobe Photoshop iPhone app takes the cake in the simplicity of its interface. The effects are minimal and few compared to some premium photo editing apps in App Store.

But, if you just want to casually crop your pictures, rotate your iPhone picture, make it black & white, then Photoshop app is going to do all that for you!

Adobe has done an excellent job with this iPhone app and I can predict 2 things. Photoshop.com app shooting to the top spots in iTunes store and increased signups for Photoshop.com. (you could learn more here)

Screenshots

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Availability: App Store [iTunes link]

Price: Free

PhotoBox has updated to a new version and it adds increased speed and a cool new effect called Indie. You can see this effect in the following screenshot.

PhotoBox is a free and fun app that can add zest to your pictures before you share them with your friends by email or via Twitter or Facebook.

Availability: App Store

Status: Recommended

Price: Free