Instagram Photography App
Instagram on the iPod Touch or iPhone is simply brilliant! We’re fanatics of all the photography apps on OS devices and this one really is proving to be one of our favorites!
Here, below is how the initial view of the Instagram App begins. It’s called the ‘Feed’ view and resembles, in my opinion, Twitter, but is with photographs. Here it is possible to view the live stream of photographs people are taking. Of course, just like Twitter, you have to begin to ‘follow’ a particular person/photographer before anything appears here in this feed area.
If you happen to see a photo that you like, double-tap that photo and you’ve ‘liked it’. Alternatively, you can click the ‘like’ button down below the image or can even leave a comment. Tweeting this image or any of your own images is possible as well. Sharing images on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Posterous or Tumblr is also possible as well as just emailing an image.
From this view, there are also a ‘Popular’, ‘Share’, ‘News’ and ‘Profile’ menu items to navigate elsewhere in the App. They are fairly intuitive and easy to figure out what each of them lead to. Popular leads to a live stream of ‘popular’ images being taken at the time, based on number of likes or so it seems? Share allows you to share you own photos, either from your built-in camera or photo library. News, shows which people liked or commented on your shared photos. Profile allows you to edit your profile settings, etc.
Below is how the ‘News’ section appears. It is split into ‘Following’ and ‘You’, where you can see which people liked or commented on your images you’ve shared or view what photos others are liking or commenting on.
When you are ready to share your images, this is how things begin. You first have to crop your image to a square, which is the accepted format of image within Instagram. Then you can move and scale the image within that square.
Next, you can select what type of frame and photographic effect you’d like to apply to your image. I’ve chosen below the ‘Earlybird’ setting which warms up the image and puts an old-fashioned cloth-like, rounded-edge frame around the image.
Furthermore, you can add a soft, blurred effect to your image quite easily. You can choose either a circular or vertical pattern to the soft focus effect, which adds even more of a ‘vintage’ feel to your images.
As a photography enthusiast, I would highly recommend this app. In facet, I’ve met a few fellow photographers on what’s called ‘Instawalks’ and there’s nothing better than meeting like-minded people who also have a passion and love for the photographic medium as an art form.
Chris J. Politzki
Studio 119 Degrees Web Design & Development Studio”