Be an Artist – And Don’t Look Back With FX Photo Studio [Review]

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Images © 2011 Lonnie Lazar · All Rights Reserved.

Among modern addictions, the one to iOS photo apps appears to be gaining purchase in the global culture. Facebook, Flickr and all manner of photo sharing services across the Internet are rife with the evidence, as is the success of web-based standalone services such as Instagram and Hipstamatic.

So, if you’re inclined to think of your iPhone or iPad as a palette for creativity, consider FX Photo Studio for the full-on rush its beautifully executed UI and finely detailed features bring to your artistic toolbox.

This 99¢ app ($2.99 for the iPad version) from the developers at MacPhun packs nearly 200 different effects and filters into a robust processing engine that will amaze you with its ability to enhance your photographs in ways limited only by your own imagination.

Take any photo from your iOS device’s Photo Roll or snap a new image and quickly crop, rotate, resize or tweak the gamma setting before applying one or even dozens of FX Photo Studio’s filters and effects. Layered effect settings can be saved as pre-sets for later recall and you can save your finished images back to the Photo Roll or to the app’s own Documents folder for additional manipulation at a later time.

Share photos easily on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr with easy-to-set log-in connectivity — or share them in email.

Maximum resolution can be set as high as 1600 for true artistic representation of your work. The additional processing time required for each effect at max resolution is made less painful by the app’s “Amazing Facts” feature, which displays a rotating roster of, yes, amazing facts while the app renders its magic.

Should you become daunted by the vast array of filters and effects at your disposal, the “Shake to Random” feature will take your photo and randomly apply an effect for you.

Your humble reviewer is but a dabbler in the creative arts but the gallery at the head of this post shows a sampling of some of the possibilities just a weekend of playing with FX Photo Studio can produce. Each filter and effect has fine-grained controls via sliders that apply more or less effect — this app is definitely one of the most fun and exciting photo manipulation apps in the iTunes App store, worth far more than the price you’ll pay to check it out.

Every feature is simple to find, intuitive to use and stable in operation. If there’s one feature missing it’s the ability to free-rotate or straighten an image, but that’s a minor quibble.

The bottom line: FX Photo Studio is a feature-packed photo editing, manipulation and enhancement app with gorgeous UI styling and excellent granular control of its filters and effects. Highly Recommended.

[xrr rating=5/5]

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