PopAGraph is Yet Another iPhone Photo Editing App (YAIPEA), but it brings a slick interface and a nice new gimmick to the game. The idea is that you create quick masks for your photos, and then apply effects to the masked (and unmasked) sections. Then – and here’s where the name comes from – you can frame the picture so that the subject pops out over the edge.
The example picture of the boats at the top of this post shows exactly how it looks.
Once you get the hang of the interface it is surprisingly slick and powerful on the small iPhone screen. First you paint around the edges of the subject to tell the app which part is which. You can use a variable-sized brush and also erase your lines until you get it just right.
Don’t worry too much about accuracy though – you should probably not be choosing highly-detailed subjects anyway, and the app will do a pretty good job of auto-extracting the subject based on your pathetic attempts to indicate where it is.
Then the fun starts. With the subject now separated from the background, you can apply different filters to each (B&W for the background, retro-tastic color for the foreground, for instance, or a blurred background to make the sharp subject pop out). Then you can choose a frame, and resize it to actually sit behind the subject, letting it overlap the edge.
It’s all pretty slick, although – like almost all apps of this type – you’ll have to select a good source photo to begin with.
The app is free, but many of the effects require an in-app purchase. The developer has done a great job of implementing this though: you can apply any effect you like, but in order to actually export the photo with those effects you’ll need to buy them. It’s a pretty slick version of try-before-you-buy.
Go try it out. You never know, I might start following you again on Instagram.
Source: iTunes Store
