Magic Hour is a photo app for people who love the filter effects you get from apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic.
Inside Magic Hour (the name is a reference to the first and last hour of daylight, often said by photographers to be the time when you get the best light) you’ll find the Filter Market, a place where users can create and swap their own filter designs.
Everything in the market is free, and there’s an impressively wide selection of them to download. You can design your own filters and add those to the mix, too. If you can’t find something with the precise amount of vignette that satisfies, here’s your chance to create it.
It’s pretty neat as a camera too, with useful touch commands for setting focus, exposure, and taking the shot.
Take a photo, or import one from your camera roll, and the app does a good job of showing you previews of every possible filtered edit. Scrolling through them all is snappy, there’s very little waiting. The app also has a good list of sharing options – you can connect it directly to Posterous and Dropbox, as well as the usual suspects including Facebook and Flickr.
Magic Hour is a decent enough app offering good performance and plenty of filter options. If you love filtering your photos for that fashionable retro look, and if you can’t get sufficient variety of filters from other apps, Magic Hour might be a good option for you. For two dollars, it’s good value for money.
[xrr rating=90%]
