Eight Great Imaging Apps for 2017

Eight Great Imaging Apps for 2017

3310
app-1-6-2017

Narrowing down eight great imaging apps from the 100,000+ that are currently offered in the Google Play and Apple iTunes stores is a formidable task.

Besides the ones I’m describing here, there are many, many, many more photo and video apps on the market that are remarkable and worth highlighting. However, the imaging apps that made it to the final eight have one thing in common: they all address pressing consumer needs in new and innovative ways.

Storyo

This iOS and Android app makes it easy for smartphone photographers to create visual stories in the form of video trailers, lestoryoveraging Storyo’s understanding of the photos’ metadata. After the user selects the time frame for the story, the app automatically selects and categorizes the user’s photos, and adds music, titles, captions, maps and other data based on the app’s understanding of the photos.

The user then has full control over how to customize the automatically created trailers. Rendering of the video happens on the device itself, so new or changed stories can be created on the fly without first needing to upload the photos to the cloud. Storyo 2.0 will also enable multiple users to contribute to shared albums. And, it will allow users to incorporate professional stock photos through a partnership with Shutterstock. storyoapp.com

Funimate

This popular effects-rich video-editing app allows smartphone users to jazz up their video clips by adding mirror, ghost, collage, lip-syncing and many other enticing effects. Users can preview the various effects in real time and also combine multiple video clips.
funimate-on-phoneA jury of investors and high-tech journalists gave Funimate the Best of Show Award at the recent Mobile Photo Connect conference. This is what they had to say about their choice: “We unanimously loved everything about Funimate. As a small, scrappy international team, they are building supercomputer capabilities right into your smartphone. With a consumer experience so fun and addictive, it might just take the global tween and teen market by storm. And we think they might build a big business along the way, too! So it is time to throw out your Final Cut Pro workstations and After Effects renderings and just have fun with music and video.” avcrtech.com

Pic Collage

With over 130 million downloads, Pic Collage is a well-known collage app. It continues to add enticing new features to engage its millennial audience with their photos. The app’s features includepic-collage sticker packs, backgrounds, templates, fonts, grids and support for GIF animations and videos.

More recently, Pic Collage integrated both photo print-at-home and print-to-ship options by building in SDKs from Kite (print-and-ship) and HP (Mobile Print SDK).

As a result, users now have a unified choice to either easily print photos on their home printers or to order various photo print products for home delivery. pic-collage.com

Keepy

Keepy is an app for sharing visual memories between family members. It creates a visual timeline for its users or their children by age. As a result, grandparents, e.g., can easily browse through a grandchild’s artwork or photos of the child at age 3, 8 or 12. In addition, family members or friends can add text and voice or video comments to the visuals.
keepy_iphone

Keepy makes it easy to combine digital photos with photos of artwork or vintage photo prints. The app provides users with a cropping tool that makes it easy to digitize analog visuals.

In addition, the app provides features for manually adding the type of metadata that digitized photos or artwork normally lack. This would include the date and place when and where the visuals were originally created. keepy.me

Streetography

The recently launched Streetography app is a map-based photo-sharing application. Perhaps it can be best described as Google Street View on streetographysteroids. Streetography superimposes photos onto a map and fills cities, neighborhoods or blocks with selected photos. The viewer can set selection preferences. These can be based on the number of likes, uploading date or photographers whom one is following. To get initial mass, Streetography displays photos from the 500px photography community in addition to those shared by its own users.

Streetography is both aimed at photographers (urban travelers who like to take photos on their trips and share their photos) and at travelers (who like to visually explore the areas they’re considering visiting). streetography.com

Sharalike

This video trailer creation app uses AI (artificial intelligence) to identify “sharing-worthy” moments. It then automatically selects the best photos to be included in these trailers. The user may overrisharalikede default selections and further personalize the trailers.  Sharalike generates its trailers as dynamic HTML video rather than fixed-rendered videos. This way, they are automatically adapted to the display resolution and aspect ratio of the device on which the trailer is viewed.

At Mobile Photo Connect, Sharalike also announced Sharalike VR. That app is for viewing “regular” 2D photos on VR headsets. The app enables users to view the video trailers in conjunction with 360º stock photo or video backgrounds. As a result, the user feels that the photos are projected in an immersive 3D environment. sharalike.com

Photo Lab

photo-labLeveraging a powerful image-processing engine, Russia-based Photo Lab is a full-fledged photo-editing app. It features more than 700 effects and various photo editing, collage and montage functions.

These include realistic photomontages, stylish photo filters, artistic frames, selfie montages, holiday e-card templates, creative artistic effects and multi-photo collages. Photo Lab currently has in excess of 100 million downloads. pho.to

Keegan

Another revelation demoed at Mobile Photo Connect, Keegan is a new okeegannline photo coach developed by image analysis start-up Regaind. After the user uploads their photos, Keegan provides feedback on the esthetic qualities of each photo. This includes an overall characterization of the image, along with several descriptive labels and ratings for various esthetic attributes.

Keegan is technically a web app, but it will soon also launch as a self-standing app. It will be available for iOS as well as Android. keegan.regaind.io

Hans Hartman is president of Suite 48 Analytics, the leading research and analysis firm for the mobile photography market. He also chairs Mobile Photo Connect. The annual executive conference focused on promoting innovation and partnerships in the mobile photo and video ecosystem.

NO COMMENTS

LEAVE A REPLY