The next iPad, expected to be announced this evening will more than likely sport a considerably better camera than the iPad 2. Why? Two reasons. The first and most obvious being the performance of the camera on the iPad 2 – it left a lot to be desired. Second, competition from other tablets is hotting up and cameras seem to be an area other slates are slamming the iPad 2. The rumours have been suggestive with reports of 8-megapixel sensors being what most people are predicting, with some even going so far as to say it will be the same unit as found on the iPhone 4S. If it is, then the iPad 3 will make photo and video apps out now more relevant than they’ve ever been, so we’ve picked our favourites just for you.
100 Cameras in 1
Tweakable presets. That’s the name of the game when it comes to 100 Cameras in 1. The application has 100 presets that can be applied to gallery photos or to live-view shooting. With a charming UI and occasional lift-music bites here and there, 100 Cameras in 1 is fun to use and well formatted for the slate form factor. With names like Happiness where yellow hue would have sufficed, hardcore photography buffs may well become irate with all the touchy feely sentiment, however for the average user, 100 Cameras in 1 offers a fantastic way to enhance your images.
Snapseed
For anybody who’s looking for a slightly more manual way of tweaking their images but doesn’t want to be thrown totally in the deep-end, Snapseed is one stunning application. Allowing specific tweaks like radial blurring and spot highlighting, the UI makes the most of the iPad’s larger display and looks sensational. In the same breath, it’s also usable with easy to understand labeling and a range presets to give you the look you’re after.
Pro HDR
What’s HDR? High dynamic range. Dynamic range is the number of tones from light to dark a camera can pick up. High dynamic range means the camera detects more tones than a normal photograph.
How does it do this? Usually by taking three shots of the same object – underexposing one shot, overexposing another and taking one with correct exposure. By overlaying elements of all the photos on top of one another, this results in a shot with more sensitive tonal gradation – or high dynamic range.
While there’s already an in-camera HDR function in iOS, if HDR was a Swiss army-knife the preset in iOS would just be one blade. Pro HDR offers the remaining bottle openers, toothpicks and nail-file. In turn, with this app you can make things look super-realistic, a little bit warped with accented edges and ultra low contrast or just a little lighter without introducing oodles of noise. Thumbs up we say.
Adobe Photoshop Touch
Adobe Photoshop Touch, Adobe’s most fully fledged foray into mobile Photoshop to date. Released exclusively for Android Honeycomb 3.1+ devices until recently, Photoshop Touch offers Adobe Photoshop Elements type functionality for your tablet, and having spent a fair amount of time with is – we can confirm it’s pretty freaking cool.
Adobe have included some extremely comprehensive tutorials which walk you through a number of techniques, step by step, with on screen instructions. Not only is this a great way to learn how to use Photoshop Touch, but also helps users understand the fundamentals of the fully fledged version as well.
For Adobe Photoshop veterans, selection tools, brushes, levels, filters, they’re all present and incorporated via an intuitive touch interface with fantastic integration with imaging services such as Google Images and indeed, your on-board camera.
In our first 15 minutes with the Android version we were able to affix a cup to a wall, and pretty convincingly at that. In turn whether you’re a Photoshop whiz intent on getting stuck in or a novice user poised to make the most of the fantastic pre-loaded tutorials, we can wholeheartedly recommend the Photoshop Touch application for your new iPad.
iMovie
Given the likelyhood of the new iPad sporting full HD video capture, it makes perfect sense to get au fait with the cream of the crop movie editting application – iMovie. As you can see from the stills, iMovie not only offers a clear interface with easily discernable channels and nice big thumbnails, it’s also one of the simplest movie editing apps on the market so anyone can pick it up and get creative. There are a whole load of pre-set templates, so if you just want to throw a load of contend in and make it do the work, you can do. That said, there’s plenty of scope for you to cut, crop, drag and drop to make sure your stamp is put on your movie.
HD videos and 8-megapixel stills, these apps will help you get the most from yours, capturing them with ease, applying effects and tweaking them until a cup sticks to a wall. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed our little run down and if you have any suggestions of your own to throw into the mix, drop them in the comments and if we really like them we’ll give them a run down on our shiny pad.
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