Here are some of the images I photographed of one of the Fenders they lent me to test with.

Here is the original image shot with the iPhone camera app.

First off when I looked at this image I thought of making it Black & White to add drama but as you can see it does add drama but it losses the impact because it has to much contrast.  When I reduced the contrast the image got muddy in the dark areas and that just didn’t look good to me.  I used Simply B&W app for this.

After looking at it and not liking the results from the conversion to B&W I decided to add some drama with a lens flare.  I used an app called Lens Flare to add a sun and lens flare across the image.  As soon as I found the right sun and lens flare I decided to scrap the B&W and return to the original color image.

First thing I did was open the original image into Lens Flare app and selected Desert Sun as my lens flare.

In Lens Flare app I positioned the sun in the upper left corner and made it a little bigger.  My idea for positioning the sun was to make it look natural to the image and make it look like the sun could have actually been there when I photographed this image.

My next step was to open the image in PhotoForge2 were I used Pop! Cam filters first.

I applied Electro-Fine 1979 for the film stock.

I then used the WashedOut filter.  I like this combination of Electro-Fine 1979 and WashedOut filters together and use it often in my images.

I then applied a Polarizing filter to make the blue sky a little darker and add more drama to the image.

Next step I applied the Pop! Cam filters then I added a vignette to the image.

I choose to use vignette 7 because it only would effect the bottom of the image and not the top where the sun is.

And here is the final image before I uploaded it to Instagram.

My last step was to use Squaready app so I could upload the image in a vertical format by adding white sides to the image so it would fit into the square format of Instagram.

Here is step by step instructions on how I made this image.

Step 1 - Original Image shot with Pro HDR.  I didn’t hold the camera still enough during the shooting so the registration of the two images are a little off.  I think it helps the final image because it gives it a lomo feel.

Step 2 - I imported the image into Dynamic Light app and used the normal preset and set it at 76 just to get a little more drama in the sky.

Step 3 - Next I imported the image into DramaticB&W app to change the image to B&W and also make the clouds go a little darker.

I then reduced the grain as much as possible sense their was already a little grain from the original image.

Step 4 - I imported the image into PhotoForge2 app where I made a duplicate layer.

WIth that new duplicate layer I went into the adjust levels to lighten the sign.

I then created a layer mask for the top layer so I could mask out just the sign and let the background image show through.

Here you can see that the sign is the only thing that is masked out.  Its difficult to get sharp edges with your finger on the iPhone so I made the Bruch Hardness the least hard and didn’t worry about not being extremely precise.  If you make a mistake you can always change the brush color and start over.

Here is the resulting image with the sign masked so it would be lighter then the rest of the image.

Step 5 – I used Squaready to crop the image for uploading to Instagram.

Step 6 – Uploaded it to Instagram.

Thats it from start to finish.

Here is a new image from my iPhone in celebration of the upcoming holiday.

Comics #1 – Photographed at Samurai Comics
Camera – iPhone 4
Apps – Camera+, Magic Hour

Comics #2 – Photographed at All About Books & Comics
Camera – iPhone 4
Apps – Camera+, Magic Hour

Comics #3 – Photographed at Bookmans
Camera – iPhone 4
Apps – Camera+, Magic Hour

Magic Hour is a very clean simple app with a lot under the hood.  Its one of the new bread of apps that has some great preset filters included with the ability to experiment and add your own custom filters that you design.  But it goes one step further by allowing you to share your custom filter with the world as well as you can download filter other users have shared.  I think this feature really makes this app stand out and if you want a simple all in one clean app for your iPhoneography then this might be the one.

First of is the splash screen that comes up when you start up.  It has a few options like take photo, photo album, manage filters and at the bottom a filter market.  The first two are pretty self explanatory and the last two about the filter I will go over later in this review.

If you open an image from your photo album the first thing that comes up is a move and scale screen.  This is the only major issue I have with this app because the app is geared towards your images being square.  If you like all your images to be square or you use Instagram a lot then this might not be a issue for you but I would like to see the ability to use uncropped vertical and horizontal images.   If you scale your image to be vertical or horizontal at this point you will get large black bars on the top or sides which are included in your images when you add any filter adjustments so basically this app is for square formated images.

Now that you have scaled your image then you come up to the choose filter screen.  You can choose from the categories Favorites which are your favorite filters, Presets which are the filters included from the developer, My Filters which are your filter creations, and Download which are the filters you downloaded from other users.  Also at the bottom is a button to make your own filter which you can start from scratch and make your own or you can start by selecting one of the filters as a starting point then tweak the filter to you liking.

I choose the filter Strong Lomo then decided to adjust it for my needs.  Once you pick a filter the next screen will have a few options.  The first being Recreate which lets you take the current filter and tweak it to your liking.  The next is the Share button which you can share to just about any service out there even Instagram which is nice if you use Instagram.   The last option is to save it to your photo album.  This app does not automatically save your image if you use the share button so if you want an image saved to your photo album then you should save it then you can share with your favorite social networking site.

If you decide to hit the Recreate button to tweak your filter then you will come up with all of the editing tools like Curves where you can adjust your Red, Green, and Blue curves or all of the curves at once.

Adjust allows you to adjust your saturation, brightness, and contrast.

Vignette alows you to add or change the vignette and has a slider to adjust the vignettes intensity.

Textures allows you to add a texture overlay to your image and the intensity of the texture overlay.

The last one is Frames which allows you to add or change the frames of your image.  All of the frames are good and everyone will be able to find a look or feel they like.  I forgot to add that there is a little button BW at the top of the screen for converting your image to black and white.

Once I was done with making my tweaks to my image and I hit done I was given the option to save my filter which at that point gave me the ability to share my new filter creation with other users or just save it to my filters for my use.  I saved mine and called it Lomo Cool because it was cooler in tone then the original.  After saving it I found a small little feature that I didn’t think of and that was I could start all over ad tweak my newly created filter to build on it or just change a few things.

This now brings me to the original screen of Managing Filters.  You can  manage your favorite filters, delete any unwanted or unused filters.

I found that when you are in the filter manager you can select one of the filters and a before and after example of the filter will be shown.  I like this feature and it even works on all of the images that you have downloaded from other users.  Also you can delete the filter or upload your creation at anytime if you want from here as well.

As for the different social sites you can share with here is the share screen and I don’t think they left any out.

I purchased this app when it was on sale for $.99 and I’m so glad I did.  This app is definitely worth the regular $1.99 price but if you can get it for $.99 then do not hesitate to add this to your iPhoneography arsenal.  Requirements for the iPhone are: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.  The also have an Android version with the requirements of Android version 2.1 and up.

Developer Site

It’s a very dusty 64′ Volkswagen Beetle.

So dusty you can’t make out what color it is.

It’s been sitting here a long time with only a few signs of life from the drops of internal fluids on the floor.

All the tires had to be filed with air and one of the tires was knocked of its bead so I checked out the spare and to my surprise I find the spare has a nail in it.

After a few hours of working on getting the tires aired up they are finally filled and ready to roll.

In the light the true color tries to peak out from the dust.

What’s behind door D41?  Just dust and grime.