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CameraBagCurrent Version: 1.93

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"If you buy just one filter app, make it CameraBag." -New York Times

Dramatically enhance your photos using the many classic camera and film simulations in CameraBag. It's like having a dozen unique cameras all in one app!

CameraBag focuses on emulating styles and processes from some of the most interesting cameras of the past to enhance the mood of an image, and the results are stunning.

The cameras included in CameraBag are:

"Helga" - Square-format toy camera with washed-out highlights and old-school vignetting.
"Colorcross" - Hazy, chemical color-swapping straight from the darkroom.
"Instant" - No need to shake this instant-developing film.
"Magazine" - Rich tones for glossy pages.
"1974" - Your father's camera: faded, tinted, and hip.
"Lolo" - Shoot from the hip and take life as it comes with vibrant, colorful shots.
"Plastic" - Sweet honey tones like these could only come from the cheapest of cameras.
"Cinema" - Dramatic, moody coloring with a widescreen aspect ratio.
"Silver" - From the earliest days of photography, when taking a shot was a much larger production than it is now.
"1962" - Dynamic, high-contrast black and white from the photojournalism of a bygone era.
"Mono" - Smooth, refined, balanced black and white.
"Infrared" - Simulation of the popular landscape photography technique.
"Fisheye" - Go ahead, get too close to the lens.
"Original" - Just in case you got it right the first time.

To use CameraBag simply:
1. Select. Take a new photo from inside the app(iPhone only) or choose one from your library (iPhone or iPod Touch).
2. Filter. Quickly swipe between CameraBag's cameras to view your photo in the various styles.
3. Save. You can save the same photo in multiple styles to the Camera Roll.
4. Share. Email your photo to friends or you favorite photo sharing service.

To see sample CameraBag shots visit our website (www.nevercenter.com/camerabag) or our our official Flickr group (www.flickr.com/groups/camerabagapp/) where more than 15,000 photos have been submitted by CameraBag users worldwide.

CameraBag is also available for the Mac and PC. More information at www.nevercenter.com/camerabag/desktop.
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CameraBag Screenshots


CameraBag Review

Photo app offers fun filters to make your pictures stand out

by Jonathan Seff, Macworld.com

Just as any piece of writing can benefit from the help of an good editor, so any photographer can tell you that a photo is just a snapshot before a little time in Photoshop. And when it comes to the iPhone’s camera—which, let’s be honest here, isn’t very good—its pictures are usually in dire need of aid. One good solution is CameraBag, which applies filters to your iPhone shots or pictures from your photo library to give them a stylized look beyond what the built-in camera can accomplish.

CameraBag from Nevercenter is a collection of nine photo filters, including Helga (square-format with vignette), 1974 (faded and tinted), Fisheye (warped lensing), Ansel (black and white), and Cinema (wide and dramatic). To get started, you either take a picture with the iPhone’s camera from within CameraBag, or choose a photo already in your library. You can then audition each filter on a particular picture and save the altered version with your given filter (the app doesn’t touch the original photo in your library; for photos you take within the app, there’s a preference you can set to save the original photo as well). You can also set the output size for your photos.

camerabag_fisheye
Here, Fishy: CameraBag's filters, such as Fisheye, help spice up your photos.
To see how a photo will look with a particular filter, you load the photo and then tap the name of the current filter at the top to bring up a list of all filters, or you can swipe your finger left or right on the screen to scroll to the previous or next filter. (I prefer the second method, because it requires less effort.) By default, all nine filters—plus an Original option that shows the unaltered photo—are available to swipe through. If you have filters you like using more than others, however, you can set your favorites in the app’s preferences—only those you turn on will be part of the swipe set. (You can still get to the whole list by tapping a filter name.)

You can stack multiple filters on a single photo by applying one filter, saving the photo, then opening it again in CameraBag—this method works, but it would be much easier if you could check off several filters to apply at one time.

camerabag_ansel
Old Time Feel: A photo after applying the black and white Ansel filter.
The preferences section also offers options for turning on and off cropping effects and border effects. With cropping effects on, certain filters (Lolo and Helga, for example) will crop your photo to a ratio more fitting to the lens or camera its trying to emulate. With border effects turned on, you get Polaroid-like framing using the Instant filter, and a matted look with some of the other filters. It’s unfortunate, however, that you can’t turn these effects on and off for individual photos or filters—it’s all or nothing, and you need to open the preferences settings to make any changes.

All in all, CameraBag’s filters are varied and high-quality, and offer hours of fun. To get a sense of what they can do, check out the CameraBag Flickr group, with images from CameraBag users.

The company also offers a scaled-down version called CameraBag Lite: Retro (currently free) that includes three of filters from the full version if you want to try it out. And while CameraBag cost $3 when I downloaded it for review, it’s currently priced at $1 as part of a holiday sale at the App Store.

CameraBag is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch running the iPhone 2.x software update.

[Senior news editor Jonathan Seff likes that CameraBag makes him look like a better photographer.]

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Critic Reviews of CameraBag iPhone App

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User Reviews of CameraBag iPhone App

4 Macworld User Reviews
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Our user review snapshot

  • 80.0%
  • 80.0%
  • 75.0%

Our user reviews IN DETAIL:

Needs just a liitle more .......

This app is fun and very easy to use it just needs a few more options. There are only 10 styles you can choose from and only 4-5 of them that i would ever use. Overall a good app not great app.....

Fun with Photos

Nice little app which makes taking pics and modifying them easy, attractive, and fun. More for a shutterbug than a casual photographer, as the effects that you can apply mimic different types of cameras or film.

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