iPhone App review: Photogene

I'm a big fan of using the iPhone as a camera. It's simplicity gives me a freedom I seldom have when I'm carrying my DSLR, there are no dials to move, no buttons to push, no decisions to be made other than composition and when to take the shot. Plus, I always have it with me. However, the camera isn't exactly the best possible and the images could use a little help.

And here's where Photogene shines. It's like a mini-Photoshop for your iPhone right at your fingertips. Among Photogene's features are the following, ordered from my most used to less used:

• Crop and Straighten – You can crop in pre-defined formats (square, 3:4, 9:16, 3:2) or free form
• Levels – Yes, like Photoshop and Aperture, you can adjust the black point, white point, and mid tones.
• Exposure and Contrast – Simple, but very effective.
• Saturation and Color Temperature – You can even adjust the Red/Green/Blue channels separately.
• Sharpening – I’ve found that iPhone photos benefit from a bit of sharpening, especially if you’ve adjusted other things.
• Borders – There are a bunch of borders you can add to your photographs.

There are other features that I rarely use, but some may find quite useful and fun, such as special effects (night vision, pencil sketch, heat map, etc.) and thought balloons (like cartoon text bubbles).

Photogene is one of my favourite apps and I use it to edit a lot of the photographs I take with my iPhone. The author is Omer Shoor and you can find out more at the official website or directly at the App Store.

UPDATE (August 2009): If you read my site regularly, you’ll know that I’m a bit annoyed that most iPhone apps don’t support the iPhone 3GS full resolution. I’m very happy to see Photogene is one of the few photography apps that have been updated. Definitely recommended!