MagicHour, the iPhone camera & photo editing app, have released an update which includes a digital zoom on the camera and a tilt-shift feature. Tilt-shift is a popular photographic effect that makes subjects look like miniature toys. It can also be a useful feature on the iPhone or iPad for simulating depth of field. You have to start with a suitable photograph to get any mileage out of a tilt-shift feature like this, but MagicHour has a linear and a radial option to give you as much scope as possible.
The tilt-shift feature gives you control over how wide an area to cover, over what distance to move from focus to blur (controlled with a slider), and whether to move from focus to blur or vice versa. With the linear option you can rotate the plane so that your band of focus is vertical or horizontal.
Eager to try out the feature I updated and fired up MagicHour only to scratch my head wondering where the new feature was – the Tilt-shift feature is revealed only after you have done your other edits, so once you have cropped your image and applied a filter the tilt shift option appears as a small blue button under the image on the share / save screen.
I took a test shot outside my parents house to try out the feature, the before and after below illustrates the effect of the tilt shift feature:
This is a great addition to an excellent app, the only thing I felt it was missing was a second slider to control the amount of blur applied. For some photos I longed for a stronger blur, ideally I would like to be able to choose from say 10% – 150% of the current fixed blur.
If you don’t already have MagicHour, the developers have very kindly given us 5 promo codes to give our readers. To be in with a chance to win tweet the following and we’ll pick the winners within 24 hours:
Hell yes I want the MagicHour photography app, thanks @mactrast and @MagicHourMe! #mtmh
After an incredible response, MagicHour very kindly offered an additional 10 promo codes to give to our readers – thanks MagicHour! The winners have been contacted and the giveaway is now closed. Thanks for entering, hope you won 🙂
