VeprIT Photo Sense for iOS - User Guide
This is the Photo Sense for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) user guide. If you are interested in the Mac OS version, see the Photo Sense for Mac OS user guide.
Photo Sense for iOS
Photo Sense for iOS mostly uses the same unique automatic photo enhancement engine as Photo Sense for Mac OS. There is, however, a difference due to the limited computational power available on the mobile devices. One computationally intensive part of the automatic contrast enhancement used in the Mac OS versions is missing in the iOS version for performance reasons. This can be visible in the resulting images, but is not expected to produce a significant difference. In addition, noise reduction and some complex creative effects are not present in the iOS version, also due to the performance issue.
See the side-by-side comparison of the iOS version with Mac OS products.
Opening photos
Photo Sense for iOS works with a single photograph at a time. The photograph can be taken either from the photo library or directly from the camera. To open a photo:
- On iPhone/iPod Touch: run the app, the welcome screen offers the available choice of sources. If an image is already open, tap Open on the bottom toolbar to open another photo.
- On iPad: tap Open on the toolbar and choose the source.
As soon as a photograph has been opened, Photo Sense starts processing it with the default processing options.
Exploring results
Once the photograph has been processed, it is time to explore the result Photo Sense managed to achieve automatically. The user decides if the photo has been sufficiently improved. This is a very individual process, because what one person sees a better photo might not be such for another person.
Tap the Original and Enhanced buttons on the toolbar to see the corresponding images. You can perform an in-depth comparison by zooming up to 100% (the actual size). To zoom:
- Use the pinch gesture: place two fingers on the screen and move them away from each other to zoom in, or towards each other to zoom out.
- Double-tap somewhere on the photograph to fit it on the screen (zoom to the minimum). If it is already zoomed out, double-tap to zoom the tapped image point to 100% (shows the actual size, when every image pixel is represented by a single screen pixel).
When the image is zoomed, move it around with the pan gesture (slide the finger around the screen).
A sigle tap hides the toolbars to leave more space for the image. Tap again to show the toolbars.
Customizing processing options
To customize the processing options applied to the photograph, tap the Options toolbar button. Choose the operations to perform in the Processing Options panel and click the Done button (Apply button on iPad). See the description of processing options available in Photo Sense (Mac OS version is described, but the same options are available in Photo Sense for iOS, except for the noise reduction options). See the Quick Tips (Processing Options Recipes) for advise on how to choose processing options in several common cases.
If you want to change the default operations applied to all images added to Photo Sense, choose the desired options and tap the Save as default button in the Processing Options panel. It is convenient to set the default processing options to the settings you usually use. For example, if you rarely photograph people, it is recommended to disable the Preserve Skin Color option which prevents increasing saturation of skin-like colors. If you often find processed photographs to be over-saturated, you might want to disable the Increase Saturation option by default. Then you can enable it for individual photographs using the processing options panel.
Cropping and straightening
Tap the Crop & Straighten toolbar button to activate the Crop & Straighten tool.
You can resize the crop rectangle by dragging its corners or edges. Move the crop rectangle with panning (tap inside it and move).
While in the Crop & Straighten mode, you can also straighten the photo (rotate by less than 45 degrees). Use the rotation gesture for that. When straightening, make sure that the crop rectangle is entirely within the photograph.
To apply the changes, tap the Apply button. To cancel (restore the image), tap the Cancel button.
Like everything in Photo Sense, the Crop & Straighten tool performs non-destructive editing. When you activate the Crop & Straighten tool for an image which has already been cropped or straightened, Photo Sense restores the previously selected crop rectangle and rotation. You can easily adjust these settings, or cancel them to restore the original image, as long as the image is open in Photo Sense.
Applying artistic effects
To apply one of the available creative effects to the photograph, tap the Effects toolbar button. Tap the desired effect in the Effects panel to select it. On iPhone or iPod Touch, tap the Done button to apply the effect and see the photograph.
Several monochrome effects are available. Their normal versions take the luminance information and apply color (black in the case of black & white). The "Red Filter" versions are based on the image red channel. They tend to brighten human skins and darken blue skies, often creating a pleasing dramatic look.
Rotating photos
To rotate photographs by less than 45 degrees (to straighten them), use the Crop & Straighten tool, as described in Cropping and straightening.
To rotate photographs 90 degree either left (counterclockwise) or right (clockwise), use the rotation gesture in the normal mode (not when the Crop & Straighten is activated).
Saving photos
Tap the Save toolbar button to save the processed photograph in the system photo album. If the photograph was made with a camera (not imported), Photo Sense will offer to save also the original, which is always recommended.