CameraKit and Photogene: Bare-Chested Lego Manliness on the iPhone

At some point, I'll tell you the story about the Obama cookies that finally pushed me over the edge to buy an iPhone. But at the moment, I want to talk about CameraKit, Photogene, and Bare-Chested Legos.

Bare-Chested Legos

Just the other day I was walking through Target and I came across this Indiana Jones Lego set depicting the fight scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know, the scene where the big German dude bites it in the propeller fan. It's a huge freakin' thing... Complete with said bare-chested German dude.

Bare-chested? Since when did Legos come with ripped abs?

Now, like most iPhonespaz-types, I tend to take pictures of weird things when I find them and then share those pics on the web. In my case, it's usually something I do on Twitter. I didn't like the way the picture above turned out. I felt it needed something more, so I turned to a pair of great iPhone apps.

Here's a little sequence of edits. Click on an image to load the gallery.

It took me all of about two second to whip that up and then another few seconds to blast it out the web. So, you're probably wondering how I did that, right? Well, read on!

CameraKit

CameraKit [iTunes Link $1.99] is one of a number of apps that allow you to adjust image settings on your photos. The options for CameraKit allow you to change the "film" type from one of the following options: color, black and white, sepia, and "classic". The first three are pretty obvious. The last option adds a bit of instamatic awesomeness to your images (as you'll soon see). In addition to the film settings, you can also turn on vignetting, faux flash lighting, add a soft focus, pump up color channels (cross processing), and do a little push/pull processing.

Now if this all seems like too many options, I understand. I was sort of hoping that there would just be a gallery of presets. If CameraKit developer Tetsuya Chiba adds that feature in the next rev, I'd be most appreciative. That said, CameraKit is quite nice for what it does and handy too.

1. We take a picture of me doing a very, very poor impersonation of Robert DeNiro and load it into CameraKit.
2. We walk through the settings in CameraKit to show color, black and white, sepia, and "classic".
3. Then, staying with classic, we add vignetting and a bit of soft filter.
4. Finally, we wrap up with the addition of a signature.

Click the picture of me below to launch the gallery:

Photogene

Photogene [iTunes Link $2.99] is another image modification app. It provides image cropping as well as color management functions. In my opinion, what sets Photogene apart from other imaging apps is the option to add borders and shapes to your pictures. Think of it as ComicLife-Lite for the iPhone.

Now, to demonstrate, I'm going to take the final image I created in CameraKit and modify it in Photogene.

1. I'm going to walk through the various settings just to show you what they do.
2. I'm going to mess with the levels, colors, and exposure to create an old-timey effect.
3. I'll add a nifty shape and a frame to the image.

Click the picture of me below to launch the gallery:

Here's the final image in all its iPhonespaz glory!!!

I hope you enjoyed this little review. Links to CameraKit and Photogene appear below. No links to the Bare-Chested legos though. Nope. Aw, what the heck...

Bare-Chested Legos [Amazon $49.99]
CameraKit [iTunes Link $1.99]
Photogene [iTunes Link $2.99]