The iPhone’s camera app is pretty basic. Maybe a little too basic for some, as you can’t even tweak simple settings like contrast and white balance. But thank the heavens for the abundance of apps like Camera+ that help you go that extra mile with your photos. Today, we’re looking at Repix — a beautiful photo enhancer that can jazz up your photos with a bunch of neat effects. Repix is available free in the App Store and comes bundled with a few effects, while other premium effects can be enabled via in-app purchases.
Repix begins with a four-step tutorial explaining the newly added features of the app. Then you have three simple icons to either choose a photo from the camera roll, click a new one or continue tweaking an existing photo in the app. Once you’ve selected the photo you want to dress up, it takes center stage with a variety of stylised markers below depicting the various tools of Repix. There are about 10 free tools to play around with. You’ll fall in love with ‘Flares’ the same way JJ Abrams did in his last two Star Trek movies. Other effects include ‘Drips’, ‘Charcoal’, ‘Dotter’, ‘Posterize’ etc. To apply an effect, simply move your finger along the places you want to overlay it. There are convenient undo-redo buttons placed right on top. On clicking the premium effects collection, you’re taken to a sample image where you can try them on, and if satisfied can go ahead with the in-app purchase. Try before you buy — a nice touch!
Other than effects, there are also Instagram-ish filters to change the appearance of an image entirely. There are 8 free filters, with four more available for purchase in two pairs. There’s a neat ‘Shuffle’ option that you can keep tapping till you find the right one. Repix also has traditional settings like brightness, contrast, saturation, temperature and vibrance. You can even apply a vignette to your image from here. The intensity of these settings is controlled by a bar at the bottom. The intensity is numerically shown too at the top. Next, you can wrap your image in a variety of borders. Finally, the crop menu not only allows a freeform selection, but even popular presets like 4:3, 16:9, etc.
Once you’re satisfied with the final creation, tapping the checkmark symbol to the top right lets you either save the image to your camera roll, email it or post it to social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Flickr. There’s also an option to export the image to Instagram, provided you have the app installed.
A “hamburger” button to the top-right reveals a menu which gives you access to a couple of other things. First, you can even pull photos directly from your Facebook. Now, let’s say you don’t have any awesome photos to glamorise using Repix, the ‘Starters’ menu gives you access to professionally shot photos that you can start using right away.
The effects in Repix are quite nice; a mind with an artistic bend should be able to cook up something really splendid. Even for novices like me, Repix is fun to play with. Understanding the interface was no trouble at all. The depth given to the hamburger and process buttons at the top looks absolutely gorgeous. All in all, Repix is a great app to have on your iOS device if you want to explore beyond the simplistic tweaks that apps like Instagram offers. Repix is a universal app and is available Free on the App Store.