Magic Hour

Posted by marne on July 8, 2011 in applesauce, photograph | 1 comment

It's been awhile since I've seen a photo app that I've really liked, and that I think is really original and worth adding to my screen full of photo apps, but I recently discovered Magic Hour, and it's been my favorite app lately. I thought I'd better tell you about it pronto!

Like lots of photo editing apps, it comes with a bunch of filters that you can just tap to apply to any of your photos. There are two things that set it apart, however. First, you can create your own filters by adjusting and adding a bunch of different elements: curves, saturation, brightness, contrast, vignettes, textures, and frames. Second, you can save your filter and share it with all the other Magic Hour users in the Marketplace. Filters are free to download, so the possibilities are endless. I've made a few to share. The one above is called Sunny Fade (you can search for it in the Marketplace by name). It looks nice on photos with lots of pinks & greens. Another one I called Dutch Mastered, I like it for cool greens and blues. I think it's a nice, painterly look:

This next one is really useful, I think. It's called Subtle Spotlight, and that's just what it is. It doesn't scream, "I put a filter on this photo to make it look cool!" It just adds a little something, and lightens a dim photo nicely (this one also has a little tilt-shift effect on it too, but that I added with Instagram): 

I wanted a filter to turn a bright blue sky to a faded turquoise, so I made this one and called it County Fair. It's very green, so it works best over photos with lots of blue, I think: 

The app also crops your photos square, so it works really nicely with Instagram when you don't want to use the same old filters when you share your photos there. Have you used Magic Hour? Do you have filters to share? Tell us in the comments!