iPhoto for iOS
Possibly the most exciting software announcement in today’s special event was iPhoto for iOS ($4.99). If you haven’t watched the keynote yet, see it on apple.com and scrub to about 62 minutes in to see Phil’s talk and watch Randy Ubillos’s awesome demo.
Compare with gestures
You can compare images side by side, and dismiss ones you don’t like with a downward swipe. But the fact that iPhoto can find similiar photos for you automatically is just astounding. Hopefully that’s a sneak-peak of something we’ll see in Aperture soon!
Megapixel limitation
One thing I found interesting is that you can only work with images up to 19 Megapixels, which to be fair is probably well beyond what most iPhoto users would be carrying, however for users with higher resolution cameras (the Canon EOS 5D Mk II is 21 megapixels, for example), it sounds like we’re out of luck. Maybe there will be a paid Aperture for the iPad? With features like this, one can hope, and I for one would certainly pay for that.
Crop & Straighten
Auto horizon straightening? So clever, so simple, why haven’t we seen this before?? Pinch and twist to crop and straighten looks very elegant as well.
Localized Touch Enhancements
Touch adjustments that are isolated to the area you touch is like Nik’s U-point made even easier. Touch a shadow area and brighten it by dragging up, and only the shadows change. Touch the blue sky and darken by dragging left, and only the blue sky is affected.
Skin Tone White Balance
White balance based on skin tone instead of a white or grey area? Amazing. And again, why is this the first time we’re seeing this?!
Adjustment Brushes
I’m pretty sure iPhoto on the Mac doesn’t have this; it’s an Aperture feature on the iOS. You can select a brush and use your finger to paint in adjustments, such as lighten (dodge) and darken (burn).
Journals
These Journals are incredibly cool. I love the simple montage, the ease of readjusting, and the fact that it prioritizes images that are flagged or captioned and makes them bigger.
iPhone and iPad
This new software is compatible with iPhone 4 and 4S as well as iPad 2 and iPad 3. I’ve played with it a bit on the iPhone and it’s pretty amazing. A bit hard to deal with the journals on the small screen, but of course that will be a much better experience on the iPad.
iPhoto for iOS on the iPhone 4
A reader pointed this out to me…
Not the greatest news for RAW files in iPhoto for iOS
“If you import RAW-format photos, you can edit them in iPhoto. When you edit a RAW-format photo, your edits are rendered from the embedded JPEG file and not the RAW data itself.”
That would explain the less-than-full resolution renders that some are seeing.
I just watched Randy’s demo again, and he explicitly says that he can access the “all 12 megapixels are available here” of the file he’s working on. However if you look at the info popup that he shows, he’s working with a JPEG — not a RAW file.
That, my friends, is the difference between iPhoto and Aperture. If this were Aperture for iOS (and hey, maybe that’s coming too), then it’d be working with proper RAW files.
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Comments
on March 8, 2012 - 11:25am
I tested the resolution limitation. RAWs and JPEGS import just fine using the Camera Connection kit, as it did before. The iPad will store the raw for import later but iPhoto will use a JPEG version of the photo. This also seems to be the case when something is above 19 megapixels regardless if its RAW or JPEG. It seems to create a 5.3MP image in place of the higher one. I wish it would just create a 19MP version rather than going down all the way to 5.3MP. I guess when the image is imported by the iPad this is the max preview size it will create. iPhoto for iOS will also note that the image is RAW but it draws a slash through it.