Camera+ Gets Updated With Clarity

Posted by Carter Dotson on April 4th, 2011

iPhone & Apple Watch App - Designed for iPhone and Apple Watch, compatible with iPad

Camera+, the popular (currently in the top 5 in the US App Store) and well-received camera app, rated 5 stars here on 148Apps, is not resting on its laurels when it comes to updates. TapTapTap has introduced a new filter called Clarity to the recently-released 2.2 Camera+ update. This filter, designed as a response to the HDR feature introduced by Apple in iOS 4, is designed to draw out colors and details from photos that may have otherwise been lost, through multiple behind the scenes adjustments. TapTapTap's site goes into how it works and provides some examples it can improve photos, but how does it work in the real world?

I decided to test out the new Clarity filter on some pictures I've taken with my iPod touch 4th Generation, including ones taken before the app was updated with the Clarity filter, so you can definitely use the filter on any picture you've taken or any you've imported into the app. These photos below are of Louie, the greatest dog in the world, and in these photos, he is wearing a dog Snuggie. On the left, you see the untouched photo - it is a poor lighting situation, and a lot of the details are lost. On the right is the photo after running the Clarity filter. As you can tell, a lot of the details that were lost in the original photo were lost - the colors that were too dark to stand out in the lighting are more visible now. A lot of the grain of the iPod touch camera is now more visible, but this is largely due to the mediocre camera, than the filter itself.

[gallery order="DESC" orderby="title" size="thumbnail"]

So while this won't magically turn your mediocre photos into wonderful pictures, it can dramatically increase their quality to a point where they're actually decent photos now. While it's not a replacement for taking a great photo with proper lighting, sometimes the photos we take aren't in perfect situations - and this filter can definitely help out a bit with correcting those imperfections. As well, the 2.2 update has a variety of other bug fixes and improvements, listed on their blog post for the 2.2 update. These updates as well as the Clarity filter are now available as a free update to Camera+, currently on sale for $0.99.