I recently released an update of my Windows Phone app Pictures Lab which brings some nice new features like effect combination, two Christmas and a New Year frame and most importantly 7 new languages. Pictures Lab 4.0 now supports 9 languages: English, German, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese. This was made possible by a group of awesome native-speaking translators: Alan Mendelevich, Takeshi Miyauchi, David Salazar, Joost van Schaik, Johan Peeters, Paolo Barone, Simone Chiaretta, Pedro Lamas and Quentin Calvez.
I also asked my translators if they know any local Windows Phone news sites / blogs. Below is a list of international and regional Windows Phone news sites we collected. Note, that those are primarily consumer sites read by consumers and not only for developers. This list could be useful if you plan to release a localized version of your app and want to promote it a bit. Most sites have a "Tip Us" or contact form and are mostly happy about new content to write posts about.
"Windows Phones are going to be absolutely amazing devices for taking pictures and dealing with pictures." - Joe Belfiore at the official Windows Phone 7 launch event in NYC. I totally agree, they are. Just think about that each device needs to have at least a 5 megapixel camera and the little camera button with the "pocket to picture" functionality. I've been working heavily to enhance this photo experience with my kind of skills. This blog post contains information about the Windows Phone app I created and will also provide the references to how it works internally.
Pictures Lab is the ultimate picture effects app for all Windows Phone device types. MSNBC.com: "a Swiss Army knife of photo tweaks". Engadget.com: "a must-have for WP7 devices ... the program provides a set of amazing effects and tweaks for your photos" Gizmodo.com : "Pictures Lab offers a ton of effects for your money."
If you like to make beautiful photos, then this app is a perfect addition to your phone’s toolset. Pictures Lab provides you with thousands of different modifications for your photos and has a camera functionality with superior features like face detection auto focus, steady mode and much more. It's also integrated as a Lens.
Pictures Lab is the original with high quality filters, features and great user experience. It's fast and responsive and you quickly get your job done with just a few moves. Often been copied, but never reached.
Microsoft uses Pictures Lab in its presentations as a "delightful app" which "Looks and feels like an integral part of Windows Phone". "Uncluttered, polished experience".
The app comes with controllable, easy-to-use, but advanced effects like different vintage and hipster-like filters, Tilt Shift (miniature faking), HDR, Lomo, Soften, Auto Adjust, Sharpen, Comic, Bulge, B&W, Sepia and many more. Dynamic previews of the effects are shown in a list, making it possible to easily pick the right one. The high quality borders are also presented in a nice preview list and can be combined with any filter and any aspect ratio. Multiple effects can also be combined.
It is also possible to crop, rotate and flip images. An enhanced picture and the EXIF data can be saved to the phone’s pictures hub or shared directly on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. Later editing is also supported. The app performs the image processing on the original picture in its original resolution, thus making it also possible to print the image or use it as desktop wallpaper.
Full Pictures Hub Apps integration and support for landscape and portrait orientation. Trial version with complete functionality only save is disabled.
The well-known site Engadget lists it under The best apps, accessories, and tips. They write: "... a must-have for WP7 devices ... the program provides a set of amazing effects and tweaks for your photos ..."
Gizmodo included Pictures Lab in Windows Phone 7 Essential Apps, Reviewed. They also recorded a video. They write: "Your phone isn't complete until you can take photos that look like they came out of a $5 camera from 1974. Pictures Lab fortunately offers a ton of other effects for your money. $2."
msnbc.com wrote: "The app, a Swiss Army knife of photo tweaks, will be one of my first downloads."
techradar.com wrote that Pictures Lab is the #1 app worth paying for: "Tilt-shift effects, crop and rotate... Pictures Lab combines the fun effects of an iPhone photo app like Hipstamatic with the useful fixes you're mostly likely to need (sharpen and - in the imminent update - crop) in a beautifully designed app that crosses the power of Silverlight with the tools of the Windows Phone 7 interface. Pick a photo, see all the possible effects as thumbnails or swipe up and down to try them one at a time."
All About Windows Phone reviewed the app: "Pictures Lab is one of many photo toolboxes for your smartphone, but it's the one that I enjoy using the most." and "Very, very much recommended."
All About Windows Phone also reviewed the Windows Phone 8 update: "It goes significantly beyond the one shot filters typically offered in apps of this type (Nokia Creative Suite, HTC Photo Enhancer) to the point at which it's about a lot more than just fun filters."
Microsoft features Pictures Lab in their presentation slides for Windows Phone under the category delight: "Looks and feels like an integral part of Windows Phone 7". "Uncluttered, polished experience".
Geek.com listed it as one of the Five must have apps for Windows Phone: "Pictures Lab is $2.99, but well worth it in my opinion for all of the new features added to the camera on your phone."
The famous blogger Scott Hanselman says in his Essential Apps blog post: "Pictures Lab is a nice effects and editing application (if not THE BEST editing app) for Windows Phone. All the functionality is there and cleanly integrated with the Photos Hub. Crop, Rotate, Effects, etc. It's a must-have if you are doing any photography on your phone."
Business Insiderwrites "Pictures Lab is like Instagram for Windows Phone 7. Take pictures with Pictures Lab, apply filters, and share them with friends."
Bright Hub lists Pictures Lab as the first app in Top 5 Samsung Focus Apps: "It is considered one of the most popular photo editing programs on the Windows Phone platform, and for good reason. It has an array of sophisticated and beautiful effects ..."
APC (Australian Personal Computer) writes: "WP7’s best picture editing and effects app.Pictures Lab has received a lot of attention as the “go-to” image editing suite for new WP7 users – and for good reason, too."
Mobility Digest wrote: "This app makes me happy. Tons of features, seems simple to use and it’s cheap – that’s a win! It even has a trial mode that includes all effects."
Mobility Digest also posted a walk through: "I didn’t realize it, but when you go to the list of available effects you get to see a preview of the effect which is really great and I have to say, I’m really impressed for how much this app can do."
maximumpc.com wrote: "Speaking of pictures, for two bucks you can have a great little mobile suite of photo effects, fixes, and basic editing tools. The Windows Phone 7 UI language really shines through in this one."
Mobile Choices listed it as one of the two Windows Phone apps in The 12 best Christmas apps: "...turning lifeless images into photographic masterpieces..."
The blog Noisecast recorded a nice video review: "The program @PicturesLab is the best photo editor for Windows Phone 7, hands down."
1800pocketpc.com wrote: "If you love to add effects to your picture then this is one app video you wouldn’t want to miss."
mobiledownloadblog.com wrote: "There is no doubt that any phone device is incomplete without good picture depiction. A fantastic photograph app known as Picture Lab is now available for Windows Phone 7."
The German site phoneseven.de wrote: "Die App sieht wirklich klasse aus und lässt sich allem Anschein nach wirklich gut bedienen. Wer also befürchtet hat, dass Windows® Phone 7 zu wenig Möglichkeiten für gute Apps bietet, der wird mit Pictures Lab sicherlich eines besseren belehrt. Die App wird sicherlich zu meinen ersten Käufen aus dem Marketplace gehören."
John Papa wrote: "Overall, very nice app, good UI, snappy (which was a surprise to me since it does a lot)."
Feature list
Full support for Windows Phone 7 and 8 including all screen resolutions.
30 advanced effects: Ten different vintage and hipster-like effects, Tilt Shift (miniature faking), HDR, Lomo, Soften, Auto Adjust, Sharpen, Comic, Bulge, B& W, Sepia, Manual, Edge Detection, Night Vision, Rainbow, Mirror, X-Ray, Heat Image, Colorization, Negative and Bitmap.
Editable effect parameters with ready-to-use default values.
Combination of multiple effects.
11 high quality borders and more seasonal borders.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, NFC and much more.
Take photo functionality with face detection auto focus, steady mode, rule of thirds grid. Integrated into the phone as a Lens. The steady mode requires a device with a gyroscope. The face focus is enabled if the device supports focus at point. It also supports devices with a front facing camera.
Post edits from the Pictures Hub using the WP Rich Media extension.
Crop, rotate and flip also with predefined aspect ratios.
Multi-touch manipulation for Tilt Shift and other effects where multi-touch is meaningful.
The app can save edited pictures with advanced effects applied in full resolution even on a device with 256 MB RAM. Thus making it also possible to print the image or use it as desktop wallpaper.
Full Pictures Hub Extras integration.
The trial version includes the complete functionality and all the effects, only the save functionality is disabled.
Support for landscape and portrait orientation.
Effect list with dynamic previews and caching of the larger previews.
Flicking through the effects on the main page.
Setting for the maximum output size, JPEG quality and many more.
State preservation when the app is deactivated (tombstoning).
Localization for English, German, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Portuguese (Brasil).
How it works
Some of the image processing algorithms that are used in the Pictures Lab app would normally be implemented as pixel shaders for Silverlight. The Windows Phone platform doesn't support custom pixel shaders at the moment, therefore all effects are implemented in C# and manipulate the WriteabeBitmap Pixels' in some way. How this works in detail was shown in my Coding4Fun articles I've written months ago. This is actually where Pictures Lab has its roots. The first article described all the necessary basics and two simple effects. The second part of this short Coding4Fun article series shows how to implement the basic tilt shift and vintage effects you can find in the Pictures Lab app. Yes, some parts are open source! Except the secret sauces I gotta keep for me that adds the final touch to the effects. I also wrote blog posts about some parts of the application that are surely interesting for other Windows Phone developers.
The Slider control that is used in the App was originally developed by Nokola and then adapted for Windows Phone and made bindable by Clint Rutkas and myself.
To be continued
The planned feature list for the next versions is already pretty long and I have some real diamonds on there. You can follow @PicturesLab on Twitter to get all the status updates. I'd also like to know what feature you want to see in a future version. Just write a comment.
My new Windows Phone 7 article for Microsoft's Coding4Fun site is live. It's the first part of a short series about the development of a Windows Phone 7 picture effects application called "PicFx". The first article will show how to create the base Windows Phone application and how to implement some basic effects. The source code is licensed under the Ms-PL and can be downloaded from the CodePlex site.
I'm already working on the second part of the series, which will explain how to implement advanced effects (the cool stuff) and other features. After this article I'll add more features and important effects, enhance the existing effects and release it as "Pictures Lab" on the Marketplace.
Video
The video below demonstrates the Coding4Fun PicFx application features and also shows how it can be used. It was recorded with the application running in the emulator.
My new article for Microsoft's Coding4Fun site is live. It's my second article for Coding4Fun after my first Silverlight Face Detection article. The article explains how to write pixel shaders for Silverlight and WPF, what tools should be used, and how to work with the tools. Furthermore, it shows how to build an extensible Silverlight shader application with the help of the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)
The application not only comes with the two shaders that are implemented in the article, it also contains three other shaders I’ve written before. The complete source code is licensed under the Ms-PL and can be downloaded from the CodePlex site.
The article demonstrates how to implement a simple facial recognition system using Silverlight 4’s new webcam feature. The method I've implemented searches for a certain sized skin color region in a webcam snapshot. This technique is not as perfect as a professional computer vision library like OpenCV and the Haar-like features they use, but it runs in real time and works for most webcam scenarios.
The complete source code for the article is available at CodePlex and licensed under the Ms-PL.
If you like the article, I’ll write a follow-up that might cover a more stable (better) segmentation approach, how to optimize the performance further and more.
