iOS – TOUCHLOOK HD – Review
Developer: COLORTIVE
Price: $0.99/£0.69/download here
Version: 1.0
Released: February 29, 2012
Size: 7.7 MB
App reviewed on: iPad 2
Compatibility: iPad 2 only, requires iOS 4.3 or later
Rated: 4+
Our Ratings
Graphics/Sound: 3 out of 5 stars
User Interface: 2 out of 5 stars
Gameplay: N/A
Re-use/re-play value: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Is It Easy To Use?
Not really, we actually found it quite awkward to use and not terribly intuitive. Essentially, you start work on an image, either that you have taken with the iPad 2 itself or one that you have opened from your camera roll. With the image uploaded into the app you then have three color control modes to select. HSL Mode controls hue, saturation and lightness, RGB Mode controls the red, blue, green primary colors and BMW Mode to control blacks, mid-tone and white.
There are three control points and each control mode consists of three circular controllers. One circle controller applies a different effect on a mode by dragging the point. In HSL mode you can select and turn the controller to adjust Saturation and Lightness together.
There’s also a Before and After icon allowing you to check the color correction on/off. You can also adjust the Sensitivity of the controllers too, either to increase or decrease the sensitivity. If you like the Vignette effect, there’s an icon to switch that filter on/off too.
Somewhat strangely there does not appear to be a simple crop tool, we’re not sure why.
Is It Fun?
No, we would not describe this as fun. If you do become confused and go to the Help section the whole app seems to lock up and you cannot go back to your editing. It is actually quite frustrating. We had to reinstall and uninstall this app several times as it kept locking up.
Is It Pretty?
No, it’s not going to win any design awards, the developers have tried to be creative and we value that but it just doesn’t reach the high standards of its competitors.
Should You Download It?
We would not recommend you download this app, this is a very tough market, there are a stack of notably excellent photo editing apps and this one is just not good enough, at the moment. With the release of iPhoto by Apple and Adobe’s Photoshop Touch, this app has a lot to live up to and sadly it doesn’t. Hopefully the developers can pull out all the stops and step this up by adding some more features as it does have good potential.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
