Moku Hanga, ShockMyPic and TangledFX iPhone Photography/Art Apps – Comparison

Here’s an example of a flower shot after being tuned in Snapseed. It’s great for enhancing the water droplets, though a bit heavy handed so I plan to blend.

Basically lets say Shock is great for any kind of nature shots and more. The above image represents the largest setting, right is least amount of Shock.

Tangled is a fairly recent app. It’s got a huge variety of presets and settings. Recent updates made it possible to name and save settings, a very big help as it does have so many choices. Here we’ll discuss the use of Tangled as a high res solution to a Shock like effect. It’s not quite the same but all the attributes this app has make it worth trying and learning about.

Tangled- after you choose an image and a preset, which are the named tabs in blue at the bottom. To raise the menu of fine settings where you can modify and finally save your own presets hit the orange tune tab in right corner. Now you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Note that there’s an option to preview at lower res so it goes faster. But I find the high res setting quite a bit different output than low res so I only work at high.

The peony image above left is from the Tangled Swirl setting, no adjustment. The right is from Shock at lightest setting.

You’ll notice that Tangled FX has adjustments that effect color and saturation and much more. I have made myself 5 setting presets so that I can quickly adjust my images. However I still find that I go to Shock often. While Tangled does great effects I still prefer the volume and light and shadow enhancement from Shock. I’ve even used both on the same image.

The above is my setting for “light like Shock”. It’s quite subtle. Most of the wispy little lines and webs have been lost in this setting.

To show the extreme range of effects I’ve used the same image. This one is called Fibers Harsh.

A sample setting of the very light effect when I started with the Swirls setting and adjusted the sliders to make it almost invisible. I suggest working with three different images and lots of trial and error. The type of image really makes a difference when making your presets.

Tangled FX is certainly worth putting the time in with to build your library of presets and effects. Like Shock it has great possibilities when doing more abstract works. That’s for another post.

Moku Hanga, a Jixipix app, is another very rich in possibilities. It has some strong similarities to our other two apps if you choose to use it as such. It’s also very dense in possible styles and settings.

This above is our flower opened in the Landscape 2 preset in Moku Hanga. It’s under Multi- Block style section. You can see the similarities to the other two apps.

After choosing style there’s Adjust. Play. The biggest effect choice here is the black boost. I find its always worth checking both. It’s unpredictable what benefits your image here. It’s time consuming and I find its been well worth it. Then move on to the huge paper and border choices. I often go the plainest paper with no border. Yet it’s never a quick style and go!

Examples of Moku choices. There are way too many to show but you get the idea. Yes, you can use it to behave like shock but you can do so much more too.

This is the blue highlighted preset.

This is same image in the Multi-Color choice area. Blue, green, pink setting..

This is the same but with black boost on.

The above is our earlier flower in Multi Block setting and Multi Color setting. Great fun but I must say the major drawback is the saving time. You could bake a cake while you wait.

Hipstamatic shot of my road put through ShockMyPic.

TangledFx version. Settings as shown, very slight, but definitely adding to the image.

Moku HD Multi-block setting with black boost on. The woodcut print inspiration is quite strong in this setting sets.

Moku landscape setting, Hipstamatic shot.

Same image ShockMyPic.

In conclusion I think these are all good apps which can be of similar use but are also quite different and can stand on their own. I wish Shock would be in high res and a lighter effect but its not going to be. It is available for Macs and I’ve tried it. It’s fabulous but I won’t edit on my Mac.

I think Tangled FX is fabulous and has huge range and great features, however it’s not quite as close to Shock effect as I wished. Close though!

Moku HD is an amazing app and I’m happy to say I’ve used it in several of my most favored images and sold some. Use it as a Shock like app or even more valuable as an amazingly powerful image maker in its own woodcut like style. Be prepared with another activity to do while its processing. I’ve fallen asleep waiting a few times.

You can always blend them two or three all together or any combination. Enjoy!

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