afterfocus

We are delighted to publish Jerry Jobe’s latest mobile photography/art tutorial for our reading and viewing pleasure. This time Jobe takes a look at the app AfterFocus. Read his thoughts as he puts it through its paces (foreword by Joanne Carter).

AfterFocus retails for $0.99/£0.79 and you can download it here.

If you’re familiar with shooting with an SLR, whether digital or not, you know that a wider aperture (a smaller number, f2 vs. f11 for example) will result in a narrower depth of field (area that remains in focus). The iPhone lens does not generally shoot in the widest apertures, so you lose that ability to set off your subject with lens blur. But editing apps can remedy that situation by allowing you to add blur back to your photos.

Big Lens has been my go-to app for adding blur; it was covered back in January 2013. A few months prior to that, Dilshad Corleone covered today’s app, After Focus by Motion One, on The App Whisperer (see here). I recently added After Focus to my iOS devices, after hearing good things about it. As you should expect, there are features that After Focus does better, and others that Big Lens does better.

After Focus is built for the iPhone (and also for Android), and does not have a separate iPad interface. Because my eyesight doesn’t allow for fine adjustments on the iPhone screen, the screenshots come from my iPad running the app at 2X. That will account for the pixelization in the screenshots.

After Focus comes up with a screen that allows you to choose your input: Camera, Photo Library, or something called “Double Take”. We will look at “Double Take” first.