I’m a photography buff and while I don’t take a ton of pictures on my phone, (mostly because my HTC One M9 has a mediocre camera), I can certainly appreciate a camera phone’s use when you’re in a pinch and without a real camera. The good news, though, is that there are a multitude of camera phone apps out there that will transform your crummy camera phone pic (generally you non-Apple phone users) into something worth keeping, possibly sharing, and looking at more than once. Then I read about Prisma.
Apparently, Prisma has been out in the iOS world for a little while and although I never heard about it until recently, I think it looks like a very cool tool for camera-phone photographers and it is now available on Android.
The main focus of Prisma is using filters to enhance your photo, but herein lies the rub – their filters are “using the styles of famous artists: Van Gogh, Picasso, Levitan, as well as world famous ornaments and patterns“. So, while most camera-phone apps do have filters for you to apply, Prisma’s are decidedly different.
If you go to their Instagram Page, you can see some of the results.
Now, there is a little downside to using Prisma. Because the app is brand new to Android users, there are the usual “new app” glitches – unbearable slowness right now for Android users, annoying use of a watermark on the transformed images (which can be removed), and some interface problems. There is also something in their Terms of Use agreement that includes the following paragraph:
Rights
Prisma does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Prisma a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you stylize on or through the Service, subject to the Service’s Privacy Policy, available here http://prisma-ai.com/privacy/, including but not limited to sections 3 (“Sharing of Your Information”) and 4 (“How We Store Your Information”). Some of the Service is supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions, and you hereby agree that Prisma may place such advertising and promotions on the Service or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content. The manner, mode and extent of such advertising and promotions are subject to change without specific notice to you.
This is a thorn in many photographers’ sides because it deals with more than just the images you post somewhere that might get stolen and reused – it deals with images you simply create with the app. If you’re okay with that, and it appears many folks are, Prisma is pretty much exploding for Android users right now. If you do choose to download it, you might want to try transforming your image in the middle of the night or some such hour when everyone in the Android universe isn’t trying to do the same thing. So far, I haven’t been able to complete an image transformation, but I intend to keep on trying. According to some user comments in the Google Apps store, the app is quite simply, MIND BLOWING. Let me know if you think so too.
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