Photogene has long been one of the better photo editing apps for the iPad, but a new update – version 2.0 – turns it into arguably the best around. First I'll run through the main features, and then tell you about the new stuff, which includes non-destructive editing, something only usually found in desktop software costing hundreds of dollars.
Like most iPad photo apps, you can apply a whole lot of tweaks familiar from desktop applications like Photoshop. Photogene lets you tweak the contrast, curves and levels, change saturation, white-balance, add sharpness, reduce noise and the like. It also has a effects section (called "Enhance") which contains various frames, blurs and vignettes, along with a whole pocketful of strange filters, speech bubbles and crops.
But what sets it apart is the UI. It doesn't have a revolutionary layout, but it is dead easy – and fast – to use. The buttons are big enough to hit with fingers, transitions are slick and quick and you can do a lot of what you'd do in, say, Lightroom on a Mac or PC. A great example of the user friendliness is the curves tool, which puts the contrast-curve over the top of the picture so you can drag and add points right over the photo as you see it. It made me smile when I first saw it.
Finally, there is an embarrassment of export options: You get Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, vanilla FTP, copy-to-clipboard, email and plain ol' local save.
So what's new? Quite a lot, as it turns out. The first thing you'll see is a custom photo-browser. Instead of the iPad's crappy built-in browser, you get a great full-screen browser with big thumbnails. All your regular albums, faces, events and places are here, just bigger and better, and this is where you do batch exports (now up to 8MP each). You can also view metadata, including GPS info. The only problem here is the font used for album titles: too bold and ugly.
Open a photo from here and you edit with all of the above, plus a new clone tool (which works exactly like the one in Lightroom), a heal tool (similar to clone, but cleverer).
But the real meat here is the lossless editing. Just like Lightroom and Photoshop, Photogene doesn't change your original files. Import a RAW (or JPEG) from your camera and you can edit as much as you like without the original being touched – all the edits are stored in the app, and can be reset at any time, even in the far future. Edits are only "baked-in" when you export a picture. All your edits are reflected in the thumbnails, too, so they show up when browsing your catalog.
Like I said, this update adds some really big features, but take the app for a test drive. The interface has been tweaked so much that even if you tried it once and didn't like it, you should give it another shot. It's almost unbelievable that it packs so much in, weighs just 2MB and costs only $4.
Photogene for iPad [iTunes]
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