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TiltShift Video (iOS) review: Makes cool videos, but missing key features
The app that lets you fine-tune each element that goes into the tilt-shift effect is great for creating cool videos, but it lacks some very basic tools.
Jason Parker
Senior Editor / Reviews - Software
Jason Parker has been at CNET for nearly 15 years. He is the senior editor in charge of iOS software and has become an expert reviewer of the software that runs on each new Apple device. He now spends most of his time covering Apple iOS releases and third-party apps.
TiltShift Video is an app that does a great job of giving your photos and videos that miniaturized effect, but it's missing a couple of basic features that would make it easier to use.
TiltShift Video (iOS)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
When you first launch the app, you can choose to start a video or photo project, but you can't use the app to shoot a new video or take a picture. That's a pretty big annoyance because you're going to need to shoot everything before even opening the app.
From there, the app lets you make a number of adjustments to give your image or video the tilt-shift effect. Using buttons on the left side of the interface, you can adjust blur, saturation, contrast, and brightness, and you can apply a vignette to make the edges of the photo or video fade to black. You also can set the width of the focal area with pinch gestures using an onscreen overlay as a guide. On the right side of the screen there are buttons for adding intro and outro titles, editing the movie's length, and a place to save and upload presets. The presets come in handy because you can make all your adjustments, save them, then apply the same look to multiple videos or photos. If you are a bit overwhelmed by all the onscreen controls, there's also a way to walk through the process step-by-step by using next and previous arrows at the bottom.
If you want to add a little more to your videos, TiltShift Video lets you give your project a soundtrack with a few included songs or you can just pick a favorite from your music library. You also have the option to adjust the speed of the video. With the right music to complement action on the screen, you can make some really cool videos.
When you're finished making your adjustments, you can touch the green check mark to render your video. The process only takes a few seconds on my iPhone 5 and what results is a great looking tilt-shift video. The only problem is, there are no sharing options in the app. Sure, you could save it to your Camera Roll and then share it, but -- like the lack of camera controls -- it just seems like it would be easier to include ways to send to Twitter, Facebook, SMS, or even through e-mail. There's also no way back to editing once you render your video, so if you want to make adjustments after seeing the final rendered product, you'll need to start over from scratch.
TiltShift Video performs its primary purpose very well, letting you adjust all the elements that make the tilt-shift effect on both photos and videos. If only there were an in-app camera and a simple sharing tool, using the app would be much more convenient.