-Welcome to Tap That App.
I'm Jason Parker and this is the show where we cover the hottest apps in the mobile space.
This week we're showing off an image manipulation app that adds cool retro effects to your photos with a ton of variables to play with.
It's called Hipstamatic and it's a unique camera app and that is one of the only products at the app store that lets your experiment with lenses, types of film, and even flash effects to give you impressive results.
The interface is a little difficult to understand at first.
But once you get the basics, you'll be off and running, experimenting with all that Hipstamatic has to offer.
To get the best results of this app, start by choosing a retro-film type using the swiping motion to switch between films.
Then, use the lens selector to pick a lens.
Some will let in more light than others, so you need to experiment to get the desired effect.
Finally, pick a flash drive and you're ready to go.
From here, snap a picture and check out the results.
You'll quickly see that it's easy to create retro images that looked like they were taken over 30 years ago.
Even better, there are several retro effects to experiment with to get wildly different results.
After you've taken a few pictures with different configurations, you can browse your images to look at the different effects.
But don't worry if you forgot which effect to use for a specific image, just tap on the develop photo to see the configuration and then tap the camera icon at the bottom if you wanna use the same configuration again.
Another feature in Hipstamatic that's especially helpful is the ability to create stocks.
Once you've taken a bunch of photos of the same subject or at the same configuration or whether whatever criteria you want,
you can create a stock to keep them on one place.
Then you can tap on a stock to see the images fan out for easy browsing.
Like many apps in the iTunes app store, Hipstamatic offers an in-app store where you can buy film and lens packages that will add a few more effects to the app.
While you may be turned off by having to pay an extra 99 cents for a few more effects, once you get hooked on taking retro images, it will become worth the cash.
Even if you buy all the packages, it ends costing about $10.
So it all depends on how much you like taking retro photos.
To sum it up, the new iPhone 4 takes great images on its own.
But if you want something a little different, Hipstamatic offers several ways to create retro looking images.
If you're an amateur iPhone photographer, like I am, I definitely recommend you Tap This App.
That's it for this week's show.
If you have any suggestions, send them to tapthatapp@cnet.com.
I'm Jason Parker and we'll see you next week.
