There are plenty of photo apps in the Windows Phone Store for your Nokia Lumia so developers have to create something pretty special to stand out from the crowd.
Fhotoroom (free) distinguishes itself by having a trendy misspelt name and by virtue of having some awesome professional imaging features, being a photo effects editor and incorporating a social network all rolled into one.
The app was voted as the Community App Awards Best Photo App of 2012 and there is now a Windows Phone 8 version.
The imaging experience on the Nokia Lumia is already pretty special but with Fhotoroom you might be able to unlock even more of your creative potential.
Taking pictures
The camera mode on Fhotoroom offers an array of different shooting modes for you to choose from:
- Burst
- Timer
- Timelapse
- Macro
- Scenic
- Portrait
If you really know what you’re doing there are also options for auto-exposure and ISO settings.
A lot of these shooting modes, such as the auto-flash, already exist in your Lumia’s native camera experience. Arguably, Fhotoroom makes them much more accessible and simple to use.
However, if that doesn’t impress you, there’s also the photo editor.
Editing
You can explore the photo editing options either from the camera mode or directly from Fhotoroom’s start page.
The interface gives you one-touch access to over 75 different editing effects, custom frames and styles.
You can adjust, tweak, crop, rotate and fix any photo in the camera roll or in an album to your heart’s content. You can see the change to your photo as soon as you tap the screen to apply the effect – if you don’t like it just start again.
My favourite was the Tilt Shift effect, which can make your photo look like a magical and miniature toy model in 3D.
On some desktop photo tools, tilt shifting can be quite tricky and complicated to pull off, but it’s remarkably simple here.
The Fhotoroom Network
If advanced shooting modes and a plethora of editing options is not enough to impress you, Fhotoroom is also a social network where you can share your photos and see other people’s images too.
In fact, the app opens displaying the recent images that have been posted by members of Fhotoroom’s social network. To upload images yourself, you’ll need to sign up first though.
Once you have signed up for the Fhotoroom account (it’s free and you only need an email address) then you can also upload your photos to other services such as Flickr, Twitter and Facebook.
Whether the world needs another photo-based social network is open to debate but it cannot be denied that it works well here, and the mosaic-style interface of recent or tagged photos looks delightful.
The clincher for me is that you can also use these photo feeds from the Fhotoroom’s social network on your Lumia’s lock screen. You can choose from recent, popular, interesting or search for your own tag, say #London.
There will be other apps that can offer you photo modes, effects editing and a social network. But very few that can offer you all three in such an attractive package.