QuickAdvice: CamKewl - All-In-One Photography App With A Twist - Plus, Win a Promo Code!
CamKewl ($0.99) by Pannag R Sanketi is an all-in-one camera app with some unique features. CamKewl has the ability to accent photos with multi-touch painting, Date/Time stamp, and One-1 and One-Z. This is in addition to more typical features such as a timer, swipe-to-zoom, full-screen shutter, Blitz (three rapid consecutive shots), Black and White, Sepia, and more.
The first thing you’ll notice is the slick UI. It is very Apple-like, consisting of a dock full of icons that bounce when you select them, no less. This is how you access B&W, Blitz (triple shot), Date/Time, One-1 (a single shot plus a B&W shot taken in rapid succession), One-Z (a regular shot plus a 2X zoom shot taken in rapid succession), Self-Timer, and Sepia. Tap one of the icons and the entire menu comes up, so you can mix and match your options.
On 4th generation iDevices, you get the usual flash options and camera turn-around icons, just like with the native camera. In addition, there is a flashlight icon (Torch Mode) to turn the iPhone 4 flash on and keep it on like a flashlight.
In addition, you can swipe the screen with two fingers to bring up another menu of features. The stack-of-photos icon on the top left opens up the Accenting mode. Tap the icon; it brings you to your photo library. Select a photo for Accenting. You get four paintbrush sizes and four colors from which to choose: red, green, blue, or grey. Paint your photo as desired. Truthfully, I did not find this feature as fun as I thought it would be. I found the controls difficult to use, and I’m fairly accustomed to drawing and painting with my finger on my iPhone. Colorsplash does a better job w/the selective B&W painting, but in that app you can’t add new colors like you can with CamKewl.
The top right icon on the “swipe” menu is Help. The bottom left icon brings up the same menu as the dock below. The bottom right video camera icon opens up -- you guessed it -- the video camera, if your device has one.
There are various multi-finger taps and swipes and shakes that do a bunch of things -- I won’t get into them all here, but if you are a gestures person, you’ll want to study those sections in the app’s help menu. I’m more of an icon gal myself, and I was able to get around fine with just an occasional swipe.
CamKewl is a decent all-around camera app with plenty of useful and fun features. Some are found in plenty of other camera apps (like the free app GorillaCam), but others, like the date/time stamp and color accenting, are not.
The developer tells me that an update coming soon will include Image Stabilization and the ability to zoom and pan in Accenting for more control.
Comment below or retweet for your chance to win one of 10 promo codes. You must have a U.S. iTunes account. Contest ends October 9, noon EDT. Good luck!
