Pic Noir Puts An Interesting Spin On Photo Editing Elements

Pic Noir ($2.99) by Applause PTY LTD is a photo editor focused on, but not limited to, allowing you to tinker with the color in your photos. It combines the traditional Color Splash concept with Pic Noir’s “Noir Effect,” and uses Instagram’s idea of square, framed photos. Along with this, it also includes basic adjustments that most photo editing apps support.

With Pic Noir, the App Store photos show no actual screenshots of the app, so I expected it to be fairly complex before downloading it. Contrary to my assumption, Pic Noir only has one editing screen with a six-buttoned tab bar along the bottom. Each button brings up a panel for that specific photo editing aspect, and unlike a lot of other apps, all of the effects are applied in real time. This definitely speeds up the editing process, since you won’t have to wait for each effect to load.

Pic Noir supports five types of editing functions. First, the Noir Effect makes the photo black and white, and provides the ability to adjust the shape and size of the ellipsis related to the vignette effect. Next, there is the ability to apply color to specific areas of the photo, however, this slightly differs from concepts that we’ve seen in other apps. Rather then exposing parts of the original color of the photo, an overlay of the color of your choice can be stroked onto the photo. Finally, there are adjustment options for the grain, brightness and contrast, as well as basic black or white frames to choose from. If the Noir Effect does not suit the photo, there are also a series of filters to choose from. Although they’re not the best, most of them will not ruin the photo, and are much better than those that are going to ship with iOS 7.

The app has all of the expected export options, but there are a few issues with them. To begin with, although this is not necessarily an issue, it is without a doubt an inconvenience that native Facebook support has been left out. Developers have had access to the API for iOS’ built-in Facebook support for over a year, so logging in within the app should not be a requirement at this point. Also, the “Open in …” option is labeled as “Instagram,” with the “More Apps” button bringing up a list of other apps by the developer. This certainly confused me. Other than this, the share options work quickly without an immense amount of loading.

If you can deal with these small hiccups, the rest of your overall experience with the app should be pleasant. Unlike most photo editing apps that I try, I will actually be keeping this one around. You can get Pic Noir on your iPhone for $2.99 in the App Store.