Tag Archives: Applications

New Filter – Solarisation

We’ve updated CrazyLens, adding a new filter – Solarisation – essentially a reversal in tone of your image – dark areas are light, light areas are dark, but the color is generally preserved. There isn’t any special configuration for this effect.

Here’s what it  looks like:

This is a free update for users that have bought previous versions of CrazyLens – just fire up the Market application on your device, click the menu button, select My Apps, and click Crazy Lens to download and install the update!

Playing with the Vortex effect

The vortex effect in Crazy Lens has 2 settings that provide a wide range of customization to suit your own needs. In order to change the values, start Crazy Lens, click the menu button on your device to bring up the options menu, and select Settings.

The two settings that we’ll be changing are the Vortex Inner Radius and Vortex Outer Radius. You can click and drag the slider to change the values.

Before getting into specific values and what they look like, there is some general looks you can expect. When the inner radius is lower than the outer radius, it will look like your main subject is coming out of, and twisting around the center of the photo. See the first 3 images in the gallery below as examples. When the outer radius is lower than the inner radius, it will look like your main subject is getting pulled in towards the center of the photo. See the last 2 images in the gallery below as examples.

  • Image 1 shows Inner radius 28, Outer radius 200
  • Image 2 shows Inner radius 20, Outer radius 147 (default setting)
  • Image 3 shows Inner radius 20, Outer radius 37
  • Image 4 shows Inner radius 198, Outer radius 100
  • Image 5 shows Inner radius 103, Outer radius 24

Crazy Lens Update available on the Android market

We’ve released the first update to our Crazy Lens Android application. If you’ve already installed Crazy Lens, the android market application on your device will notify you automatically.

We’ve lowered the overall memory footprint of the application, as well as fixing some crashing issues, as well as an issue saving to the SD card on some devices.

Check it out on the Android market!

Crazy Lens Quick Start

Our newest app, Crazy Lens, is live on the android market! This post is a quick guide on how to use it.

Changing the applied transform:

Simply swipe to the left or to the right to switch to a different transform. The application will automatically cycle back to the first transform when you swipe past the last one.

Changing the image:

The first time you run the application, it will load a sample image of some rocks so you can get started right away. When you are ready to use your own image, click on the menu button of your device, and select the “Change Picture” menu item. This will launch your device’s Gallery application to allow you to choose an image to use. Most device’s gallery applications also provide a way to capture a new image using your device’s integrated camera. Simply choose (or create) the image you want to transform, and Crazy Lens will load it up, and remember your choice next time it launches.

Changing transform effects:

Three of the included effects allow you to alter some of their settings. To access the settings screen, click on the menu button of your device, and select the “Settings” menu item.

Pixellate – Use the slider to select a number from 1 to 15 – the smaller the number the less pixellation – in fact a value of 1 results in an image that matches your original. The larger the number the greater the pixellation – by default Crazy Lens uses a value of 10.

Mirror – Choose either Horizontal or Vertical for mirroring. An imaginary line is drawn across the center either horizontally or vertically, and the mirroring is applied. In the horizontal case, the area below the imaginary line will be transformed to mirror the portion above the line. In the vertical case, the area to the right of the line will be transformed to mirror the portion to the left. By default Crazy Lens uses Vertical mirroring.

Vortex – There are 2 settings available to use for this effect, one is called inner radius and the other is called outer radius. Allowable values range from 1 to 200, and these are just the type that you have to play with to really see the result. By default Crazy Lens uses an inner radius of 20 and an outer radius of 140 – this achieves a nice swirling vortex effect while still being able to tell what the original image may have looked like. A future post will have some other settings and what they may look like.

Saving the result:

You can save an image that has the effect applied to it by clicking the menu button on your device, and selecting the “Save” menu item. Your original image will remain unchanged, the new image will be saved to your SD Card in a “Crazy Lens” directory using a file name that is similar to your original file name, but with the name of the transformation also added. The Gallery application on your device is notified of the new image, so you can view it right away in there as well.

Announcing Crazy Lens

Crazy Lens is the first application to be released by Liftoff Media. It is a photo transformation application for your Android powered mobile device. In the first version, you can apply any one of five crazy effects to an image that is on your device, and save the result.

Here are the available transforms in this first release:

Vortex – an effect similar to works by the artist MC Escher, and also referred to as the Droste effect, this effect rotates the image using 2 different radii from the center of the photo. The application settings start with defaults for the two values, but allow you to change them to something that works for you. Look for a future post with some popular values to use.

Pixellate – achieve a cool retro gaming 8 bit style photo by enlarging sections of your photo into larger “pixels” – This effect is customizable to give you a larger degree (or smaller degree) of pixellation.

Inverse – an effect that’s similar to a reverse negative.

Grayscale – convert any full color image to a classy grayscale look.

Mirror – creates an imaginary dividing line across the center of your image, and mirrors everything on to the opposite site. You can either choose to have that imaginary line cut horizontally across your image or vertically down the image.

Not pictured above is a UV Filter effect, which displays an untouched version of your image for comparison purposes.

More transformations are in development, look for them in a future update. The app is only 99 cents, download it now from the Android Market.