Drone-powered aerial photography has a bad reputation thanks to drones with guns, but it’s not always death and destruction. Flying robots have been capturing some amazing photography from above and now they have a home at Dronestagr.am. Not all of the photos are taken by “drones” so even if you have a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) or even a kite with a camera attachment you can share your photos at Dronstagr.am.

The photos are stunning – once I stopped caring about privacy issues, it was easy to take a ten minute aerial vacation over Vancia, France over to the Kintzheim over to the beautiful Coco Palm Bodu Hithi in the Maldives. A search on the public site showed zero results for Fan Francisco – a place I know that is teeming with professional and amateur drone builders. There’s even a drone store on my block! Evidently there are few San Franciscans willing to be social with their drone photos. Read more

Snap Fashion is tapping into our inner sartorial selves – the one that sees an outfit but doesn’t know how to replicate it without bankrupting our lunch budget. Simply take a photo with your phone, upload one, or use the Snap It button when web-browsing, and Snap Fashion’s image robots will do the rest.

Like other image recognition software, it’s not perfect. Sometimes, you might not find a perfect match or anything remotely close, but you’ll get something from the vast database of affiliated content which matches items based on cut, color, and style. You can then choose to buy the item immediately or just add to favorites for later. Read more

Sometimes, you need to get flashy with your photographs. When the need arises, you can use this External Flash app that lets you share your iPhone’s flash with up to 16 iPhones without buying an extra device. Sharing is caring right? The more friends you have around the brighter the photos – but don’t let that stop you. Grab a stranger and download this app for some experimental bonding photography.
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If you are not impressed with your smart phones’ ability to take photos in low light, you’ll be happy to see the iBlazr. It’s an LED flash that connects to standard 3.5mm audio jacks.

Here are the specs:

Iblazr has the most efficient LEDs in their size. It provides over 100 lux on 1m in video mode (x7 than iPhone) and more than 180 lux in flash mode (x4 than iPhone). The state of the art optics has just 1mm in thickness but provides a 60 degrees beam.

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It would be pretty impractical to continually dodge things if levitation was easy, but this Levitagram  app can give you that illusion with just your phone’s camera. Just take two photos using a sturdy platform or tripod and erase any unwanted items supporting your floating subject. If you are familiar with Photoshop, this works similarly to masking layers.
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Google’s latest vision for Google Plus is focused on images – and the use of artificial intelligence. Imagine a team of Google robots meticulously fixing your wrinkles, making everyone smile in photos they didn’t actually smile in, and changing the sky to make it a tad more perfect. Am I the only one who thinks it’s borderline creepy?

Let’s take a closer look at the major changes coming to Google Plus Photos.

Auto Backup

Google is expanding its free data storage and that’s a great thing. Just like Gmail, the company is using its vast supply of servers to maintain your data for you, and if you are comfortable with that, you can get it 15GB for free (with free backup). Given the increase in resolution of new phone cameras and digital cameras, 15GB might not be a lot for serious photographers. Read more

Looking for images to post on your blog?

The new site Imgembed lets you browse over one million images by keywords and find images you can embed for free. As you can see by the keyboard photograph embedded above, the site gives you an embed code with the artist’s name in the frame–a great way to credit the photographer behind your image. Check it out:

Imgembed allows image creators to track where their images are being used and set permissions to every website using them. Users can use images for free by promoting the creator or pay for premium use by the actual number of impressions displayed.

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Cycloramic is releasing its new app this week, so you can continue to impress your friends with a rotating iPhone that can now take its own hands-free panoramic photos.

Version 2 offers a high definition panoramic photo mode in addition to the original video mode. For iPhone 5 users, this can be done hands-free, as with the video option. Other iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users will be able to use the panoramic photo option in guided mode. Its unique sound and vibration guided system make it so simple to operate, that the user can take a panoramic photo even with their eyes closed!  Ultra fast and accurate stitching produces a seamless result in seconds. Furthermore, the app incorporates a 3D viewer that stores images directly to the phone’s library.

Unfortunately, the new update does not rotate iPhone 4 models but there are users out there experimenting with various hacks to improve the app. Check out this great video on how to make your iPhone 5 spin faster for a more polished video – using tape.

If you are still shooting your photos with a 35mm camera, digitizing your film is about to get really, really easy. Lomography’s latest Kickstarter campaign turns your smart phone into a 35mm scanner. This scanner is a lot smarter than other scanners, it can crop and edit your film into animated gifs. You can also share your physical-to-digital images to any one of your social network.

This project is a must-have for the Lomography store whose business in film camera will only benefit from having the means for every photographer to transfer his/her art into digital formats. There are a lot of details still missing from the Kickstarter page, such as the resolution of the scanned images, but you can certainly be sure that photo fiends such as myself are already planning on collecting a scanner for my Brownie if they ever make an 8mm scanner (please, please, please let this be true). This admittance makes me a bit of a lunatic – I know I should just hop on the Instagram train, but I just can’t stand the pre-made filters. Now I can distress my own film and share it on any photo app I want. Read more

The app store is inundated with all sorts of photo apps, most of them promising to make your photos look better, i.e. aged. Pip is different, its appeal is an obvious lack of vintage flare.

Users all over Asia have been enjoying all of its various photo-in-photo effects, and you might as well. Pip creators have been constantly adding to its palette of effects, so your digital scrapbook is always malleable and free. Their main selling point appears to be self-portraits but the effects can also be applied to cat photos, landscape scenes, and everything you’re eating today. Just apply any of the effects and Pip will superimpose them onto your photos. There’s no way to save the photos locally, but you can share them onto a number of social networks to impress your friends and photoshop gurus.

Via The Next Web