iPhone Apps - Color Splash
Knowing that you can add color splash for free in Photobucket (you can read the tutorial on Online Tech Tips),
I decided to find the best free app to Color Splash my pictures directly from
my iPod. This is something fairly easy to do that can be done for free in a
computer, so, I was not going to pay to be able to do it on my iPod. Thus, I downloaded
the most popular free apps. Most of them offer Color Splash for free but there are premium versions of these apps that have more effects and features. I used the picture in my About Me page and colored the same thing (my watch) with all the apps, to be
able to see the difference.
In general, some apps wouldn’t even let me use my pictures (Colors Pro HD); with
the free version you could only use a default picture. With others I could upload my own photos, but their
controls leave much to be desired. For example, in Color Effects and Dash of Color you can't control the brush size; with TouchOfColor Free you can't actually do anything properly; in ColorUp Lite, when you zoom, the app becomes unresponsive; with ColorBlast! Lite you can only undo unce (otherwise is a nice app); with iQuickSplash - Splash Colors! you have to select the region you want with color and then the app edits it, if you don't like it, you have to go back and edit the region you have selected; and in Paint FX Free you can do the opposite: paint the picture gray and leave untouched the part of the photo you want to have color, but once something is gray, you can't easily bring it back to its original color.
In the end the best app turned out to be
Illusion Hand Free. Unfortunately, this app uses OpenGL ES 2.0 and is not
supported by every iPod or iPhone. That’s why I will also review the second
best app: Photo Splash.
Illusion Hand Free
Requirements (written by The Developers): "Illusion Hand Free uses OpenGL ES 2.0 technology which is
only supported on iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4. Unfortunately iPhone 3G and other
earlier models are NOT supported. It's the hardware limitation. Sorry for the inconvenience!"
Rating: 
Review:
I fell so in love with this app, I’m thinking about buying
the premium version! I still haven’t because I don’t know if I’ll use it often.
If I do I’ll post a review.
Illusion Hand Free does what it is supposed to and more. It
has some options and controls I wasn’t expecting but found myself missing while
I was trying the other apps.
The first app that I tried had a button to move the photo.
With Illusion Hand Free you need to use two fingers to move the picture around. At first I didn’t
like this because I would use one finger to move the picture and ended up
coloring it. It took me some time to adjust, but after I did I saw the brilliance
behind it. If you have a button to move the photo you have to click the menu,
click the button, move the picture, click the menu again, unselect the button
and then you can keep coloring. With Illusion Hand Free you are coloring, use two fingers to
move the picture and keep coloring.
Illusion Hand Free also has a brush picker. This allows to choose the size
and saturation of the brush and it gives you the opportunity to choose between
sharp or blurred edges.
But, what makes this app different is that it has a “CSI
lamp (to see what you paint in red light)” and the ability to “Take a snapshot
as a draft (to be modified later)”. The lamp is useful when what you’re
coloring that has something light, dark or of the same color, right next to it.
When the lamp is on what you have in color will turn red and you’ll be able to
see if you have painted outside of the borders. This feature was a nice
surprised and turned out to be super useful. In the photo I was editing my
watch has a shiny surface that reflected my skin color. At first I wasn’t sure
where my arm ended and the watch began. This feature helped me a lot.
The snapshot feature is great because you can save what you
have done up until that point and finish later.
All of these features are divided between a top and a bottom
menu. This menus can be hidden by touching the picture one time.
This app also give you the opportunity to choose the resolution
in which you want the photo to be saved and to share your creations from within
the app with Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. I haven’t tried this last feature
because I don’t like sharing my passwords anywhere.
Photo Splash
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS
4.3 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.
Rating: 
Review:
This is a really good app; it has the basics features to do
what it says. You can choose the brush size, undo and share to Instagram and
Facebook or through email. In this app two fingers are needed to move the
picture.
Something that this app has, that Illusion Hand Free doesn’t,
is the ability to edit pictures from you Facebook albums.
However, this app lacks the "CSI Lamp" and "Snapshot" features
and has advertisements. It has an ad banner bellow the top menu. Also, the
menus and the ad banner cannot be hidden.
This is a good app, it does what it’s supposed too. But it
doesn’t excel at it.
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