App Review: Cross Process by Nick Campbell
Price: $0.99
Website: www.crossprocessapp.com
This new product from the developer of one of my all-time favorite apps, ShakeItPhoto, has been getting lots of use on my iPhone over the past week. The first thing you need to know is that Cross Process produces great results on any current iPhone model. Long-time users of that earlier Polaroid/instant photo app will recall that it was better suited to the cameras on the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G. When used on an iPhone 3GS, most photos were darker with stronger contrasts and often, too much solid black.
Like ShakeItPhoto, it features a minimal operating interface. Start the app up, and you're immediately presented with the standard camera module. Shoot a photo, and you're asked to accept or reject it. And like ShakeItPhoto, the moment you click on "Use", you're treated to an animation of the photo sliding into view, complete with the antiquated sounds of a camera mechanism. Should you decline to take a photo, the app brings you to a screen where you may choose an existing photo to process, or change some settings.
Cross Process features four preset operations: Basic, Red, Blue, and Green. Each one subtly enhances photos with a mild vignette (which I suspect is slightly randomized), fine-grained noise, a boost in contrast, brightness, and saturation, and in the case of the three colored effects, a shift in the hues that make up the character of a scene. This is, of course, where Cross Process gets its name, nevermind that in the lingo of real film, cross-processing is slightly more complicated than applying a dominant color. The app randomly selects one of the four effects to apply, and the choice is visually indicated upon the frame of the "developing" photograph that slides into view.
Everything that I have described up till now, the slight increase in brightness, the deepening of the blacks, and the application of a color tint, is handled with incredible delicacy. This is not a tool that will please those addicted to the kind of highly saturated and overexposed commercial photography that is accompanied by words like "extreme" and "vibrant". Don't misunderstand, the differences between Cross Process' original and final prints are significant. But they reflect a tasteful and understated approach to image processing that is wholly appropriate for an app that seeks to replicate the organic and analog nature of film. These looks are applied gradually from the corners with varying levels of intensity, and there's a roundness and a softness to the output that defies the usual digital approach of throwing a flat mask across the length of an entire image.
In almost every instance in which I have applied Cross Process to a photo, I have been rewarded with a pleasing richness of color and a noticeable sense of warmth in the scene. The only exception is the Red filter, which has a strong personality of its own, and should only be used in the specific instances where your judgment calls for an almost monochrome look. In the settings screen, one may selectively deactivate any of the four filters, as well as choose to include a white border and/or save a copy of the original photos alongside their processed counterparts.
Verdict: Produces beautiful results with subtlety and restraint, approximates the look of film with warmth and rich color tones, is exceptionally easy to use, and fast. Cross Process deserves our first-ever Editor's Choice award.
Rating: 5 / 5 (Editor's Choice)
Buy Cross Process in the iTunes App Store:
To see some examples of Cross Process in use, select the "Cross Process" tag on this site's sidebar.
Comments 8 Comments
But, of course, Nick did a fcking great job :)