You can use StoryZ for free, but if you find that you have more of a talent for it than we do then there’s also StoryZ Premium, which for a monthly subscription removes adverts and watermarks, increases the allowable length of videos in Motion mode, improves the toolset in Ripple mode and lets you save and share in high resolution.Ī truly great camera app arguably needs to both avoid clutter and be packed full of manual controls, so you can capture an image exactly as you want it, but that’s a tough balance to strike, and few manage. The best ones will be featured on the home page and competition page of the app. StoryZ also holds contests with specific themes, such as ‘stairs’ or ‘sand’, which you can enter by submitting a relevant creation. In both cases it can be hard to make the effect look convincing, but it’s doable, as evidenced by all the impressive public submissions shared on the app. The ‘Motion’ mode, which lets you blend a video with a photo, leaves you with an ‘image’ that’s partially static and partially in motion. This can be an effective way to make it look like water or smoke is moving for example, or simply to add a slightly trippy effect to things that you might expect to be static. The first of these is ‘Ripple’, a mode which lets you add motion to a static image by drawing the area and direction that you want the motion to happen.
StoryZ Photo Motion & Cinemagraph is a photo editing Android app in two parts. We’re not fans of paying a subscription for a camera app, but if any such app is worth it, it’s Pixtica.
And that would be fine, except the app opts for a subscription fee (of $1.25/£1.25 for one month with discounts for six months or a year) rather than being available as a one-off purchase. The payment gets you other things too, but those are the main things that make the purchase close to essential if you plan to use Pixtica. However, while many of the functions are free, you have to pay to unlock higher resolutions and to remove watermarks when using filters. There are all sorts of other modes too, whether you’re taking photos or shooting video, and the app is laid out intuitively. It’s packed full of features, including numerous filters, a GIF recorder, panorama, hyperlapse, manual controls, and oddities such as a ‘Planet’ mode, which warps images into a sphere-like shape using Pixtica’s “advanced stereographic projection algorithm”. Camera apps vary a lot, and their success largely depends on your phone make and model, but Pixtica is a decent option if you’re looking for something new. Pixtica is one of many tools hoping to replace your phone’s default camera app. Our favorite Android apps for shooting, sorting and editing photos and videos.
The best Android camera apps and photo editors It’s also totally free, though you can pay to remove adverts and support the developer. So it’s an app that’s worth running from time to time. You might also want to check that the seals are still intact if you’ve sent your phone to be repaired. Of course, you probably already know whether your phone was water resistant when you bought it or not, but water resistance can deteriorate over time, or after dropping your phone. Glowing reviews on the Google Play Store show that we’re not alone in finding its assessment accurate either.
While we can’t speak to the science of that, we can say that the app appears to work, in that when testing it on a phone we know to be water resistant it said as much (at least, once we removed the case it did, as cases can and did interfere with the test). According to the app, the changes in pressure will be minimal if there’s no water resistance seal. It does this by using the barometer in your phone to measure pressure changes when you press firmly on the screen. Water Resistance Tester is a simple but potentially very useful app, which could save your phone from suffering water damage.Īll it does is tell you whether or not your phone is water resistant. (Image credit: Ray W) Water Resistance Tester