cute & clever & not very useful

This app works in a very limited sense: it turns your iPad into a light table and you can adjust the temperature of the backlight. That can be handy. The rest of the package is gimmicky, although creatively and cleverly executed.

To use the app as designed, you actually need both an iPad and an iPhone (for the camera) or better yet, an iPad and a digital camera of some sort. Theres a video demonstration on the developer’s site (that, amusingly, requires a Flash player to watch).

The reality is that to get any remotely good results with this tool:
1) you need a plate of very clean glass to flatten out the film strips you lay on the iPad
2) you need a copy stand or tripod to hold everything rigidly still and position the iPhone (or camera) perpendicular to the iPad

Of course, if you do have all those things and use a high resolution camera with good optics and perfect focus, you’re likely to actually resolve the LCD grid of the iPad display and get some vicious moire through the transparency. Maybe if you placed a diffuser beneath the strip? This is getting complicated.

Its a toy. Its very cute and nicely executed, but not very useful.

martin doudoroff about HelloPhoto