I have been taking photos on the iPhone for 5 years. I can not call myself a professional in the field of photography, but during this time I tried a bunch of software for shooting and processing images on the iPhone, so I stuffed a lot of cones on it.
Most of the applications are not unique. As a rule, developers work in the same segments and do not particularly try to create something new. They copy all the same functions, simply changing the “wrapper” – the design and the interface. There are a lot of such programs, and they do not change our idea of photography in any way.
Another thing – the application VSCOcam. This is really an extraordinary, high-quality product, which was aimed at replacing a professional camera.
Company and app
VSCO is a company that employs people from Apple, MTV, Audi, Levi’s, Adobe, Sony. Together they make VSCOcam for iPhone, a VSCO Film image processing tool and a plug-in for Adobe Lightroom – VSCO Keys.
VSCOcam is not just a photo editor or an application for shooting. We can say that VSCOcam is Instagram “not for everyone”: with beautiful (really beautiful!) Filters, the ability to fine-tune the picture, weekly digests of the best photos and other attributes of a serious program.
The entire application is divided into several tabs: Camera, Library, Store, Discover, VIDEO, and Settings. Let’s dwell on each tab in detail.
Camera
Here you can take pictures with the built-in tools of the program. The possibilities of VSCO are more than enough. On the top panel – shooting settings (from left to right): flash, guide grid or square frame, “free-press” shooting mode for any part of the image, white balance lock, advanced shooting mode and interface theme choice – dark or light.
After setting all the necessary parameters, you can proceed to the shooting. Here everything is normal – point the phone at the desired object, focus, select the point of exposure and press the shutter button. When working in “free-press” mode, you can not adjust the focus and exposure – here all the hope lies in the automatic focus and the default white balance that is set correctly.
VSCOcam received an advanced shooting mode along with iOS 8, and in addition to the standard settings, you can manually adjust the ISO and shutter speeds. To select an option, click on the icon in the lower-left corner of the capture screen.
Library
We went to the Library tab, where all the pictures you worked on in VSCO are stored. They are displayed in the form of squares: 1 × 1 (Large), 2 × 2 (Medium) or 3 × 3 (Small). You can adjust the number of displayed images in the top panel. There you can choose which photos to show: all, marked, edited, not edited or synchronized by the “cloud”.
In VSCOcam 4.0, cloud synchronization between devices appeared. Now you can start to process the snapshot on one gadget, and continue on another. For example, start on the iPad, and continue on the Android-smartphone. The main thing is to log into your account on each device.
In the library, you can add not only the pictures taken in the application itself. When you click on “+” you get access to your “Camera Roll” iPhone and you can import the necessary photos from there.
One of the most important functions of the library is image management. Simply click on the photos you need and you upload them to your Grid (we’ll talk about it later), sync in the “cloud” between devices, share on social networks or delete.
Editing mode
To edit a picture, click on the corresponding button in the middle of the bottom panel. Here opens, perhaps, the most interesting in the entire application – the editing mode. First you will see a list of filters. To apply a specific filter, simply tap on it.
If you want to adjust the intensity of the filter, click on its icon again. You can change the intensity of application in 12 gradations. By default, VSCO has about 10 filters built in, but if you want, you can buy others in the store. We’ll talk about it a little later.
According to the creators of the application, they literally came up with filters again. Unlike other developers, they did not copy and slightly modify existing filters from other applications. As a result, VSCOcam contains, in my opinion, one of the best (if not the best) collection of filters for the iPhone. And it’s hard not to notice – the edited pictures are very atmospheric, each filter has its own “character”, its own chip.
In addition to filters, in VSCO there are also standard photo adjustment options: brightness, contrast, sharpness and so on. You can also crop or align the picture. To go to them, simply select the appropriate button in the edit mode.
It should be noted that in VSCOcam all editing is “gentle” – the original photo is stored in the cache of the program, and you can return to the original version of the picture at any time. It is very convenient and familiar to all users of Adobe Lightroom on the desktop – this is a piece of really professional photo editors. In addition, starting with VSCOcam 4.0, the application supports a full history of changes – you can “roll back” to the desired step at any time.
All these possibilities for editing pictures give a huge space for creativity and experimentation. Just imagine what various results can be achieved in VSCOcam, if each filter has 12 gradations of intensity, and in addition to this the application has good opportunities for “classic” photo editing.
Sample photos
As they say, it’s better to see once than to read it several times. Here are some examples of pictures taken by photographers using VSCOcam:
Store
The VSCOcam store contains additional filters and editing options that can be bought for money. Filters are divided into “packs”, for example, filters for portraits or black and white filters. At the same time, you do not buy blindly – each has a fairly detailed description and examples of pictures, which is very cool. Each pack costs 2-3 dollars (119-169 rubles), but you can buy all packs with filters for $ 7 – so you will save about 10 dollars (600 rubles).
I already bought all VSCO filters and do not regret it, considering how often I recently use VSCOcam. As mentioned above, in VSCO – the best photo filters for the iPhone, so there is no reason not to buy them.
In the future, the store will be updated with new packs and options for customization. I think VSCO developers will continue to please us with new chips for photo editing. But even now the assortment of the store evokes pleasant emotions.
Discover
If you are looking for inspiration or just want to admire the beautiful photos taken with VSCOcam, then welcome to the Discover tab. Here the guys from VSCO periodically introduce us to interesting photographers and constantly make digests of the best shots in a week.
The Discover section is divided into 4 tabs. The first is Grid, for which VSCO curators are choosing the best photos of photographers. The second – Journal, where the best photo stories are collected. The third – Feed, where you can track the pictures of your favorite photographers. The latter is a search for users, pictures and photo stories from the Journal.
Profile
The top tab in the application is your profile where you publish the best pictures in the Grid, create photo stories in the Journal and collect the pictures you like in the Collection. Let us dwell on each chip in more detail.
Grid Is the tape of your best shots. You choose which cards to publish here from your photo gallery. The closest analogue is the Instagram tape. The difference is that you can not put “likes”. There is another tool for collecting your favorite pictures – Collection. But about him a little later.
When registering an account with VSCO, you choose the web address of your own “grid” – for example, marfitsin.vsco.co. Thus, your photos can be viewed directly in the browser.
AT Journal You can create a beautiful and laconic photo story from your photos, adding a text description to them. The stories can be saved in drafts to finalize them later. This is important: you can add only those pictures that you have already uploaded to the VSCOcam gallery. Therefore, take care of their availability in advance.
The last feature is Collection. Here you can collect your favorite photos. To save a snapshot, just click on the corresponding button Save to Library in the context menu when viewing a snapshot in Discover. Next, in the Collection tab of your profile, click + and select the best pictures from the library. It sounds a little dreary, but in reality everything is much simpler.
Your profile is not only your photos, but also a place for creativity in the Journal, as well as a collection of your favorite photos. Recently, it’s the Profile section that developers updated most often, so now VSCOcam is also a full-fledged community of photographers with the necessary arsenal for creativity.
Settings
The settings in VSCOcam do not differ much from those in other applications. Here you can find information about the program, settings for displaying data, links to social networks, licenses. Here, on occasion, you can restore all purchases made in VSCOcam.
Outcomes
During its existence, VSCOcam has seriously changed. And till now it remains the leading application for mobile photographers. To see the hashtags #vsco and #vscocam in Instagram is the usual thing. And the application icon on millions of smartphones on iOS and Android – even more familiar.
Now VSCOcam is not just an application for editing pictures, but a full-fledged tool for communicating with other photographers, creating photo stories and photo collections. We can say that VSCO has become a real phenomenon.
If you like to take pictures on your phone, if you want to experiment and use excellent filters, then VSCOcam has not come up with anything yet, although other developers are trying their best.
