<div>A<strong> Beautiful Portrayal</strong></div><div>One of the most elegant apps I’ve seen, Portray (on iOS) really does turn your photographs into a work of art — something that just about every photo app promises to do but doesn’t quite. Take a picture of someone’s face, a simple landscape or an interesting object and open it in Portray. After fitting the photo on the page, you get a big selection of settings as a starting point. These could include an ancient canvas look, a grungy artistically scratched-up effect, a swirly sketch, a watercolour painting, and more. Once your photo turns into artwork, you can try different looks by changing the basic look or by using different art supplies such as a rough pencil or charcoal etc.<br /> <br />You can also change the canvas for a very different effect. There are some colour presets too, all rather attractively titled. There’s one called A Hint of Cinnamon, another is Warm Glow and many more from which to choose. A number of these presets are free, but there are also sets that need to be purchased in-app if you take a liking to what Portray does and want more options. You can</div><table width="100" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="right"><tbody><tr><td><img width="110" vspace="3" hspace="3" height="110" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=d2de6a04-5015-474b-a2d6-8b97f827321d&groupId=816580&t=1364044781248" alt="" /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>brush out the edges or any other parts of your painting for extra effect. The results are quite spectacular with this app. The rough pencil look, for example, really looks hand-drawn and impressive. <br /> </div><div><strong>Swipe For Designs</strong></div><div>dreaming of a new home? You could hunt through magazine after magazine for ideas. Or you could swipe through thousands of images on the architizer app on the iPad. This is the type of app that you’re unlikely to find on android or elsewhere and an example of the reason Apple’s app store is still leaps above others in quality, not just quantity. Architizer is based on the website of the same name meant for</div><table width="100" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="left"><tbody><tr><td><img width="110" vspace="3" hspace="3" height="110" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=a36d88a6-25c4-4a63-9857-f35871ecddba&groupId=816580&t=1364044845168" alt="" /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>architects and related professionals but also for those interested in picking up ideas to use in their own homes and offices. What you get is many pictures for each project. The projects can be filtered by broad category such as apartments, interiors, offices, etc. Just sit back and flip through beautiful images till you find something you like.<br /> </div><div><strong>Stealing Colours</strong></div><div>one little app has a clever but mischievous way of making a living. It steals the colour off one photograph and puts it on to another. The interface of Colour Thief, an iPad app,</div><table width="100" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="right"><tbody><tr><td><img width="110" vspace="3" hspace="3" height="110" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=d19ae72f-eefb-439b-9660-a7ec93d29fb4&groupId=816580&t=1364044939245" alt="" /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>is amazing in its simplicity and smoothness and this is one of the reasons it’s worth a look. You open it up and get a split screen. On top are the photos that will be the victim of the colour theft. On the bottom row are the images that will steal the colour. These are all from your own camera roll. As you flip from one photo to the next, the colour change just happens from the top photo to the bottom photo. Sometimes the result is funky, sometimes messy, and sometimes beautiful. Colour Thief costs Rs 110.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 08-04-2013)</span><br /><br /> </div><div> </div>
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.