Bright Mango

New Viewmatic App Gives iPhone Photos a "Vintage" Through-the-Viewfinder Look

Sat, 25 May 2013 07:21:00 -0400

From the Developers of the #1 iPhone Photo App in the U.S., Bright Mango’s New Viewmatic Editor Gives Modern iPhoneography a Retro Film-Camera Twist

VERO BEACH, Fla. (May 25, 2013) – Thanks to modern digital photography and built-in-camera smartphones, a whole generation of photo buffs has never had the privilege of looking through the crosshairs of a “real” film-camera viewfinder. Viewmatic, a new iPhoneography editing app by Bright Mango, is giving 21^st Century shutterbugs a slick way to add this cool “vintage” look to their photos.

“Through-the-Viewfinder, or TTV, photography is a growing hobby among vintage camera aficionados who shoot images with their iPhone through the viewfinder of a classic or vintage film camera to capture this retro look—complete with the scratches, dust and other wear signs that give vintage photos such character,” said Bright Mango’s Zach Garrett. “Now with the Viewmatic app, anyone can give their photos this unique look, and get a glimpse of retro photography through this awesome collection of viewfinders.”

Viewmatic evokes the spirit of 20 classic film cameras, including several mirror reflex and twin-lens reflex cameras, with vintage viewfinder “filters” that iPhoneographers can overlay onto any existing image in their camera roll. Each viewfinder image was painstakingly photographed through actual cameras, many of them discovered by the Bright Mango team at garage sales and antique stores all over America, complete with the imperfections and scars gained from years of use, and then digitally reproduced to create the filter.

Viewmatic users can also choose from 20 different lens options to apply a unique preset to the image for an even more creative, custom look. Each lens can be tuned for strength, with brightness, contrast, sharpness and saturation adjustment, to create 400 possible viewfinder and lens combinations with virtually infinite customization possibilities.

iPhoneographers can then save their creations to the device camera roll, and instantly share to email, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Instagram, as well as many third-party apps like Dropbox.

Viewmatic is the second iPhoneography app by the Bright Mango team of Garrett and co-founder John Barnett,both professional photographers, avid iPhoneographers and vintage camera collectors. Their Wood Camera shooting and editing app was the #1 app in the U.S. Apple App Store and the #1 photo app in 80 countries and has become the must-have, definitive iOS camera and photo editor. A new update to Wood Camera also now makes creating the perfect edit even easier with enhanced default lens settings that let users get the perfect look without the need to make preliminary adjustments to the lens.

“Zach and I have always loved the immersive experience of true optical viewfinder photography, but that’s now becoming somewhat of a dying art with today’s ultra-advanced digital imaging technology,” Barnett said. “Viewmatic is giving a whole new generation the chance to experience the thrill of photography through the viewfinder of a classic film camera—something many have never done before.”

To learn more about Viewmatic and Bright Mango, visit www.GetViewmatic.com, www.BrightMango.com or download Viewmatic in the Apple App Store.

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Meet the Bright Mango co-founders:

John Barnett is a professional travel photographer and cinematographer and a contributor to Getty Images. Equally at home leading a photo walk in Venice, Italy or exploring Base Camp at Mount Everest, John has been fascinated by mobile photography since the launch of the original iPhone. Previously the Media Director for Twitpic. You can find John on Instagram at @johnbarnett.

Zach Garrett is a serial entrepreneur with almost a decade of experience in emerging technology. An avid travel photographer, he has visited exotic locations from Mount Everest to the Antarctic Peninsula in his quest for the perfect shot. Zach is a committed iPhoneographer and Instagrammer, where you can find him at @zachgarrett.

Make Your Instagram Feed Beautiful

Thu, 02 May 2013 22:51:00 -0400

Since its launch in October of 2010, Instagram has revolutionized photo distribution, in much the same way that Twitter has changed the way we share text-based content.

Bright Mango co-founders Zach Garrett (@zachgarrett) and John Barnett (@johnbarnett) have been avid Instagram users since the early days, and we’ve enjoyed watching the service evolve as its user base has expanded. Not all of the changes we’ve seen have been positive, however.

As Instagram has grown, so has the proliferation of unintentional spam and general bad social media etiquette. We’ve put together a list of pitfalls to avoid and tips to help you deliver quality content and gain followers along the way.

Make your feed epic:

Quality — The biggest thing you can do to gain followers is to post great images that interest your followers.
Composition — If you’re looking to improve your photo taking skills, just look online or get a book about basic photo topics like the rule of thirds or golden hour.
Editing — One way to improve your images is to edit them before you post. We developed Wood Camera as an app for people to make small tweaks like sharpening, brightness, contrast, saturation, and straightening, or if they want to edit more, they can add colorful lenses, textures, frames, and make their image even more eye grabbing and unique.
Be Tasteful — Don’t over-edit your photos. Apps like Wood Camera allow you to reduce the intensity of filters, if needed, to avoid that “heavily edited” look.

Make your posts more visible:

Timing — Don’t clutter people’s feeds with multiple images all at once, post thoughtfully and be discerning in what you post. Don’t post too often. It may be convenient to share all your vacation photos at once, but chances are you’ll lose some followers if you do. Instead, try spreading out your posts over several days or weeks.
Frequency — Try to post every day. This will engage your followers and help you be seen by new people, and will also push you to create new content to share regularly. Many users only sign on to Instagram a few times a week, and if they follow a lot of people they may never see your posts if you don’t post frequently enough.
Engage — Follow and actively engage with users who follow you – like and comment, and respond to those that like and comment on your images.

Don’t forget the hashtags:

Use appropriate hashtags — Don’t spam by using random tags that aren’t related to your image.
Use local and regional hashtags – like the name of the place where your picture is taken, or your city and state to attract others who have an affinity for that locale.
Use hashtags for events — Traffic on some hashtags is time-sensitive, so use them or lose them.
Start your own hashtag for something specific you want to start posting – last summer Wood Camera co-creator John Barnett was posting iPhone photos of people in an art museum who were looking at the art, and he began using the #LookingAtArt hashtag for his museum snaps. Instagram contacted him and asked if they could highlight the hashtag and use his images on their official blog.
Participate in Instagram’s weekend hashtag projects – it’s a great way to find new people to follow, and also for people to find and follow you. They announce these through their official account (@Instagram).

Finally, be positive! Since the very beginning, one of the coolest things about Instagram has been how positive the community is. Keep your posts and interactions with other Instagramers upbeat, helpful, and positive. Embrace the experience of interacting with users from all over the world who love photography as much as you do. Instagram allows you to experience the most diverse parts of the world through the eyes of millions of ordinary people — something that was unimaginable just a few years ago.

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Meet the Bright Mango co-founders:

How Wood Camera Became the #1 Paid iPhone App

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 12:16:00 -0500

For the past several days, Bright Mango’s Wood Camera photo editor has been the #1 paid iPhone app in the US App Store. That’s the #1 ranked app in the entire App Store, not just the Photo & Video category and as far as we’re aware, Wood Camera is the first photo app to hold the top spot. Since we reached #1, we’ve been crunching numbers and analyzing the factors behind Wood Camera’s rise to the top. We created this post to provide a few insights into our marketing strategies, in the hope that it will prove useful to other developers and informative for the community in general.

When we first launched Wood Camera in the Spring of 2012, we started with a marketing budget of essentially zero. Our limited funds forced us to focus our efforts on getting the word out via blogs, Twitter, Facebook friends, Tumblr, and our Instagram connections. We had a great launch and we were very pleased with the results of our coordinated efforts across the various social networks. We received coverage on several international blogs and tech sites, and a few notable US tech sites such as The Next Web. These posts definitely increased our exposure and we saw noticeable increases in our rankings in the days following each new post.

For the release of Wood Camera 2.0 this past December, we were again working with a limited marketing budget and we decided to rely heavily on our social media network of friends and followers. We roped in just about everyone we know via Facebook and Instagram, and asked them to post photos and links about the new Wood Camera update to their personal feeds to get the ball rolling on an organic level. This definitely contributed to the momentum and helped raise awareness of the update in our circle of friends and followers.

Of all the social networks available to us, we have always placed the largest emphasis on Instagram. The reason is twofold: First, Wood Camera is designed to directly complement Instagram, and second, Instagram is photo-centric and largely public, with features such as the Popular Page that allow for broad organic exposure. Between Bright Mango co-founders John Barnett (@johnbarnett) and Zach Garrett (@zachgarrett), we had more than 80,000 followers (according to Statigram, John and Zach’s uploads have received over 2.8 million likes on Instagram), and by leveraging our family and friends we were able to increase our reach to over 275,000 followers by the time we launched the Wood Camera 2.0 update.

Our Instagram reach of 275,000 wasn’t a bad place to start, but we knew to reach the top of the charts we’d need something more. We began looking for advertising options that would make our limited budget go as far as possible, and ultimately we ended up focusing on a handful of innovative solutions. One example is a young creative agency called The Mobile Media Lab that provides Instagram-centric marketing services.

The Mobile Media Lab was created by a group of top NYC-based Instagramers (@newyorkcity, @takinyerphoto, and @bridif) who cumulatively have almost a million Instagram followers. We communicated with their team and decided that they would be a good fit for us and our marketing plan for Wood Camera. The plan was to do a number of posts over several days on Instagram. All we asked was that they use the #WoodCamera hashtag and point to the @WoodCamera Instagram account in each image caption. Other than that, we trusted each photographer’s creativity to shape the style, feel, and timing of their posts — as well as their viral impact.

The series of images that resulted were incredibly beautiful and beyond what we could have expected, and the user response was awesome. We definitely felt the effect of the promoted Instagram posts. The images garnered more than 45,000 likes and over a thousand comments in just a few days.

These are just a few examples of how developers on a limited budget can leverage the power of social media to promote their offerings. Our work with The Mobile Media Lab is just one of several advertising solutions we employed to reach the top spot in the App Store, but it’s a great example of what’s possible with social media today. Of course, advertising is only part of the picture — If you don’t have a quality product, the buzz will quickly fade and your app will get lost in the shuffle. We also feel that it’s critical not to underestimate the importance of having an informative Press Kit and a decent website to link back to. The concept of using social media for promotion has been with us for a while now, but it is seldom used as effectively as it should be. We hope that the insights shared in this post have illustrated how quality social content can have a tangible impact on an app’s performance.

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Meet the Bright Mango co-founders:

Wood Camera Named a New & Noteworthy iPhone App

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:13:00 -0500

We’re honored that Apple has chosen to feature Bright Mango’s Wood Camera photo editor in the New & Noteworthy section. The momentum behind Wood Camera continues to build, and we couldn’t be more grateful for the app’s success and for the users that make this success possible.

Download the Press Kit

We are excited to announce the release of Wood Camera 2.0 on...

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 00:48:00 -0500

We are excited to announce the release of Wood Camera 2.0 on the iTunes App Store!

We have put in countless hours over the past several months to insure that Wood Camera 2.0 offers users the best photo editing experience available on the iPhone.

On Sale

To celebrate the release of Wood Camera 2.0, we’ve temporarily dropped the price to just $0.99, down from the normal price point of $1.99. We hope this will enable even more iPhone users to experience the best mobile photography editing experience available.

Wood Camera has been ranked as the #1 photo app in the US App Store, and has also been a top 10 photo app in 33 countries, and a top 100 photo app in 82 countries.

What’s New

Wood Camera 2.0 is our biggest update ever, featuring all–new lenses, textures, and frames as well as exciting new editing options and improved social network sharing:

10 new lenses, 11 new textures, and 6 new frames for even better editing
Dramatic speed improvements when shooting with the in-app camera
Optimized for iOS6 and the new, larger iPhone 5 display
Tweaked user interface for improved editing functionality
Enjoy a new sharpening function that visibly enhances image detail
Select multiple photos when importing from the Camera Roll
Edit photo captions and add location when sharing to Facebook
One-touch sharing directly to Instagram
Tweaked user interface for improved editing functionality
Now straighten your images

You can download Wood Camera on the App Store, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!

Video

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 21:56:00 -0500

Seagulls fly around the Nubble Lighthouse near York, Maine. Shot...

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Seagulls fly around the Nubble Lighthouse near York, Maine. Shot with the Wood Camera app for iPhone. http://www.WoodCamera.com

Awesome Wood Camera Tutorial

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 21:29:00 -0400

Here’s a great walkthrough of Wood Camera by Marianne Hope.

The Shard - tallest building in Europe. Edited with the Wood...

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The Shard - tallest building in Europe. Edited with the Wood Camera app for iPhone. http://www.WoodCamera.com

The Wood Camera App is Here!

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:24:00 -0400

The Wood Camera app for iPhone is available now in the App Store!

Discover unparalleled control over the shooting and editing process:

Lightbox

Easily import and view your photos all in one place
Tap once to enter full-size preview mode
Double-tap to go straight to the editing screen

Live Lenses

Use the in-app camera to shoot with each of our 22 lenses in real-time

Flexible Editing

Layer 22 lenses, 17 textures, and 12 frames
Thousands of possible combinations

Tilt-Shift & Vignettes

Pinch to customize tilt-shift radius and vignette position and intensity
Use gestures to control linear tilt-shift for that perfect professional look

One-Touch Preview

Tap and hold to quickly compare your edited image to the original shot

Non-Destructive

Enjoy the freedom to go back and modify any changes you made to the original image, even after exporting your work

Full Resolution

Import and export your images at the full, 8 MP resolution of the iPhone 4S camera

Easy Sharing

Share your photos to the Camera Roll, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or Instagram

Download the Wood Camera app for iPhone today!

Cloudy day at Rongbuk Monastery near Mount Everest base camp....

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Cloudy day at Rongbuk Monastery near Mount Everest base camp. Created with the Wood Camera app for iPhone. http://www.WoodCamera.com

Kauai Sunset. Created with the Wood Camera app for...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:00:00 -0400

Kauai Sunset. Created with the Wood Camera app for iPhone. http://www.WoodCamera.com