When I read through the app description in the App Store, I had to check it out.

We are the Mystic* Makers. We are two full-time artists who fell in love, shared a dream, and dared to follow it. Driven by our passion for love, artistic freedom, and purpose, we discovered Mystic*

On the surface, Mystic* is an APP. In practice, it is an Experience. Whether you find yourself on a beach, mountain top, or city street, Mystic* serves to help unveil the infinite treasures that life freely gives.

Regardless, if you buy Mystic* or not, know One Thing: you are here for a reason, and if you don’t know it already, we dare you to find out what it is already.

Have fun. Explore. Learn more.LOVE, the Mystic* Makers

PS. Yeah, you can add text, textures, frames, lights, colors…elephants, tigers, bears, and a few flying buffaloes too!On top of all that, we are constantly adding new stuff that you will automatically receive without. Paying for or updating the app!

When users first enter the app, it opens to a screen allowing the user to either shoot a photo in-app or select a photo from the camera roll.

The user can then crop the image, and this is one of my favorite things about Mystic* – the developers included quirky interface elements that tie into the Mystic* philosophy. Like when you crop an image, while its loading, it says “Mystifying”.

Once an image is selected, they can then process the image and add embellishments through the various sections at the bottom of the screen. The first section is the filters section. This is another thing that sets Mystic* apart from other similar apps like A Beautiful Mess. Where A Beautiful Mess only provides users with 6 filters, Mystic* provides a whopping 32.

The next section is the Frames section, where Mystic has included (again, for the original $0.99 base price), 26 great frames that range from grungy borders, to hand drawn frames.

Next is the Notes section, where the user can add words or phrases to their image. There are quite a few options included, in a variety of different themes, ranging from love, to adventure, to nature and more.

The Texture section allows the user to add unique textures to their images. The app includes 28 different textures, and offers the ability to invert the color of the textures, and alter the intensity of the texture and blend mode – giving the user a great amount of control.

The Lights section allows the user to add light leaks to their images, and the app includes 32 different light leaks to get you started.

The Adjustments section lets users make different edits to their images like Color Tone, Color, Inner Shadow (Vignette), Focus, Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, Exposure, Levels, Sharpness, Edger, and Haze.

The Shapes section allows the user to add hand drawn elements to their images. These range from general shapes to intricate animals.

The Settings section allows users to select whether they want their Mystic* creations to be saved to a Mystic* album, as well as select the image quality, turn on and off tooltips, check for new effects, and solve the Mystic* riddle to unlock hidden treasures.

Users can also save images to the camera roll, or email them, or post them to popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Overall, I feel like Mystic* is a fantastic app with a great user interface and an excellent feature set, especially at such a low price point and for a first release. I think that anyone looking at the A Beautiful Mess app should seriously give Mystic* a look.

Here’s a few test images I created with the app:

The A Beautiful Mess app from the blog of the same name has recently launched and has quickly risen to the top of the charts to the number one paid app in the Photo & Video category in the App Store.

The app was made to be a photo app to accompany the popular A Beautiful Mess blog, and does a very good job of emulating the blog’s signature style and allowing users to apply the same elements to their own images.

Some of the most common reviews of the app criticize the app’s initial cost along with the amount of in-app purchases that need to be made in order to create images that are like the ones on the app screenshots. Personally, I can see how this could anger some buyers since the app’s initial cost is $0.99, yet there are quite a few add-ons that are all an additional $0.99 each.

Here’s what the app comes Pre-loaded with:

And here are the add-ons available in-app:

Personally I think it may have been a better business model for them if they would have made the app’s initial cost higher and included more or all of the add-ons, in a similar fashion to the way Camera Awesome handled it, where you could pay individually or unlock all of the add-ons for a one time discounted rate.

When users open the app, they can select from either a background from the app or an image from the camera roll.

Users then have the choice of embellishing their images in a variety of ways, the first section being the filter section. I found the filters to be somewhat lacking, however I feel like the app isn’t really meant to be a filter app, so it did not bother me. I did think that the scant filter selection did make it appear that the filters section was a bit of an afterthought though.

The next section is the borders section, where the user is immediately greeted with the option to purchase the borders add-on packs, then underneath those are the actual included borders. This interface decision might have been a bad decision, being that if they had placed the included borders first, users would not have felt like the add-ons were as “in your face”.

The next section is fonts, and just as the add-ons is placed first in the Borders section, it is also first in the Fonts section (and all other sections with add-ons for that matter). The included fonts seem sufficient, and give the user a good amount of variety.

The next section is Doodles. The included hand-drawn doodles have a relatively good amount of variety. And as with the other embellishments, once you select one to add, you can choose a color for it from a selection of colors, and you can resize using gestures. However I did find that the gesture resizing and moving was not as responsive as other apps I’ve used.

The last section is Phrases. This includes several handwritten phrases that can be applied to images.

Once the user is finished, they can select “Done” which saves the image to the camera roll, and then they can share the image via the popular sharing methods.

Overall, I feel like the app shows promise, however I don’t feel like at its current version, it belongs at the top of the App Store charts. I feel like the combination of the lack of an undo button, and the pricing structure are things that will more than likely cause the app to receive mixed reviews unless remedied in the near future. However, all-in-all, it’s a cute app if you’re wanting a way to add scrapbook-like or hand drawn elements to your images, or if you’re a fan of the A Beautiful Mess blog and want to make your images look similar to the ones on the blog.

Satur8, the newest app release from Kris Collins, the developer also behind Decim8, is designed to allow the user to experiment with adding endless amounts of color to their images.

With Satur8, much like Decim8, users can select an image from their camera roll to import or they can shoot an image in-app. (And as always, I’m a big fan of the little messages that Collins includes in the app)

Once the user has an image selected, they can begin adding color. There are literally tons of ways to do this with Satur8, and the app gives the user a lot of creative control.

There’s the “Color” tab, where you can make adjustments to the actual colors within the gradient. The triangles within the gradient are the “Gradient Stops”, and to change the colors, simply tap on the one you want to change and a pop up slider will appear with hue/brightness/opacity/etc. sliders that can be adjusted. The gradient stops can also be moved by tapping and dragging them to their desired location, you can add more stops by double tapping, and you can delete a stop by dragging it to the trash in the lower right corner.

The “Shape” tab contains 14 different shapes that the gradient can be applied to within the image.

The “Blend” tab has 13 different blend modes that can can be applied to the image. These are similar to layer blend modes in Photoshop.

The “FX” tab allows you to add special effects like smooth, hard lines, noise, repeat, mirror, flip, and random. I found these to be particularly fun to play with.

The “Utility” tab lets you save and recall your favorite gradients and combinations.

The app also has features to lock controls out of view for an uncluttered workspace, and shake to undo, both of which I feel round out the app and increase its solidity.

Overall, I feel like Satur8 is a fun app with a unique purpose of adding interesting color effects to images. While it is like its counterpart Decim8, a niche app, they are both very well designed apps with intuitive user interfaces, nice feature sets, and great price points. So I’d definitely recommend Satur8 to anyone!

One of the best parts of Satur8 is that the app is FREE right now for a limited time!

Here’s a test image created with the app:

There’s a new app out from Aestesis, the developers behind Lo-Mob, called Lo-Mob Superslides. Lo-Mob Superslides allows the user to get vintage slide film and unique through the viewfinder looks from their images. One of the features of the app that makes it stand out is it’s refresh button, that allows for “hundreds of thousands of variations” per filter.

To begin, users are allowed to shoot an image with the in-app camera, or select an image from the camera roll.

Next, users select a filter, or “Slide” from a choice of:

Once a filter is selected, the image is displayed with that filter choice, and the user can either save/share it, or they can tap the orange “Refresh” button below the image to get a new variation of the filter (or shake to cancel).

Another interesting inclusion with Lo-Mob Superslides is that there is a well designed user’s manual that is easily accessible by tapping on the question mark icon at the top of the screen.

Users can also manually adjust filters by entering “Edit Mode” by tapping once on a filtered photo, and turning on or off the individual elements of the filter.

Once the user is happy with their image, they can save it to the camera roll, or share it via email, Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, or Flickr.

Overall, I think Lo-Mob Superslides is another solid release from Aestesis, with a great user interface and a unique premise and set of filters to back it up. The app is currently listed at $0.99 in the US App Store (and I definitely think it’s worth this price), however there is a note in the app’s description stating that it is on sale for launch, and being that Lo-Mob normally retails for $1.99, I’d be willing to bet that’s what Lo-Mob Superslides will eventually go up to as well.

Here are some sample images I created using the app:

You might remember a few months ago when we reviewed FX Photo Studio, the fun filter app from MacPhun. Well, over the weekend, the developers made FX Photo Studio free for iPhone, and as a result, they have announced that as of Sunday they have reached one million new users.

Because of those statistics, they have stated that they will be keeping the app free for the time being, and in addition, they have also announced that they have made their companion app, FX Photo Studio HD for iPad also free.

They have stated that the prices will remain unchanged until they receive 10 million downloads “because we know its possible.”

So if you don’t already have either of these apps, now is definitely the time to get them!

One of the apps that’s been climbing the Photo & Video charts in the App Store lately is Split Pic Pro, an app that states it allows users to “Clone yourself, swap body parts, make your own ghost, endless possibilities!”

After seeing the app’s description, and watching it’s rise in popularity since its release, I was interested and therefore was intrigued when the one of the developers from Easy Tiger Apps, contacted me to review Split Pic Pro.

Upon first opening the app, the user is greeted with a simple, yet intuitive user interface, with a screen asking the user to select a layout. The Pro version of Split Pic has twelve different layouts available currently, while the free version of Split Pic only has 6.

After selecting a layout, the user is greeted with tooltip screens, and can view a video tutorial, which I found helpful as well.

Next, users select whether they want to shoot images using the self timer, shooting one at a time, or by adding images from the camera roll.

Once the images have been captured, users are taken to an Edit screen, where they have the ability to tap the orange pointer icon to edit the margins of their chosen layout.

In addition, if the user taps the pointer icon once more, it will become purple, and will allow them to zoom into their selected image to help align it to the other images within the layout.

To help blend the edges between the layout margins, the user can tap on the drop icon next to the pointer icon, then adjust the slider to their preference.

Next, the user can apply filters to their images by tapping on the icon of three circles.

Once the user is content with their image, they can share it by tapping on the cloud icon. Users have the ability to save their creations to the camera roll, or export to other apps, email, or popular social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, and Tumblr.

Overall, I feel like Split Pic Pro is a well designed app with a very easy to use interface and an interesting concept. I think the addition of the ability to import images from the camera roll is an interesting feature that opens up a new realm of experimentation, which I think will be fun to explore. The only drawback I can think of so far is that I feel like for the app’s price point ($1.99), it should have a few more layouts or a little more flexibility within the layouts. Another drawback I noticed was the save size for the in app camera shot images, which seems to be 640 x 880px. Again, I feel like for the price point, the save size should be full resolution. However, I did notice while watching the video tutorial that the developers mentioned that the Pro version of the app would be getting consistent updates, so I feel like this is probably something that will be addressed in the near future.

Here’s a test image I created with the app:

With that said, I wanted to share my solidarity with Boston in the iPhotograph of the Day today. This image was created using an iPhone 4S, with the Camera+ App. The image was then processed using Snapseed, and then the Boston Marathon’s logo was added using the SuperImpose App. Finally, the text on the image was added using Over.