Innovative Ways to use your Smartphone Camera

The smartphone camera is much smarter and versatile than it looks. There are many tricks that you can use to transform the camera into a scanner, memory aid, search tool, colour identifier and more. Here are some of them:

Film Scanner feature (iPhone and Android):

If you have old 35 mm negatives and what to get a digital copy of them, you can use your smartphone camera. Install the Helmut Film Scanner app to turn your camera into a scanner. Then place the negative over a lit area like a light box or a screen monitor, take a photo of the negative in this way to get a full colour copy of the image. The app also allows you to edit the image using features like brightness, cropping, contrast color and others. You can also share these images through the Drop Box, Flickr, Facebook and EyeEm connectivity option on the app.

On the iOS, you can use the Photo JoJo app that uses the flash to blasts the negatives with light and then use the Lomo Scanner app to get the results.

Color Identifier (iPhone and Android):

You can use your camera to search for and use colours that will suit your home. Dulux has an app that lets you capture photos of your home, and other rooms so that you can then identify the colours that were used to paint them. This app has a colour picker that magnifies a part of the image and then you can match the color in the image with those you can find online. You can also buy this shade of paint.

Visual Search Tool:

The Google Search App utilizes your camera to turn your phone into a search engine. It is as simple as pointing your camera at an object, Google then searches its database to locate information about it. You can search through a photo and text mode and you can also use the app on iOS as well. This same app can also double as a QR scanner, OCR scanner, a translator and to solve Sudoku puzzles too.

Creative Camera:

The DblCam app lets you use your Smartphone camera is two ways. Unleash your creative skills with this app using both cameras, take two photos and merge them to create awesome effects. You can capture images in front of you and behind you, below and above you, left and right or any other angle that you can think of. The second photo follows the first photo by a second. Android users can use the Double Shot Camera that may not match the DblCam, but is just as good.

Font Identifier:

You have probably heard of the WhatTheFont app, it now has an app for iOS. The app can identify as well as tag different typefaces. All you have to do is to point the camera at any font in order to identify it of look for something similar. The app is not yet available on Android, but you can use it on the web.

There are many apps that let you use the smartphone camera in fun, creative ways. The XonPhone 5 features an 8 MP camera, you can log on to www.oplustech.com to find out about it.