Fun fact: Most of us here at Windows Phone Central really, really love photography. The lot of us are big fans of taking photons and turning them into photos. We won’t lie, from time to time we get jealous of the polished and varied photography apps our iOS friends have. That’s changing every week as Windows Phone grows. Today we got a new photography app that we’re liking it a lot so far. Community, meet Black for Windows Phone.
Black (blackapp.tumblr.com) is a brand new app in the Windows Phone Store. It aims to be the first B&W analog film simulator for Windows Phone. Apps like VSCO Cam on Android and iOS have stolen photographer’s hearts around the world for emulating film on smartphones. We’ve got a handful of apps with filters in the Windows Phone Store that do a standup job, but Black is a little different.
The duo behind Black, Alvaro Arregui and Peter Stojanowski, set out to make a black and white film emulator app. Like all good film emulators, they researched and analyzed a handful of films to get the exact values to make your photos look like they were shot on film. To top it off, they dropped the features into a beautiful and functional app.
Here are the films you’ll be able to accurately emulate with Black:
- AGFA apx 400
- FUJI Neopan 400
- FUJI_FP-3000B (expired)
- Ilford HP5
- Kodak 400TX
- Lomography Lady Grey
- Shanghai GP3 100
- Greyscale
We’re liking the results we get with Black so far. Not only does Black do a good job being faithful to the film it emulates, but it does so in a beautiful and uniquely designed app.
Curves. This app has a curve tool. In Photoshop, the curves tool is one of the more powerful ways to edit your photos. We’re having a hard time recalling any Windows Phone app that has a curves tool. Refresh our memory if we’re forgetting of any app that has one. That said, the curves tool is a great way to adjust the contrast in a tonal region.
Performance isn’t all there just yet, this is version 1.0 and the devs have told us an update will be out shortly to address any performance issues or stability bugs users encounter. We look forward to this app getting better with each update. The foundation they have with Black is solid and we can’t wait to see a truly killer app come out.
Black is free and available to Windows Phone. We highly recommend downloading the app, checking out the UI, trying out the black and white film emulators and leave the developers feedback so they can improve on an app with a ton of potential.
