Tiny Planets Pro is a fantastic photography app for Windows Phone 8. The app turns your panoramic or landscape images into tiny little planets by wrapping the image into a sphere that often resembles a planet spinning around the solar system. And it's not just useful for landscapes. Tiny Planets Pro can also put a creative twist to images other than the scenic variety.
Tiny Planets Pro does not take long to transform your images and once you have things just right, the final image can be saved and shared with other Windows Phone apps. There is not much to Tiny Planets Pro but if you are looking for a creative photo tool for your images, it’s definitely worth a try.
The Layout
Tiny Planet Pro will let you launch your Windows Phone camera to customize a newly captured image or pull up an existing image from your Windows Phone Pictures Hub to customize. These options are available from the first two control buttons that sit at the bottom of the app’s main page.
Whichever course you choose, Tiny Planet Pro will convert your image into a 360-degree panoramic that often resembles a tiny planet.
Slider controls are present to allow you to adjust the image rotation and scale (zoom in/out), along with an option to turn on/off linear projection. I would not mind having the ability to reposition the image within the crop after you enlarge it. Sometimes the “planet” becomes off-centered after up scaling it.
Once you have edited an image to your satisfaction, you can use the last two control buttons to save your image to the Saved Image folder of your Pictures Hub or share the image (email, SMS, send the image to a photo app, etc.).
Images are cropped square and saved at a resolution of 2048 x 2048 pixels at 96dpi, which is well suited for sharing.
Overall Impression
I really liked Tiny Planets Pro. It spins a new perspective on your landscape images and can offer a new perspective on non-landscape images as well. It is definitely a Windows Phone 8 photography app that lends itself to your creative spirit and experimentation.
You will need a little sky above your subject to get that “planet” look. Otherwise, the trees or buildings will extend to the edge of your frame. It makes for an interesting effect but you lose that planetary feel. Images of sunsets and overcast days seem to give the planet’s atmosphere a gaseous appearance.
The layout and editing tools for Tiny Planets Pro is simple but effective. Transformation and fine-tuning can be done in a matter of seconds. While the controls work, I wouldn't mind seeing the ability to reposition your "planet" within the picture frame and creative filters might not be a bad touch either. Then again, you can always send the image to another Windows Phone photography app for such (e.g. Nokia Creative Studio, Fhotoroom, etc.)
Tiny Planets Pro is one of those Windows Phone apps that invites you to see how creative you can be with your photos with the end result being some rather neat images. The square cropping makes the images Instagram ready and the resolution of the saved image isn’t too shabby. All in all, if you want a fun photography app for your Windows Phone 8 camera, give Tiny Planets Pro a whirl.
There is a free trial version available (won’t let you save images) with the full version of Tiny Planets Pro running $1.49. The app is available for Windows Phone 8 and you can find your copy of Tiny Planets Pro here in the Windows Phone Store.
