Today Red Giant Software has released two new iOS apps that I helped design and create, Movie Looks and Noir. To celebrate the launch, Plastic Bullet is free on the iTunes app store for just two days.
Ever since we released Plastic Bullet, folks have been asking for some kind of “Magic Bullet Looks for the iPhone.” It probably surprises no one to learn that we’ve been working on just that for a while now. Pick a video, trim it down to just the part you want, choose from a variety of preset Looks, and then adjust those Looks to taste using Strength and Brightness controls.
Noir converts photos to black and white and allows you to re-light them using an editable vignette. It’s like a Colorista Power Mask for your phone. Noir is a universal app—buy it once and install it on both iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad.
Noir started as a little passion project for me. I wanted a way to prep my iPhone shots for use with Cinemek’s powerful Storyboard Composer app, but I was frustrated with iPhone image editing apps that forced me to tap my way through byzantine mazes of menus and ugly sliders to adjust my images. I wanted to quickly give my images a storytelling quality, with all the necessary controls on one screen. Then a funny thing happened—we distributed an early beta of Noir within Red Giant, and people flipped for it. The images they were making were gorgeous, and they were having crazy fun making them. In case it’s not obvious, that’s pretty much all I ever hope for the tools I create.
Movie Looks has been an equally fun challenge. Getting a tiny little phone to render HD video effects is no easy task, especially when you don’t want to compromise on image quality. We’ve built a completely new rendering engine and worked hard to make it as seamless as possible on the phone.
Noir and Movie Looks are available now, each for $2.99. More information is available at Red Giant. Plastic Bullet is free for April 19–20.