iPhoneography Apps – Decim8

Some iPhone photography apps are difficult to write about. They have many controls, they have controls or tools that are necessary, but difficult to manipulate, etc. Decim8 by Kris Collins is not one of those apps. You feed it a photo, choose among a set of effects, and let it do its stuff. If you don’t like the results, try again.

What are the “results”? Well, most of them emulate what you see when a video “glitches” – portions of the picture are displaced, or violent color shifts take place, or both. They can make your pictures look high-tech, give you abstract images that look nothing like the original, or, quite frankly, leave you with an entirely black picture – the randomization leaves you with unusable images as often as usable.

Luckily, the controls are so simple that I can describe them fully and still show you multiple examples of the kinds of images you can get. First of all, though I am showing you the iPad version, the app is universal, so you have the same controls on the iPhone.

You are initially taken to the camera. Although you can use the photo taken here as your basis for Decim8ing, I prefer to start with a picture from my Camera Roll. That’s done with the double-box icon on the lower left. The other controls on the bottom are the shutter for the camera and the flash controls. Along the top are three controls. The first shows you the most recent photos on Instagram with the #decim8 hashtag. For more examples of what Decim8 can do, you need look no further. The middle control switches between the from- and rear-facing cameras, and the gear symbol takes you to the meager settings.

The first two settings deal with the camera (which I don’t use). The third allows for those color shifts in the “glitched” area, and I recommend leaving that switch on.

Here’s my first example – a picture I took of my eye with Hipstamatic (reviewed November 7, 2012). Across the top of the screen are four controls. The first takes you back to the camera, the second allows you to choose another shot from your albums, the third allows you to send your picture to Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, and the fourth saves your picture to the Camera Roll.

At the bottom are the buttons used to produce the effect. The circle applies the effects chasen by the Flask button. It analyzes the base picture and applies the effect randomly to the base picture. Each time it is pressed it starts once again with the base picture to apply the effect randomly once again. If you want to “freeze” that effect, and apply any further changes to that effect, you’d press the + button. The dice button does achieve a “roll of the dice” – randomly selecting the effects that will be applied.

So let’s take a look at the effects. Pressing the Flask button takes you to the effects screen, where you can choose one or multiple effects. The list of effects is shown on the left. Tapping the name of the effect selects it and highlights it with yellow-green. Tapping the image next to the effect name gives you an example of the effect in the upper right. On this screen, Glassdagger is the effect shown in the upper right, but that effect is not selected; instead, I’ve selected Precog and … well, let’s just say Spoif – I don’t want to waste my time finding the ASCII codes to reproduce that name.

There are 27 effects. If you find a combination that you particularly like, you can save it as a Combo Effect. Just type in a name for the effect in the box, and tap the save button.

When you’ve selected your effect(s), either tap the X in the upper left or the FX button on the lower right, they will take you back to your picture, where you can apply the effects you’ve chosen by tapping the circle button.

Here’s the result after tapping the circle once. Interesting, but not a result that appeals to me.

So I tap the circle again, and get this result.

Maybe if I change the effects. I changed to two different effects and got this.

Finally I changed to Beamrider and Glassdagger and got this. Notice that even though I started with a B&W photo, the color shift still took place.

So I saved this.

Here’s another result using the same effects, Beamrider and Glassdagger. You just never know what you’re going to get.

This picture was one where I did get a result something like what I’d planned. I took a picture of myself, filled in the background with a cloth texture, and brought it into Decim8. I wanted horizontal line glitches, which I knew Beamrider did. So I applied just that one effect, and got this, which I used for a Facebook profile picture.

Just to show you, you can run a single effect. On this picture of flowers I used 01Rectine, which just affects the color.

Or you can go crazy. Here I’ve used 5 effects. This took longer to process (though not ridiculously long) and produced an abstract from that same flower picture.

Conclusion and Examples

Decim8 is a terrific app that I find myself returning to time and again. The results always surprise me – with just a few taps, I can produce something wonderful. I’ll leave you with just a few more examples. Here’s a picture of my lovely wife, taken with Hipstamatic.

And here’s the same picture, same effects, with another couple of taps to the circle button.

My final example is a self-portrait that I passed through Glaze after Decim8. The paint program softened some of the lines and made the picture more organic.

So do yourself a favor and go out and tear up your pictures with Decim8!