You all know how much we love FX Photo Studio here at TBL...so we thought it would be super fun to catch up with Alex Tsepko of the MacPhun team so he could give us the inside scoop on everything MacPhun...they've got so many more strings to their bow then you may have originally thought!! 

<h4>How would you describe Pictional, as a company, and what apps do you offer?</h4>

We're a small company creating apps related to images and photography.  Right now, we have one app for iOS called True HDR, which lets users take better, more natural looking HDR photographs with their iOS devices, and we're currently working on other to-be-released apps as well.  Our strength is in computational photography - that is, using algorithms to enable people to take better photos and do other cool things with those images.  From a photographer's perspective, the iPhone is an incredible camera that has a powerful computer strapped to its back - it's our job to help people take advantage of that combination. 

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<h4>How many developers do you have on your team? Do you all work from the same location or are you globally based?</h4>

Our team has two developers, both based out of the same location in Boston, US.  Our backgrounds are in image processing and computational photography, as well as UI and front end programming.  We're working on putting our years of experience to good use by creating apps that help people do great photography with their iOS devices.

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<h4>Can you tell us about your flag ship app and give us its story: when, how and why it was created? How widespread is it (downloads, etc.)?</h4>

Our app True HDR lets people take beautiful high dynamic range (HDR) pictures with their iOS devices.  The idea for the app was born in 2009 when the iPhone 3GS was shipped with a tap-to-focus feature, which lets you tap the screen to adjust the camera focus to that point in the image. This feature turned out to also allow for tap-to-expose, which adjusts exposure to the point you tap.  We thought this feature would allow us to build an app where users could take two pictures of the same scene, using different exposures, and the app would do the work of automatically aligning the two images and combining them to create one natural looking image which has a higher dynamic range and is much closer to what the scene looked like to the eye.  We worked hard in the next few months getting some computationally intensive code to fit within the memory constraints of a mobile device like the iPhone.  

The app was born in November 2009.  We've sold steadily since then, with quite a number of updates, and with ups and downs; our highest rankings have included some brief stints in the photography top 5, as well as a brief run in the top 100 paid apps on the app store.  Therefore, we'd describe the app as medium popular.  We are proud to have wonderful users who amaze us with the beautiful shots that they take with the app.  One of the really nice aspects is getting email from users who tell us about their unique uses for True HDR; real estate photography (including indoor shots) has been a great one, and another is merging two photos that they've made with other apps.   

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<h4>What's your opinion about PhotoAppLink as an opensource project? (The Beginners Lens is not affiliated in any way to that project)</h4>

We love PhotoAppLink!  Full disclosure is that we are part of the initial group of apps participating in PhotoAppLink and know one of the developers behind that project.  We think the concept of easily moving photos between apps, almost like an integrated suite of tools, is a nice one.  And PhotoAppLink also makes it easier for those who love using their iPhone for photography to find other high quality apps.

<h4>What improvements will you be making to the app in the next update?</h4>

iOS 5 is the big news right now, and we're confident that the camera on the iPhone 4S will be outstanding.  We're working on supporting iOS 5 and the new iPhone (True HDR update already submitted to Apple at the time of this interview) and taking advantage of the new features and improved performance.  The new iPhone's higher color fidelity will likely be terrific for True HDR users, and we can't wait to get our hands on the 4S and start testing.  We're also constantly working on improving the picture quality in TrueHDR for all users of the app, not just those on the latest and greatest hardware or iOS version.  Processing speed, quality of image, ease of sharing, and user control over the final image are among our highest priorities.  It's hard work and a lot of fun working on this app, and we look forward to continuing to do so. 


