Giving Photos Instant Flair with Autodesk’s Pixlr-o-matic

A couple of weeks ago, I featured the “Paper Camera” app, available for both Android and Apple devices, which allows you to add some artistic value to your snapshots on-the-fly, rather than after-the-fact. Mere days after making that post, I discovered a similar app produced by Autodesk based on its Pixlr Web photo editing tool. It’s appropriately called “Pixlr-o-matic” and is available not only for Android and Apple devices, but also through Facebook and Google Chrome. 

Unlike Paper Camera, which applies a filter to a photo as it’s taken, Pixlr-o-matic acts as a post-processor, allowing you to add three filters to any of your photos after they’re taken. Upon opening the app, you’ll be able to snap a photo or use one already on the phone or tablet, and with a picture in hand, you can begin the editing process.

In the shot above, you can see the three filter options in the top middle. The first option contains the stylistic filters, while the second and third include the lighting and borders. There are many filters to be found, and you don’t have to use one from each category if you don’t want them. However, you are unable to layer on multiple filters from the same category.

I’m not exactly the most creative person on the planet, but the small sampling of images below should give you a good idea of what’s possible with the app:

One thing I’ve noticed is that in a full-size view, the borders aren’t always that crisp. Whether this is the fault of the phone I’m using or is actually a limitation of the app, I’m unsure. Either way, the results are rather neat. Without having to load up a PC or any other complicated Web app on your phone, you can snap a photo, dazzle it up a bit, then upload it to any of your favorite social networks.

In a versus match between Pixlr-o-matic and Paper Camera, I’d have to go with Autodesk’s solution as being the better option. It doesn’t quite share the same filters as Paper Camera, but there is a lot of flexibility. Best part? It’s free.