Microsoft Pix for iPhone Updated with Painting Effects

Microsoft Pix for iPhone Updated with Painting Effects

You may not know this, but Microsoft offers a camera app for iPhone that it says provides big advantages over the stock app. This week, the firm updated this app, called Pix, to support effects that turn your photos into digital paintings.

You know, like Prisma. And 100 other apps that do this kind of thing.

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“Microsoft Pix is a smart camera app that automatically helps you take better photos without extra effort,” the Microsoft Pix website explains. “It’s built with serious intelligence behind the lens to ensure people and scenes look their best.”

I wrote about Microsoft Pix last summer, but as is so often the case with iPhone camera apps, I found myself drifting back to the stock camera app. But that’s probably more me than the app: In my testing, it did provide a lot of neat functionality. And now it’s gotten even better of course.

And to be fair to Microsoft, apps like Prisma may let you add painting-like effects to your photos, but they’re not built into the camera app. And according to Microsoft, this app is AI-powered. Which, when you think about it, is the buzz phrase of the year.

“Pix Styles transforms pictures into styles inspired by popular works of art or adds an effect such as making the picture look like it’s on fire,” the firm notes. “And Pix Paintings creates a time-lapse of the picture being painted in the artistic style selected, allowing users to see their masterpiece come to life.”

Anyway, it’s worth checking out. You can download Pix for iPhone from the Apple App Store.

 

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Conversation 6 comments

  • ChrisKal

    16 June, 2017 - 12:28 pm

    <p>Microsoft seriously needs to bring this to Android. Also, Wordflow.</p>

  • Delmont

    16 June, 2017 - 12:50 pm

    <p>I actually use this app, it's really nice.</p>

  • dstrauss

    16 June, 2017 - 1:57 pm

    <p>Just bring back Photosynth – PLEASE – it was the best surround camera app ever made (I could stand in the center of a room, even a cathedral, and make fantastic pictures that the user could scroll/move and see every aspect of the room as if they were really there. Outdoors you could create a 360 view from horizon to horizon. Breathtaking!</p>

    • Chris_Kez

      Premium Member
      16 June, 2017 - 2:50 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#126259"><em>In reply to dstrauss:</em></a></blockquote><p>Photosynth was amazing. It was a lot more than just the 360 stuff, too. You could do some cool stuff like stitch together photos along a path and then "walk through" the scene. Or combine a bunch of photos into a super-size one that you could look around in. It was kind of ahead of its time. I imagine it could have been tied into VR or something else. I have to wonder if there was some limitation in the underlying technology that it couldn't be brought forward without starting from scratch.</p>

  • cayo

    16 June, 2017 - 3:09 pm

    <p>This is excellent app. I've been using it for months and would never go back to iPhone stock app.</p>

    • Spineless

      16 June, 2017 - 6:21 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#126266"><em>In reply to cayo:</em></a></blockquote><p>There are some uses for the stock app, but only a few. For capturing long videos, I love using Hyperlapse for a more digestible interpretation.</p>

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