Update: MonoPhix HD 1.2.1 and MonoPhix Lite 3.1, maintenance updates.

Many photo apps have been hit by an iOS6 flaw causing them to crash and malfunction and this was no different for MonoPhix, MonoPhix HD for iPad and MonoPhix Lite for iPhone. The first one already received an update to fix the crashes, but MonoPhix HD and MonoPhix Lite were still offline. With these two updates the entire line of Phix apps returns to the app store and the existing userbase will have a working app once again.

The MonoPhix HD update only fixes the crash issue and MonoPhix Lite received a fix for the crash and a fix for a bug affecting the image picker.

You can download MonoPhix HD 1.2.1 here and MonoPhix Lite 3.1 here.

MonoPhix 3 – Development announcement

MonoPhix 2 for iPhone has been there nearly unchanged for 9 months now. It was and still is a great black & white app that offers features no other black & white app provides. But it should progress in time and could definitely use a few extra features. So while everyone was happily using MonoPhix on the iPhone but cursing its small preview size and its UI, we were developing another branch of MonoPhix named MonoPhix HD for iPad. The iPad version basically served as an incubator for many new features which a black & white app could use. And now we are ready to port all these amazing new features and improvements back to the iPhone version, along with a brand new UI.

Where MonoPhix for iPhone has been damned for its UI which is basically a touch friendly version of our old 36-image express for windows UI, MonoPhix HD has been praised for its sleekness and intuitivity with its leather/wood interface. We’ve been looking to improve the UI for a long time now, but why search when you’ve already found it. We’re just going to miniaturize the MonoPhix HD UI and optimize it for the smaller iPhone’s screen.

On the featureside we’re going to implement all features the HD version has. So these additional features contain:
-Custom coloring
-Burned and bleached vignetting
-Exposure enhancements
-Ability to blend with the original picture
-Noise/Grain generation
-Quantization
-Color inverse switch

Along with these new features MonoPhix 3 will also be equipped with the faster and more qualitative MonoCore3 monochrome filter. Which improves the output quality by factor 8 and the speed by factor 5. These improvements will also make your iPhone’s battery last longer because the new filter requires 10 times less CPU power and 30 times less memory.

And we haven’t forgotten that iOS advanced to version 4, so MonoPhix 3 will support the retina display of the iPhone 4 and will support multitasking.

MonoPhix 3 will be a free update for existing MonoPhix 2 owners. We aren’t going to do any statements about the pricing yet.

MonoPhix 3 should arrive somewhere in the next few months if all goes well.

MonoPhix HD 1.1 brings tons of new features to a great iPad photography app.

Our first iPad app, MonoPhix HD was an amazing success at release and has a steady download count at the moment, so we can’t neglect the tons of users who downloaded it. That’s why I’ve set up the roadmap for the next update to give people an idea of what to expect next time MonoPhix HD shows up in their update list.

First of all some people have had some performance issues, others think it’s justified, but the issue remains that some actions can be quite slow to be applied to the preview. We can’t fix this completely and provide a real time preview, there will always be some lag, but we’re going to improve the performance as good as we can and a lot of simultaneous actions will no longer clog up the app. So each action will be previewed within 2 seconds.

Other changes include better support for vignetting. MonoPhix HD already has great vignetting support, it’s even used by some with the filter alpha set to 0 to apply it to non-monochrome images, but it can be better. So MonoPhix HD 1.1 will have the best vignetting support of any iPad/iPhone app. New features include the ability to set an offset for the vignetting and a different type of vignetting to spread light or shadow from each corner instead of the default round vignetting.

Another interesting feature will be a noise generator which gives your pictures some extra grain. This will certainly benefit some users which like some added vintage effect to their pictures.

You will also have the ability to color your monochrome images in another way than just colouring the white parts in the selected color. In MonoPhix HD 1.1 you will choose what shade you want to recolor.

The other features include a help file, some social features on startup to guide you in showing off your MonoPhix pictures, some live tutorials and gesture support eg. Touch based gestures and shake to reset.

And for the iPhone users don’t fear cause all these features will be coming to MonoPhix 3 for iPhone as well.

MonoPhix HD 1.1 will appear somewhere in the next 2 months. It will not have the UI changes requested by some users yet because that requires some general research but it’s a more than worthy update to version 1.0.

In the meanwhile you can enjoy MonoPhix HD, version 1.1 will come as a free update for 1.0 users.

Win a free copy of MonoPhix HD for iPad with a simple retweet!

MonoPhix HD for iPad has been out for a week now and we still have a whole bunch of promocodes for this amazing black & white photography tool left. So I decided to make the giveaway into a win-win contest. MonoPhix HD is normally priced at 1.99$ but with the promo code you are entitled of one free copy. (Beware: Promocodes only work for people with a US iTunes account)

To enter our contest simply retweet this: http://twitter.com/phoenxsoftware/status/16144019327

If you don’t know how to retweet simply copy this text in your twitter status:

RT @phoenxsoftware: Retweet for the chance to get 1 of 10 FREE #MonoPhix HD for #iPad promocodes (US-Only)  http://hur.lu/OLk0

Each day for 10 days a random winner will be selected from the ones who retweeted. To check if you have won it might be useful to follow us on twitter. Good Luck!

New App : MonoPhix HD – Black & White app for iPad

Yesterday our MonoPhix HD app got approved by Apple and today it’s available for download in the App Store.

MonoPhix HD is the iPad variant of our MonoPhix for iPhone. Both apps enable people to open an image and convert it to black and white or other monochrome variants. This seems like a simple task, but MonoPhix provides the users with a set of tools resembling Adobe Lightroom’s black & white tools and more to enable great results which aren’t obtainable by using other Black & White apps.

The iPad version even supports 2 types of slider-adjustable vignetting (Burn/Lighten), allows users to blow out the exposure for great “minimal dark” results or to enhance bright surfaces. It also allows (and this is unique) to set the alpha (transparency) of the Black & White effect so that the original colors show up behind the black & white effect, this can be easily accomplished with a slider. In addition to the Sepia and antique filters of MonoPhix for iPhone, you can now custom colors a black & white photo with 3 sliders. If these features can’t impress you the ability to edit and save pictures at full resolution and at full quality might impress you. Monochrome pictures created with MonoPhix HD don’t lose any of their original quality.

Here’s a list of features:
* Intuitive interface which is very pleasant to use
* Big real time preview of your changes
* High speed filters, so you don’t have to wait constantly
* Great tools to enhance the bright and dark parts of your picture separately
* Ability to custom color a monochrome picture
* Ability to set an Alpha to blend your monochrome with the original picture
* Ability to enhance the exposure of your picture
* Ability to apply 2 types of adjustable vignetting effects to your picture
* Ability to choose for a more raw classic monochrome filter
* Supports high resolution pictures, up to 3000×3000 pixels and higher

Device Requirements:

* iPad (the iPhone version is also available in the App Store)

* Requires iPhone OS 3.2 or later

* 0.2 MB

Pricing and Availability:

MonoPhix HD 1.0 is only $1.99 (USD) and available exclusively through the App Store in the Photography or productivity categories. Interested writers, reviewers and editors can always request a promo code to check it out for themselves.

MonoPhix HD is available for download here>

MonoPhix HD for iPad submitted to App Store

Today, after a long silent period for product releases we finally released our first iPad app. MonoPhix HD is the bigger brother of our black & white picture processing tool MonoPhix for iPhone.

The new MonoPhix HD is fully adapted to the iPad’s screen and features a whole busload of improvements. Only one concept remains intact from the iPhone version and that are the two sliders, one to intensify the bright areas of a picture and one to intensify the shadow areas.

Another features taken from the original version is the ability to recolor your black & white image, in the iPhone version you can generate sepia and antique versions in addition to the default black & white. In MonoPHix HD you can select whatever color you want by using a pop-up box with 3 sliders to set the RGB values of the desired color.

Other interesting new features include the ability to open tremendously huge pictures. In tradition to our iPhone apps, we try to enable people to edit their pictures at full resolution as good as possible without straining the system too much and although the iPad just slightly more powerful than an iPhone 3Gs, we managed to make MonoPhix HD support huge pictures and operate faster and more reliable than his iPhone colleague.

This also brings a few more possibilities into the mix, because we saved on performance we were able to add more powerful filtering features. Therefore MonoPhix HD also supports the ability to enhance the exposure to create a very worn out B&W look and enables you to set an alpha for the B&W filter, which means that you can choose to merge it with your previous image to obtain very pleasing results.

Perhaps the most important feature for some will be the ability to set adjustable vignetting for your monochrome pictures. You can choose between 2 types of vignetting, to make the edge of your image either lighter or to burn it and make it darker. The intensity of your vignetting can be completely controlled with the slider.

MonoPhix HD “should be” available next week in an App Store near you and will cost 1.99$ or the equivalent in other currency. Another blogpost will follow as it becomes available.

To end with you can find a gallery of screenshots in the bottom of this article.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

MonoCore 3, a new Hicon Mono filter for MonoPhix. (iPad/iPhone-App)

A lot of people have used our MonoPhix 2.0 for iPhone and it’s the favorite black & white app for people who like a bit of noise in a monochrome picture to get a certain vintage feel. But people who want smooth black and white always jumped to other apps with less control over the results and less functionality. Now MonoPhix will also get more smooth results without losing speed or control and without losing the old grainy filter, with MonoCore 3.0.

MonoCore 3.0 is the name of the Monochrome filter which will be used in the next generation of MonoPhix apps (MonoPhix HD for iPad, MonoPhix 3.0 for iPhone and MonoPhix Lite 3.0 for iPhone), it will be faster, provide higher quality results and will be even more adjustable. And for the grain lovers there will be the ability to choose for the old MonoPhix 2 filter.

Here are some comparisons between the black & white filter in MonoPhix 2 and the one in MonoPhix 3 and MonoPhix HD for iPad :

Time needed for certain actions on a 2.040x1.536 image - MonoCore 2 vs. MonoCore 3 (Measured on an iPad)

Quality in Bytes/Pixel on a 2.040x1.536 image (Measured on an iPad)

But of course it’s better to give a picture result of the quality changes, this image was processed with the development build of MonoPhix HD for iPad, the first image was generated with the MonoCore 2 filter also present in MonoPhix 2 for iPhone, the second image is filtered with MonoCore 3. As you will see the transitions are much smoother in MonoCore 3 and the details are preserved much better, while maintaining the depth of MonoCore 2.

MonoCore2 Result

MonoCore3 Result

MonoCore2 Detail Result

MonoCore3 Detail Result