Create your own photo filters

Use Mextures to design your own custom effects for photographs

REQUIRES

iOS 8 or later, Mextures app ($1.99)

you will learn

How to combine different tools into a filter made just for you

IT WILL TAKE

20 minutes

Digital photos may be ageless, but they can also lack character. Mextures is a photo-editing app that gives you all the tools you need to transform dull images into something more striking.

Mextures is based around the principle of applying textures. These textures transform your photos in a number of ways, evident from their category names, such as Radiance, Grit and Grain (use this to “age” your photos), Light Leaks, Emulsion, and Vintage Gradients.

Each of the roughly 130 textures is placed on top of your image in the form of a semi-transparent layer, which is “blended” into the image. You can also add more through In-App Purchases, one of which – X-Film – is free.

You can then polish your original photo further through the use of special “film stock” filters – each of the 26 on offer emulates the kind of film used to shoot movies and animated films from yesteryear. These filters are accompanied by a series of common image adjustment tools for tweaking lighting, color, sharpness, and so on.

It can be a painstaking job applying filters and polish to create the perfect effect. Imagine having to meticulously record each step and repeat it every time you want to recreate the look. Thankfully, Mexture solves this conundrum with its use of “formulas,” which enable you to save carefully crafted edits for use time and again. You can even share formulas over social media for others to use, plus you can import their creations in return.

Mextures bundles over 130 formulas you can use to instantly transform a photo, or serve as a starting point for your own experimentation (all formulas are editable). Now you’ve no excuse for transforming lackluster photos into something more striking.