I had the pleasure of a catch-up call with my friend, Cathy Gaubert, yesterday, and she gave me the best idea for a blog post. She got an ipad for Christmas, and was asking me what I use to edit my photos. I've been a photoshop girl for, man, almost 15 years now, and in my opinion nothing else even comes close. Well, she's never used photoshop ever, and the learning curve is REALLY steep. My solution for her was to get the Photoshop Express app for her ipad, and edit there. This conversation stirred up the pot for this post wonderfully. Larry and the kids bought me an ipad for my birthday last year, and I've spent a lot of time [and moolah] trying to find the best apps for artists/writers/crafters. So, here's my MUST HAVE apps - all the ones I keep on my front page for easy access:
FOR THE ARTIST:
- photoshop express - this is a dumbed down/FREE version of their popular program, but don't let the fact that it's free deter you. You can do all the basic editing stuff, and quite a few nifty things with this app including change the exposure style & add borders.
- reel director - $1.99 - I love this app for editing movies on the fly. This is a great little program for turning your filmed How To's into fabulously edited videos. I like this program as much as imovie, and again, you can't beat the cost.
- art set - 99 cents - Jules loves this app because it has all your favorite mediums to choose from including oil paints & pastels / wax crayons / colored pencils / markers. It has a slew of blending tools and different paper textures to choose from.
- sketchbook pro - $9.99 { I think - you cannot see the price once you buy it } This is one of the few apps I've been willing to pay over $4.99 for. There is a FREE express version of this one as well, so check it out before you shell out your moolah.
- palettes - FREE - I love this app for finding color combination and pulling colors from photos. There is a BASIC & PRO version of this program, but I've found the free version works just fine for me so far.
FOR THE WRITER:
- pages - $9.99 - This is the only other app I've paid this much for, but being able to edit my articles on the road was one of the main buying points for me. I love being able to edit or write on the fly!
- story tracker - LITE - This is a tool for tracking your story/article submissions from idea to print. I don't use this as much as I should, but I'm trying to use it more this year to keep track of what I'm writing/submitting.
- phraseology - $3.99 - I just bought this app over vacation, and haven't used it yet. "Part text editor, part word processor, phraseology is a simply enviro focused app to make it enjoyable & productive to write on the ipad." I'll let you know more when I use it :)
- anote - $3.99 or LITE - A color coded post-it note style app. I use this to keep reminders of ideas that are still only seeds, things I need to do for the family, looming deadlines, and TO DO lists. I love that it's color coded and tabbed, which both make it really quick to find notes.
FOR THE CRAFTER:
- flickstackr - $1.99 - There is a free app directly from flickr, but I really love the layout and navigation in this app. If you use and love flickr like I do to keep track of your online exchanges, you gotta get this one!
- kindle - FREE - One of our passions as crafters is buying books to learn new techniques. All the new crafting books are coming out in Kindle editions, and you easily see them a page at a time in your studio with this fabulous app. You don't even have to weigh the pages down!
- pandora radio - FREE - I know what you're thinking, "What in the world does Pandora have to do with crafting?" We all need some music to stir our imagination pot, and keep us company, don't we?!
- mollie makes - $6.99/issue - This is the one magazine I can't do without - it's almost as if it were written just for me. If you haven't checked out Mollie Makes yet, what are you waiting for? There is also a digital subscription for around twenty dollars.
- cloth paper scissors - $7.99/issue - CPS is currently my favorite magazine to write for, but they have other selections for the sewer & knitter as well.
- jknit HD - PRO & LITE - I'm convinced this app was written with the absent minded knitter in mind. I can write my own patterns, and save them with the PRO version. You can also search for specific patterns, and download them right into the program. It also has a BIG visual counter with row instructions to keep you on track.
- knitionary - $1.99 - This is a great app for the experimental knitter. It is a visual dictionary of stitches, so you not only get the formula to knit it, but know what it should look like too.
And there you have it :) There are lots of other apps I use all the time, but right now these are the ones I find most useful and that I use over and over again. If there is an app you just can't live without I would love to know what it is! Has anyone found a great app for writing sewing patterns? I haven't looked because I don't usually use them, but it would be nice to be able to keep track of the ones I come up with w/o having to read through a bunch of doc files!
NOW GO MAKE ART!
