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Photo & Video / Reviews
FolioBook Photo Portfolio

FolioBook Is My New Preferred iPad Portfolio App

FolioBook_menu

This review has been a long time coming. I remember when my buddy Scott Kelby first raved about FolioBook and I downloaded it and tried it based on his recommendation. However, and to be quite honest, I wasn’t that impressed. Don’t get me wrong, FolioBook did all the things that Scott raved about, but for me it didn’t do anything that any of the other major portfolio Apps I had didn’t already do. Sure it’s great for creating a custom branded portfolio experience complete with video support (in-app purchase), logos and music, but it was missing the same thing that most of the others were missing. There was no way to “sync” photos from Lightroom or cloud storage such as Dropbox.com. The developer contacted me for a review and like so many other Apps I actually declined to review it simply because there wouldn’t be anything really great for me to say other than it’s another fine choice for a portfolio App. I wanted MORE! I explained to him that it’s not good enough that I can get my photos into your App and display them, I need an easy workflow for updating my portfolios/galleries. My portfolio (galleries) is a “work-in-progress” that will never be done! I’m always looking to improve it. That means that when I take a better shot than one of the ones already in it, the old one gets replaced by the new one. I even have a “Recent Work” gallery that is updated every time I do a new shoot. It always has 24 of my most recent pics in it. For most portfolio Apps this means a manual update. I’d have to get the new shot it in, arrange it and remember to delete the old shot. Like most things, if it’s not easy to update you won’t update it. My portfolio on my iPad always seemed to be out of date and I’d have to scramble to get it up to date before showing someone or heading to an event.

He listened!

Lightroom to Dropbox to FolioBook – That’s My Workflow

Adobe Lightroom is where all my photos live. I have various catalogs for the different types of photography that I do and Lightroom is my mission control center for publishing and sharing my photos with the world. Thanks to The Turning Gate I even use Lightroom to create my Photography Website. I use Lightroom’s Publish Services to publish to Facebook, Google+ (Picasa), 500px.com, Flickr and Smugmug. However, I also use Lightroom to Publish to folders in Dropbox via the built-in Hard Drive Publish feature. This is also one of the ways I go from Lightroom to my iOS devices.

Lightroom Hard Drive Publish Service

Any time that I update my Portfolios (galleries), I just hit the Publish button for each Smart Collection in my Hard Drive publisher and the new JPGs are generated and sync’d with Dropbox. FolioBook could always “IMPORT” from Dropbox, but it was a very manual process. You’d have to pick which images to import and then remember to manually delete the old ones. In this latest update to FolioBook, FolioBook Now “Syncs” with Dropbox. That’s right! Real syncing. Simply choose the folder on your Dropbox.com account that you wish to sync with as a gallery in FolioBook and it will “sync” the new photos to FolioBook and remove the old ones. Hooray!

NOTE: Your initial sync could take several minutes as FolioBook has to look at every file in your Dropbox folder once and note the modification/creation date/time. Mine took about 10-15 minutes and I thought it was forever stuck on “preparing”. After the initial sync it syncs any other galleries/changes very quickly.

Sort order: The images in FolioBook will be ordered by file name coming from Lightroom/Dropbox. Therefore if you add an image later in the middle of your collection, you’ll need to rename all the photos in that collection with a preceding sequence number and mark all photos in that collection to republish so that they are all generated with a new sequence number/name.

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FolioBook_Sync_Dropbox

This is the update I’ve been waiting for. While FolioBook isn’t the 1st app to sync Photos with the cloud (Minimal Folio can do it and Adobe Revel can sync as well) the other Apps don’t have all the “Portfolio” features that I want/need such as slideshows, transitions, music, etc.. This is why starting today if any photographer were to ask me for a recommendation for a Portfolio App for iPad, I will say “FolioBook”. I’ve gone through more Portfolio Apps than I care to mention and it’s posible that I’ll change my mind again if something better comes out, but right now FolioBook is where it’s at!

 

The Bottom Line

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Until now FolioBook was a good option for having a portfolio of photos on your iPad, Today, it just became a “Best App” for having a portfolio of photos on your iPad. This updates goes a long way towards making FolioBook the “perfect” portfolio App for iPad, but there are still some things I’d like to see in the next update. Now that we have Dropbox syncing of galleries, I’d like to see an option to “Backup” and “Restore” to/from Dropbox. Currently the App offers backup/restore, but only via iTunes and a cable. I’d also love to see syncing of the order of photos between devices and yes I’d love to see an iPhone version since I have my iPhone with me more often than my iPad. I’d also like to see a slightly “smoother” manual swipe from image to image. Seems like you have to really “pull” to get to the next image.

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Dropbox recently made their “sync API” available to developers. So I’m sure we’ll see other Portfolio Apps follow FolioBook’s lead, but for now if you’re a photographer and you were looking for the Best Portfolio App for your iPad, currently this is it.

iTunes

Games / Reviews
Devil's Attorney

Devil’s Attorney

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If you’re looking for a new game to play on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch this weekend, you should check out Devil’s Attorney. My friend Rita recently turned me onto this addictive game and I’ve been playing it ever since. The way the game works you’re an Attorney and you’re just starting out. You have a shabby apartment and office and you start taking cases. With each case there’s a prosecutor, witness(es), evidence and sometimes expert witnesses. It’s your job to use the “skills” at your disposal to knock out the prosecutor, evidence, etc. You have Cross-Examine, Interrogate, Patronize, Analysis (to use against evidence), Expert Analysis, and even things like Mesmerize and Tamper with Evidence. Each one of these Actions costs points from your starting level of 9 points per game. Each one of things you’re attacking also has points associated with it and your case has a point level assigned to it. Your objective is to use your actions to reduce the damage that can be inflicted by the other side. For example, if you use your Expert Analysis and successfully take out the Evidence the Expert will also disappear. Then the only ones left that can inflict damage are the Prosecutor and Witnesses. Keep using your available actions until you’ve used all your points for that round and hopefully you either completely eliminate the other side or significantly reduce their ability to hurt your case. As you win each case you get paid. The more money you have the more things you can do like upgrade your apartment and office. The more cases you win you also receive gifts from your client that help you get more Actions or points.  The game play requires you to THINK about your available actions and the damage that can be inflicted by the various components of the other side. It definitely takes strategy and to think ahead.

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The cases get harder as you advance. You’ll really have to think about your available actions and the points necessary to win your case.

This game is Universal and works on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Photo & Video / Reviews
Easy Release - Model Release App

Easy Release – Model Release App 3.0 is Here with iCloud Syncing

easyrelease_iPhone5_iPad

I have a lot of apps, but as you would expect there are some that I use more than others. In those cases it’s an extra special treat to see a major or long awaited update happen. Yesterday Easy Release got a major update. While there aren’t a ton of new features to point to, the ones that are there are major. Let me start by saying that Easy Release has become my App of choice for doing “model releases”. It’s not the only App I use for photography contracts and documents, but it is the one I use for model releases. I have always liked the final output of the PDF release. I use it for every photo shoot I do. I started using Easy Release first on my iPhone. Once the iPad was introduced and the app was updated to be a Universal App I started using it on my iPad. Now of course I had all the releases I had done on my iPhone still on my iPhone and I had the new ones on my iPad. Then I got an iPad mini in addition to my iPad. Now what? I simply avoided doing releases on the iPad mini because I didn’t want to have a 3rd device that had releases that the other two didn’t have.

Easy Release 3 Now Syncs To iCloud

When you install this update and launch it for the 1st time you will asked if you want to use iCloud or not to sync. If you say yes (don’t panic), your existing releases will disappear from view. I was a little freaked at first, but they were being sycn’d up to iCloud and then back down. Once I turned this on on my iPhone the same thing happened and releases from my iPhone were also showing up on my iPad and vice versa. Now I can use Easy Release on ANY of my iOS devices and know that I’ll have access to those releases on the other devices if needed. This is GREAT!

Not only do your existing releases get sync’d but also your models, locations, settings, custom templates and branding go to all your devices as well.

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More PDF options

Another enhancement is a Grid view from which you can now see and send multiple PDFs in one email. This is cool especially if you did multiple shoots on the same day and need to send those releases to the same people.

The Bottom Line

This is a much needed and welcomed update. I can find very little wrong this App. However, I would like to see additional options for syncing. For example, I’ve got more space on Dropbox than I do iCloud. I’d also like an option to not only email the PDFs out, but to have those PDF auto sync to Dropbox for storage. Otherwise this App rocks and if you’re a photographer photographing people or buildings you should be getting releases! This is my favorite choice for those releases and having my own text and branding in those releases is great!

iTunes

 

 

Yes it can be awkward signing with your finger so get a stylus!

If you’re going to be a doing a lot of these, you might want to make an investment in a touch screen stylus to make it easier for your clients to sign. I got one of these and I LOVE IT! Makes it so much easier to sign! If you want an even better one, go with this one from Wacom or this one which is also a pen.

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Games / Reviews
Word Search Express

Word Search Express for iPad

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J Smith is back with a video review of Word Search Express

 

iTunes

Games / Reviews
t Chess Pro

t Chess Pro for iPad and iPhone

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A friend of mine received an iPad for Christmas and she was looking to me for a recommendation for a good Chess game. Although I hadn’t played chess on my iOS devices before, I figured that there were probably “tons” of good chess games for iOS. I was actually appalled by how bad the selections were. Chess games have been around for YEARS! The one that ships on the Mac is great. Looks gorgeous and it works. However, when it comes to iOS the selection was not as good as I assumed it would be. I wasn’t looking for much…

  • I wanted a good looking board with good looking pieces
  • I wanted multiplayer support either via Game Center or wirelessly/internet
  • I wanted the basic features for beginners such as hints, take backs, etc.

The above listed features are not revolutionary and have been around in chess games for as long as I can remember. First off most of the games I found had very bad looking (line drawing type) graphics. This is what surprised me the most. Most didn’t offer multiplayer support. However, I did finally find one (actually she found it first). It’s t Chess Pro. It meets all my basic requirements and it works great via Game Center so that you can play your friends either in the same room or across the globe. Her only disappointment was that there wasn’t more fanfare when you beat the computer! :-)

You can set the difficulty level and this is a Universal App so that it’s native to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. There are LOTS of options beyond the ones I wanted. The only thing I’d like to see added is the ability to actually drag you piece to make the move. As far as I can tell you can only tap the piece and then tap where you want to move it to. Otherwise, if you’re looking for a great iOS chess game, this is it!
iTunes

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