An Android-only photo tweaking app that for sheer filter quality, matches the now-with-Facebook Instagram? We take a look at Little Photo.

"You have Instagram, we have Little Photo" used to be the rallying cry with which Android users responded to taunts by their iOS counterparts until not too long ago. Well,  we have seen Instagram arrive on Android and end up with Facebook over the past few days. Little Photo, however, continues on its Android-only path, adding filters all the time--the last few were added just a few days ago. And believe us, it is good enough in the filter department to give most other filter-based apps a run for their money.


Mind you, you would not get that impression when you start the app--if Little Photo has a flaw, it is of looking just that bit tacky. Anyway, opening the app places a 70's compact camera on the centre of the display which you can tap to get into photo-taking mode, with three options below it--Help, a link to the default camera app of the device you are using and a link to the existing pictures on your device (in case you wish you edit already existing pictures). The camera functionality within the app is very similar to that seen in most Android cameras, but with the option of using  a three second timer. We, however, stuck to using the default camera app of our HTC Desire HD because it came with touch to focus--something which Little Photo's camera app does not (if you touch the screen, you click!).


It is however, after you have taken the picture--or selected one to tweak--that the app begins to show its true colours. Literally. For unlike Instagram or even the very muscular Pixlromatic, Little Photo actually manages to pack in just about everything you would like to add to a picture. Yes, there are filters--dozens and dozens more than Instagram and some of them plain stunning (we are still freaking out over the results we got with Chalk Pen and Coal), and all as easy to use as scrolling down a list, tapping an option to see the effect it would have on your image, and then moving on to another until you find the perfect one. We could spend hours just going through the filters here, and we noticed that the developers keep adding new ones, which is a welcome sign.


But filters are only part of what Little Photo offers. You can also add frames to your picture and if even that is not enough, you can simply slip into the Tools option and add sketches, text, Bokeh, art paint, burn spots, multiple exposure effects and a whole lot more to your image. And they all work in a smooth manner--your picture is on the main part of the screen and the tweaking options on the side, and as you explore an option, your picture keeps changing giving you an idea of how it would look if you went ahead with the option you are looking at. Pretty cool, we think.  Mind you, we were a bit surprised to see why basic tools like cropping were absent--it would have helped in this kind of app.


Once you have finished tweaking your image, you can share it across a host of social networks, choosing the resolution you want (it goes up to 1024 px). Unlike Instagram, however, Little Photo does not have its own social network, although you can share your tweaked pics on Instagram by just hitting a button. All of which makes Little Photo one of the most impressive free image tweaking tools we have on a smartphone. No, it is not as sleek as Pixlromatic or have the thriving community that Instagram has, but when it comes to letting you play around with pictures and add effects and filters with minimum fuss, it is more than a match for those two worthies. Well worth trying out if you are a shutterbug with an Android device!

Available from: Google Play
Price: Free


--Nimish Dubey