Windows Phone App of the Day: Colorify

I will be the first to admit that I am no artist, but this App doesn’t help. My friend Tori and I moved into a new apartment yesterday, and I was looking for an App to edit my photos to make them look cooler without just “Intagramming” the crap out of them. I had hoped that Colorify for Windows Phone 7 would let me make our awesome Williamsburg treehouse apartment look even sweeter than it is, but alas, we were disappointed.

Advertised as upping your photos’ “coolness” factor, Colorify lets you re-color your photos by first converting them to grayscale and allowing you to selectively reapply the photo’s original color or use to color picker option to apply a new color. What’s the problem, then? It’s like using the “Paint” application on your old Gateway computer. You can only apply color by using your finger to draw on the picture.

Pros

• Free!
• Access to photos on your phone, Facebook, Instagram, SkyDrive, or pre-loaded stock images
• Take new photos to edit using your phone’s camera
• Option to apply photo’s original color or use the color picker to choose a new color
• Share through Email or on Facebook and Twitter
• Save finished artwork
• Zoom feature
• Customize brush size
• Undo your last action
• Continuous paint

Cons

• Use your finger to apply color
• Inaccurate

How It Works

• Download from the “Photo” section of your Marketplace
• Open from your App list
• Choose a photo from your Facebook or Instagram albums, camera roll, SkyDrive, or pre-loaded images
• Scroll right to view photos by date and see your Favorites
• Once a photo is selected, Colorify will automatically apply a grayscale
• Select the brush size by dragging the paint brush icon left to decrease or right to increase
• Click on the “Paint” symbol in the top right corner of your screen to select “Original Color” or choose a new color to apply
• Click on the magnifying glass to Zoom (Note: you cannot apply color while in “Zoom” mode)
• Share your photo by clicking on the “Share” icon at the bottom of your screen
• Click the “Back” arrow button at the bottom of your screen to delete your last action
• Click the “…” to load and save your photo, apply grayscale, view the original photo, see other cool apps by Asleroid, upgrade to the Pro version, or submit a review

Conclusion

Great idea, but poor execution. The UI is a little confusing and the process too tedious, though the concept is relatively simple. I wish that you could simply click on an item in the photo that you want to recolor, as you do in Photoshop, rather than having to physically “paint” the photo with your finger. No matter how great of an artist you are, it’s almost impossible to accurately apply color to your photo using your finger. Guess my pictures will have to stay “Instagrammed” for now.