Photo labeling may not be something you are normally familiar with and to be honest I was the same until I found Labelbox. A fairly new iOS application by Stepcase. Labelbox has been taking the App Store by storm recently, being downloaded over a million times in less than a month.
Labelbox makes labeling photos exceptionally easy in an aesthetically pleasing way, and with great end results. Photo labeling may not be your thing, but have a go at this and see if it changes your mind, it did mine!
Getting Started
How to use Labelbox
This is a free app that makes the entire process of taking the picture, adding a label and uploading or saving it very straight forward. Upon opening the application you are presented with a quick introduction on how to use the app. Simply tapping the arrow at the bottom of the screen will bring up the drawer below where you can take a new picture or select from your gallery, and then proceed with tagging.
Labeling A Photo
The process of labeling
Once you have taken your picture it is very easy from there on. It is simply a case of picking your desired ‘tape’ by sliding along the bottom drawer. There are many to choose from, ranging from girly pink ones to plain masking tape and even more that you can buy for $1. In the image above you can see that I chose the simple masking tape and just by dragging your finger across the picture you can chose how you want it to apply it.
Once you have done that you can enter your text, in this case it was the lovely view of the Swiss Alps from my balcony, and if you make a mistake you can either hold down on the tape and see it slowly fade away into non-existence, or an easier way if you have several is to shake the phone to remove all tapes. Making an labeled image is great, but there’s no point doing it if you can’t do anything with it; fortunately Labelbox makes saving it easy. Just press the button second from the left along the bottom and it will save the image right into your phone.
Steply integration
Being in the social age that we live in, people don’t just want to keep these images for themselves, they want to share it with their friends. You could download this image onto your phone and then share it using the iPhone’s default options, but what the company Stepcase is more commonly known for is their photo-sharing site called Steply, and as you might have guessed Labelbox has great integration with Steply.
Sharing photos with Steply
You can access the photo sharing options just by pressing either the ‘S’ button along the bottom or the arrow pointing up button, both of which will prompt you to create a Steply account. As you can see I don’t have any friends yet on Steply because I only recently set it up and have yet to sync it with either Facebook or Twitter, but when you do it shares it with them.
Steply is a hit and miss to be honest. If you already use Steply and have lots of friends then you will love this added feature, however if you are not a previous user and only sign up for it because of Labelbox then it probably won’t be that beneficial to you. This is, I presume, why they released this app in the first place, to bring new users to their image sharing site. Nonetheless, one can not complain when it provides extra functionality without sacrificing anything else.
Design & Interface
As you can see from the various the various screenshots, this app is stunningly well designed in my opinion. The wooden finish is very well done and when choosing the labels it looks so realistic and even the ‘Tape’ is well designed and when you use it has that sound you might expect when sticking down some tape. All of this helps to create a much better user experience, making labeling your photos actually enjoyable, rather than a chore.
Conclusion
As previously stated photo labeling may not have been something that you normally do but the idea makes sense. It is more useful for those postcard-like moments that you want to share rather that every single photo you take, and due to the ease and pleasure you get from using Labelbox anyone can get those pictures looking great for everyone to see in practically no time at all.
Labelbox could do with some improvements, like ability to share directly via Facebook, but at the grand price of Free there’s not much you can complain about and is definitely worth a try.