iPhoneography: Get That Distressed Look Easily with Distressed FX

There are a multitude of iPhone apps in the App Store that allow you to apply filters to your photo, seeming to promise to turn your photo into a work of art. Many of them produce a washed out, dull look that falls short of this promise. Distressed FX, with some experimentation, will turn a good photo into a work of art.

One of the first things that you will notice about Distressed FX that is different than most "photo filter" apps is that it you have two sets of "filters", one called "gels", which seems to be more about colors (or birds, as I'll explain later), and one called "textures", which contains textured overlays. You can pick any combination of the two and choose the strength for each. You can also choose to control brightness, contrast, and saturation to further fine-tune your artistic creation.

Road Trip with the iPhone with iExit

When taking a road trip, often you know where you are going. In fact, often you get on the interstate and stay on it for hours, maybe transitioning to another interstate somewhere along the way. You don't need directions to your destination but you may need to know what exit has the next restroom or lunch options. You don't need a regular, turn-by-turn GPS for this and you don't want to be searching your map application for restaurants or rest areas while you're driving.

The interstate road trip is the niche that iExit fills. By default, iExit doesn't show a map (though a swipe to the left will show you a map). It simply shows a list of upcoming exits, how many miles to each, and what types of amenities are at each exit. Tap on an exit, and you'll see exactly what gas stations, restaurants, lodging, etc. is at that exit. It's the kind of app that you turn on and leave on during your trip so that you can, at glance, know exactly where to stop and how far you have to go before you stop.