14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently announced a major update for its iPhone camera app called Microsoft Pix, bringing back Photosynth, a service that the company abandoned earlier this year.
Starting with version 1.3.2, Microsoft Pix not only that integrates Photosynth technology, but it also comes with other goodies, including a feature that makes it possible to turn videos into comics.
First off, it’s the return of Photosynth. Microsoft says the tool that allows iPhone users to take photos in perspective and create panoramas is based on the original service that was decommissioned in 2017, but also comes with several improvements.
“Photosynth in Pix shares similarities with the original, leveraging some of the underlying technology, with more features inspired by the original to come. Photosynth in Pix allows for faster and smoother capture, while also making use of Pix’s auto-enhancement capabilities which improve white balance, tone correction and sharpness,” the firm says.
More content for your panoramas
As compared to the iPhone panorama feature, which allows you to take photos horizontally to have the camera app stick them together and create a panorama, Microsoft Pix lets you move the photo to any direction you wish, thus substantially expanding the imagery you can capture.
Then, there’s the new Pix Comix feature that was created during Microsoft’s OneWeek hackathon and which can turn your videos into comics by automatically selecting the most interesting frames in the clip.
This functionality uses the core Pix feature called Moment Capture and looks for non-blurry frames, faces with eyes open, and other scenes that could be used in comics. Speech bubbles are automatically generated, and users are allowed to move them, rotate, resize, and edit the text as they wish.
It goes without saying that the app remains free and it supports any iPhone 5s or newer running iOS 10 or later. You can download the new Microsoft Pix version from the App Store here.
