Blur - Create awesome backgrounds

[Shadow_Thief]

Hey guys,

As a small side project to learn objective-c I made this simple app. It's called Blur and It makes colorful ambient wallpapers based on pictures you take.

I know theres a big customization and theme making community here so hopefully you guys can use it to make some nice looking wallpapers :)

Blur.

https://itunes.apple...55838?ls=1&mt=8

If you just want the default set of wallpapers that come with the app, you can also download those here.

http://dchen05.devia...k-App-376065326

Let me know what you think! It's my first app so any feedback is appreciated.

Dave

[Mainer82]

Next on your plate is WP8? :)

[Shadow_Thief]

@Mariner82 Hopefully that and Android as well!

[Nayos]

Just bought it (as a result of this thread)

Very useful to me as I like gradient wallpapers but can never be bothered finding decent ones.

There seems to be some gradient banding though on some images, so perhaps add a noise slider to help deal with that?

[Axel]

Is it possible to post a video demo of the app in action? :)

[Shadow_Thief]

@Nayos Thanks!

I've noticed the banding as well and was wondering how to get rid of it. In the next version the slider sensitivity will be toned down a bit, so maybe that will help. But good call on the noise, I will try that out and see what the results are.

[SMELTN]

Is it possible to post a video demo of the app in action? :)

I would like to see a demo myself before I purchase

[Shadow_Thief]

Thanks for the interest guys.

I will see if I can whip up a video today :)

Its going to be a funny video, because its such a simple app. You just take a picture from your gallery or camera, then choose the amount of blur and ta daaa!!! It sounds very simple but the results can be quite good.

I will post it here when the video is up.

[fusi0n]

Bring to Android :D

[Shadow_Thief]

Alright folks, just whipped this up. Sometime soon I will post a more complete video but this give you an idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfKgYt8B8B8

Please disregard that im taking a picture of an african drum on a kitchen table, I needed something colorful lol.

Not shown in the video:

You can also load photos from your gallery, and save your blurs to your camera roll, thats what the other button does. Thats it!

We have gotten some good feedback from lots of people so I'm sure more features will be coming soon.

[LieboOSBA]

Looks nice but no feedback showing on the AppStore?

[Draconian Guppy]

no android love :P ?

[bigmehdi]

So it's a traditional blurring algorithm like the ones you can find in photoshop ? (box blur I  guess).

 

The banding probably comes from the limitation of the display (it's probably not 24 bit),

a solution would be some dithering. Normally it's automatrically handled by the system , but perhaps not for the wallpaper.

[Marshall Veteran]

Next on your plate is WP8? :)

 

I see what you did there! You should be a rapper. :P

[Shadow_Thief]

Hey everyone,

 

Blur just got a significant update so I thought I would update the thread.

 

- I fixed the banding problem by switching to a new blurring algorithm.

- iPad support

- iOS7 fixes (more coming soon)

 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blur./id637855838?mt=8

 

I just started working on the android version. Gotta figure out what I'm doing in Android Studio first but hopefully soon!

 

 

 

[The Guvnor]

This thing outta be selling like crazy now with it complementing ios7 so well

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

How did you "fix" the banding? As far as I know there's no actual way to eliminate it short of using a higher depth monitor.

Also, thought about a lens blur/bokeh filter? They can make for some nice effects.

[Shadow_Thief]

@bad booster yeah we have had a huge spike since iOS7 has come out.

 

@The_Decryptor True, you can't really fix banding permanently, sometimes there just aren't enough colors :). We switched from the stock CIFilter gaussian blur to Stack Blur, which made the banding significantly less visible. Good idea with the bokeh filter!

 

Also I have a basic android version working, and I started an OSX version and Windows 8 version. Im limited on the devices front, so I will post back here when things are ready for some beta testers. That would be much appreciated.

 

 

Also one of our users created this big batch of blur wallpapers with the app that you can download for free. Check it out. http://blrrr.com/

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

http://www.quasimondo.com/StackBlurForCanvas/StackBlurDemo.html

Is that it? I'm surprised how fast it is, and how there's little to no banding, which is pretty nice.

I was going to suggest doing it in a higher depth colour space (like 16bit linear RGB) to avoid it, but it looks like you've got it sorted (Y)