Mextures is an award-winning stylish app that brings grunge and film textures, epic analogue light leaks and gradients to enable beautifully crafted iphoneography.
Mextures is an app created by photographer Merek Davis in 2012 to leverage the great textures that he had been using to edit his own photos. Originally started as a texture overlay app, it has now become a full-fledge editing suite with great social interaction from their sharable Formulas.
I personally use this app to add subtle textures and colours to add life to my otherwise plain-looking photos.
[av_heading heading=’Functionality’ tag=’h3′ style=” size=” subheading_active=” subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av_uid=’av-9n4uum’][/av_heading]
The core features of Mextures lays within the main screen that lists the following options:
- Favourites
- Radiance
- Grit and Grain
- Light Leaks 1, 2, and 3
- Emulsion
- Grunge
- Landscape Enhance
- Vintage Gradients.
Within each of these sections, a number of presets are provided to get you started on your editing. It would take you hours just to play with each one, and with its ability to layer an effect over one another, it becomes a great tool to add a little spice to your iPhoneography. I love these presets because each one is unique in its own way. You can change the opacity, direction, and blending mode to further customize the look to your liking.
The app also goes a step further and allows for photo adjustments as well, including adding film effects, adjusting exposure, temperature, saturation, fade, and more.
However, the strength of the app doesn’t stop there. Mextures allows you to save your custom edits, known as Formulas. You can share your formulas to the world so they can in turn get the look that you created, on to their own photos. And if you’re starved for ideas, you can always head over to their News or Inspiration sections to look at what others are doing, or select the Formula tab on the main screen to apply any number of Guest Formulas or other preset formula packs.
[av_heading heading=’User Interface’ tag=’h3′ style=” size=” subheading_active=” subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av_uid=’av-7v91n2′][/av_heading]
I have been using Mextures since its original version so I’m quite used to how they chose to implement all the options. However for newcomers to this app, I can see how things can be a little confusing to navigate. Once you select one of the options from the main screen, you’re presented with a screen with a number of options that can be a little overwhelming at first. What I originally found a little confusing was the lack of a “back” button to get you back to the previous screen of options. Instead, they opted to use a tab at the bottom with an arrow pointing up. And that X icon on the top left? That’s not to go back, but to start all over from the beginning, while the X you see once you press the up arrow signifies a “cancel” to go back to your settings page.
The settings page also lacks a button for you to see what the original photo looked like. I often like to see this so that I can gauge how much of I’ve changed the photo from its original state.
These are by no means deal breakers for me, but they can be somewhat confusing for newcomers.
[av_heading heading=’Final Thought’ tag=’h3′ style=” size=” subheading_active=” subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av_uid=’av-6jb80e’][/av_heading]
Overall, I think this is a versatile app that allows you to apply any number of effects to suit your taste; while some may prefer the heavy grunge, textured look, others may prefer a subtle enhancement to their photos. With it’s ability to fine-tune your photo and applied effect, I find myself drawn to this app more and more. If you take advantage of their Formulas, there’s really no reason not to be inspired to take your iphoneography to the next level.
Below the screen captures, I’ve added some of my favourite Mextures edits that I have done. You can tell that I prefer a more subtle touch to the textures, lights, and gradients.
[av_gallery ids=’3374,3376,3377,3378,3373′ style=’thumbnails’ preview_size=’portfolio’ crop_big_preview_thumbnail=’avia-gallery-big-crop-thumb’ thumb_size=’featured-slide-thumb’ columns=’4′ imagelink=’lightbox’ lazyload=’avia_lazyload’ av_uid=’av-4qm1pa’]
[av_masonry_gallery ids=’3365,3364,3383,3382,3366,3363,3362′ items=’10’ columns=’flexible’ paginate=’none’ size=’flex’ gap=’large’ overlay_fx=” caption_elements=’none’ caption_display=’always’ container_links=’active’ id=” av_uid=’av-1v7hcu’]