Little Photo

CNET Editors' review

by: Jaymar Cabebe on May 27, 2011

Contrary to its name, Little Photo for Android is huge on features. With an impressive list of filters and tools, and a seemingly infinite number of combinations to apply, Little Photo is an awesomely powerful camera app for your mobile device.

Open up the app, and either activate the camera, or load up an existing photo from your gallery. If you choose to take a new photo, you can either snap as you tap or enable a 3-second timer. From there, you'll be jetted over to the work space, where you can scroll through pages of effects to apply to your photo. The nice thing is, any time you touch a filter, it shows a live preview of it on your photo. Click apply, to lock it in, and go back to the menu if you'd like to apply additional layers of effects. There's also a menu of Tools you can use to edit your photo further. For instance, add text, draw, or paint on your photo, add frames, even cross-expose your shot with another from your gallery. With all of the filters, tools, and combinations available, there are virtually infinite ways you can stylize your pictures. And of course, when you're finished you can share through any of your device's installed applications (Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, and so on).

While Little Photo is indeed remarkably powerful, there are a few things we found it was missing. We didn't see a crop tool, which would've been great for reworking shot composition. Also, some higher-resolution output would've been a nice bonus. And finally, the menu is unwieldy. Scrolling through the exhaustive list of filters and tools via a single-column text menu is difficult and taxing on the eyes.

Overall, we think Little Photo is a must-try app for those who like to apply effects to their photos. Its vintage filters were some of the best we've seen. It performs smoothly and quickly, especially when live previewing filters. Sure, its menus may take some getting used to, but Little Photo is still a worthwhile download.