PhotoFunia

CNET Editors' review

by: Jaymar Cabebe on April 25, 2012

Photofunia is a ridiculously simple photo effects app that lets you drop your photos into funny and interesting scenes, similar to those you might find at an amusement park photo booth. If, say, you want to see what your face might look like on a billboard in Times Square, Photofunia has an effect for that. How about on the cover of Esquire Magazine? Photofunia's got that covered, too. With an incredible number of effects available, the possibilities seem endless.

To get started with Photofunia, just fire up the app and start looking for an effect you like. You can scroll through an exhaustive list of the app's almost 300 effects, or you can browse by category. Some of the categories include Billboards, Vintage, Posters, Movies, TV, and Books. There's even a Celebrities category, which has effects that can almost magically put you in a photo with the likes of Brad Pitt, Paris Hilton, or Marilyn Monroe. Finally, the app also offers a number of different filters for sepia and lomography-type effects.

Once you find an effect you like, tap it, and select a photo to use. You can select an existing photo from your Gallery or take a new one. Then, just let Photofunia take care of the rest. The app uses face-detection technology to find the person in the photo and insert them appropriately into the scene. If your source photo has two or more people in it, you can try to zoom in on the face you want to use, and crop. However, make sure the face you're targeting is well-lit, as the app can sometimes run into problems otherwise. In fact, one thing I think Photofunia is missing is a manual adjustment tool that lets you determine the placement of the effect, in cases when the face-detection isn't working.

Once Photofunia is done applying its magic, you can either save your new picture to your mobile device or share it using Android's Share button. It's important to note that all of Photofunia's effects are applied in the cloud, which means an active data connection is required to use the app.

One thing I love about Photofunia is the Favorites folder. Since the app offers so many different effects, the ability to bookmark some for frequent access is a godsend.

Overall, I think Photofunia is a fantasically fun photo app that's drum up some laughs with your friends and family. It offers almost 300 different effects, is remarkably simple to use, and outputs some surprisingly sharp (though silly) finished photos.