Configuring CameraPixels

In the previous tutorial, we learned about permissions required by CameraPixels and basic user interface elements visible on the screen. In this tutorial, we’ll have a look at how to set up the additional elements of the CameraPixels’ UI, get access to the Quick User Guide, and contact support within the app itself.

Additional UI elements

In the previous tutorial, we’ve seen that CameraPixels can have additional UI elements visible on the screen. The additional UI elements include Histogram, Zoom slider, External Lens Selector, and Camera Selector. When it comes to the Camera Selector, the user has no control over its presence on the screen. It will appear automatically on devices with dual and triple cameras. The presence of the Histogram, Zoom slider, and External Lens Selector can be controlled by turning on or off the corresponding setting in the CameraPixels’ Global Settings dialog:

When the Global Settings button is pressed a setting dialog appears on the screen.

The settings list can be scrolled up and down and divided into several sections. Each of the settings has a short description that can help you decide whether a particular setting has to be turned on or off. For instance, in order to see the live histogram on the screen, the Histogram setting should be turned on. The same is valid for the Zoom slider, which is used to adjust the digital zoom of the image. The digital zoom is not accessible (even if it’s activated in settings) for raw capture and in Portrait capture mode.

Advanced features

When you’re using manual controls to adjust focus and exposure it’s not always easy to understand if the image is in focus or properly exposed. The CameraPixels app has advanced features, focus peaking and loupe, and clipping warnings helping you to make sure of the chosen settings.

The focus peaking highlights the areas in focus and the loupe shows a magnified version of the image in the center of the viewfinder.

Both, the focus peaking and loupe have 3 states: off, transient (shown only while adjusting manual focus) and permanent (shown as long as the manual focus setting is active). The change the state of the focus peaking use the button on the left side of the value selector, and to change the state of the loupe – button on the right side:

The clipping warnings show the under- (in blue color) and over-exposed (in red color) areas of the image.

The clipping warnings are shown permanently and not only when exposure settings are adjusted. In order to prevent you from constantly going back to the Global Settings dialog and change the setting, we added a shortcut that allows quickly switch the clipping warnings on and off. Just tap on the histogram view!

Persistence

By default, CameraPixels starts in Photo capture mode with the default settings. If you’re using another capture mode with particular settings more often, it makes sense to activate Persistent capture mode and Persistent capture settings options. When these settings are active, the CameraPixels will start with the last used capture mode and settings, giving the impression of the continued workflow.

Additional settings

You can change the language of the CameraPixels’ user interface using the Language setting. The current version of CameraPixels supports English, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Portuguese, French, Russian, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese languages. After the language change you’ll need to restart the CameraPixels app for the changes to take effect.

If you plan to store the location of the captured media in its EXIF metadata, the Location option needs to be turned on and the Location permission should be granted to the CameraPixels. Due to privacy, the Location setting is turned off by default.

When you post your images on the internet, it’s a good idea to have a Copyright message embedded into the EXIF metadata. Scroll down the settings list and type your Copyright message. Press the Return key on the virtual keyboard to save the message.

Support

When you have a question, suggestion, or complaint you can always contact our support directly from the app. The advantage of using the in-app support option is it automatically fills in important information for our support team. The CameraPixels adds the app version, iOS version, and device type to the body of your email automatically:

In order to contact our support within the app, in Global Settings scroll down to the Support section and select the Contact Us item. This will open a new message dialog where you can write your message and send it to our support team.

Starting from the CameraPixels v2020.1 we ship a Quick User Guide with the app that shortly describes the user interface and basic interactions. The user guide can be accessed within the Global Settings, Quick User Guide item in the Support section.

The last, but definitely not least item in the Support section is Please rate us in the App Store. With the myriad of photography apps in the App Store, it’s quite a challenging task for the users to select the right one. Most of us rely on the reviews of other users to decide if a given product suits our needs. Therefore we kindly ask you to leave your review in the App Store to help others and motivate our team to continue the development 😉 Please, don’t use the App Store review to report a bug, we might need additional information which cannot be provided there.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to configure CameraPixels for specific needs. We learned how to show/hide histogram and zoom slider, how to prevent CameraPixels from starting in default capture mode with default settings, and how to get support in case you need it. In the next tutorial, we’ll learn basic interactions with CameraPixels.