I use a lot of apps to make up some pretty epic photos: Facetune, Toon Camera, Half Tone, ElementFXPro, just to name a few. There, the secrets (some of ’em, anyway!) are out of the bag.

Plotagraph was one app I’d been waiting for since they released it for the Mac early this year. I was told it would be available this September so I was stoked to see they released it earlier when I caught it on the App Store in mid-August. 

Plotagraph is an image animation app that truly makes for epic photos: it makes elements in your photos move in a hypnotic loop, drawing people in, making them watch. If you like to take photos of the sky, water, even architectural subjects, you’re going to have a great time playing with this app.

It’s fantastically easy to use, too!

Download the app ($4.99 from the App Store) and you’re good to go. It exports directly from your gallery or camera so you can easily choose which photos you’ve taken to manipulate. Luckily, I was on a Cebu Pacific flight to be among the first to see the newly-built Terminal 4 Airport in Changi, Singapore after I got the app so I got plenty of chances to play with it:

1. Choose a photo from your gallery.

2. Mask the portions you don’t want to move. You can adjust the size of the cursor. You can erase the mask, too with the eraser tab. Like the mask cursor, the size is adjustable, too.

3. Anchor the portions you don’t want to be animated. Still not sure how this works versus the masking, I’m still playing with it.

4. Animate the portions you want to move, in the directions you want them to move.

5. Adjust the speed of the movement.

6. Review your work of art 😄 by pressing the play tab. You can refine it by tightening or erasing the mask, adding or deleting arrows using the undo button on top of the page or the select tab at the bottom.

7. Export directly to your gallery or messaging or social media platform of your choice. Saving just takes a few seconds.

You can have a cool, custom Plotagraph in less than 5 minutes!

 

I’ve had a lot of fun creating epic images using this app. I even looked for old stuff I’ve made just to see how well they work with Plotagraph:

Taken more than ten years ago with a Fish Eye camera and a stroke of luck, and now, fortified with Plotagraph!

 

My dad and his dad, film taken in the late 50’s. Subtle and slow Plotagraph effects make the moment more magical:

 

Taken with a GoPro as my son and I were learning to surf:

 

GoPro Selfie in Kayangan Lake in Coron, Palawan:

 

I hope you have fun with it! If you want me to create epic Plotagraphs for you, like the Crashtestdaddy Facebook page and send me a message with your photo there.

Cheers!