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Fragment Review: Create Mesmerising Prismatic Photo Effects

Turn boring snaps into psychedelic gems with this photo editing app

The makers of Tangent and Lorystripes return with another photo manipulation app, this time one that adds prismatic patterns on top of your photos using imagery from the photo itself – a bit like viewing your snaps through shards of glass or a kaleidoscope. 

Fragment’s control system is simple, well thought out and nicely implemented

Fragment’s control system is simple, well thought out and nicely implemented

The interface is very user-friendly and cleverly executed. The style of fragmentation is selected from one of 46 presets, and these can be moved, scaled and rotated using the usual touch gestures as well as icons. The image consists of a fragmented version of your photo, plus the original photo beneath. You can alter the style and position of the fragments and make edits to the photo imagery within, toggling between the two using the circular button at the top.

Sliding scales

Tapping the triangle at the bottom brings up another panel providing control over the Brightness, Contrast, Additive, Blur, Invert and Desaturate settings. A sliding scale adjusts the strength of the effect, increasing it in some fragments, while decreasing it in others (and vice versa). It’s an unusual system, presumably designed to ensure a contrast between the various elements. Finally, a scrolling palette along the bottom allows you to colorize the image to suit. 

The Edit controls affect adjacent fragments to different degrees. By sliding the Blur control from negative to positive, you can see how the various fragments react

The Edit controls affect adjacent fragments to different degrees. By sliding the Blur control from negative to positive, you can see how the various fragments react

With these seven functions you pretty much have total control over the look of your image, although it’s easy to keep on endlessly exploring without settling on one result! And If you’re ever short on inspiration, you can always hit the Randomize button or, instead of loading your own photo, tap ‘Inspiration’, which loads in a selection of images created by other Fragment users. 

If you want to take your fragmented picture even further, you can tap on the triangle situated top right, which takes you to a separate menu. Here you can save your creation and share it with others, but if you hit ‘Refragment’, it will flatten the current image (so it’s no longer editable), and then use this as the basis for you to fragment it further still. Do it enough times and you’ll end up with dozens of tiny, random elements. 

By using the Refragment option, you can build up some bizarre images

By using the Refragment option, you can build up some bizarre images

We’re really impressed with Fragment; the controls are ingenious, it’s a pleasure to use and it all works smoothly in real-time on our iPhone 5s. The app can be used subtly, to add focus or drama, or applied freely to create striking abstract imagery. If you can see how it might add some interest to your photographs or help unleash your creative side, we’ve absolutely no problem with recommending that it join the other tools in your ‘photo apps’ folder.

Price: $1.99/£1.49

Size: 12.5 MB

Version: 1.3

Platform: iOS Universal

Developer: Pixite LLC

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