Ultramask Review

Offering a series of geometric designs and shapes that can be applied to your photography, Ultramask makes a pleasant change from the usual plethora of photo filtering apps. It won't look the part for every image, but it can do a lot in terms of sprucing up an otherwise unexciting landscape picture.

After you import or take a new photo, the settings for Ultramask are quite straightforward. On the bottom of the screen are all the options available to you. Each is lettered and numbered, which initially seems unusual but actually works better than the vague if attractive sounding names that are more frequently used for filters. Once you've picked an option, you can then move the shape around the image – highlighting the area that's most important to you, as well as rotate the shape to capture your desired look. A slider bar changes whether the rest of the image is obscured or not.

Other choices come in the form of being able to invert the shape, giving focus to the rest of the image and obscuring the shape, and changing the background to white or black. A dust particle effect can also be applied, although I rarely found this looking as nice as you'd expect.

Sharing options come in the usual flurry of options so it's easy enough to share your creations elsewhere. Ultramask doesn't stray far from its key concept, meaning you'll probably be using this in conjunction with other photography apps. However, its ability to make an otherwise conventional image look a little more eye-catching means it's worth keeping it around on your iOS device. It won't be something you use all the time, but every now and then it'll be very useful indeed.