So, I finally got an official job offer from Shutterfly, and will be joining them soon, starting on the 17th of June :) Until then, I’ve got all engines rolling full-steam on my video app! I’ve been working full-time (overtime?) on it for the past couple of days, and have made major strides in development.

Stuff that got done in the last 2 days:

  • Smooth scrolling of my effect selector is now even smoother.
  • Fixed the “sketch” filter algorithm to use adaptive threshold instead of Canny for detecting edges in all kinds of lighting.
  • Added a new “Ink” mode. Similar to sketch, but is simpler and cleaner. Black/Gray/White ink fills.
  • “Noir” filter is now truly unique to my app. It’s not just another B&W filter with a hipster name. It will now actually make her red lipstick stand out. (Or anything else that’s red… like a baboon’s arse). Anyway, this was inspired by Schindler’s List… Just wanted y'all to know where my inspiration for that filter came from.
  • Worked on another filter for Color sketches… Not exactly there yet. Might have to save this one for later.
  • Icon designs & Button graphics.
  • Figured out how to pause and resume recording a movie, and just finished coding it :) This was my biggest worry near the end of the project… but it was a few simple lines that I needed to add to GPUImage library to enhance its functionality. I will contribute this back to the open source community once I get it tested. It’s the least I could do to give back to the awesome library that made all of this possible in the first place.

What’s left to do:

  • Tweak & refine the UI. Especially add depth using drop shadows.
  • Hookup the record/pause/resume/stop buttons to call the proper actions.
  • Figure out pricing strategy + build In-app purchase flow for freemium model.
  • Build out the basic free filters: Original and Black&White
  • Build out some additional filters: Simple instagram looking ones… and some that kinda have that 70s’ sexploitation film look.
  • I want to add a simple way to customize each effect. For example, changing Noir filter to make green the pass-through color instead of red, or a slider to adjust the levels in the Ink filter. I already have an idea of how the UI would behave… WARNING! Feature Creep!!!
  • Add Flurry instrumentation to track feature usage.
  • Put some thought into building a Share Flow in the future.

Anyway… here’s another screenshot showing the improvements to “Sketch,” and the “Noir” filter. And it’s now an hour past the time that screenshot was taken. Goodnight!