Our first iPad app, TouchUp, is now available on the iPad App Store.

This is our first big release since Postage and we are thrilled to see it make its way into the hands of eager iPad owners across the globe. The launch today has been a resounding success, with TouchUp claiming the #1 spot in the U.S. App Store’s Photography category and breaking into the Top 100 of overall paid iPad app sales. Everyone at RS HQ is extremely humbled by this first day adoption!

TouchUp is focused on making it fun and easy to add creative effects and refinements to your photos on iPad. The product web site and the tutorial videos will do a much better job of giving you a feel for the application than I can do here. Check it out to see what TouchUp can do for your photos.

To all the naysayers we say– What do you mean iPad isn’t for creation? Photo editing on iPad is very different from pushing pixels with a mouse on the desktop. Something about holding the iPad and doodling directly on your photo sans the mouse running interference in-between is truly a new experience. I can tell you after working on this app for months, it is also a whole lot of fun. Our administrative assistant, Liz, wasn’t too engaged with the iPad until she tried TouchUp and now she can’t wait to get one of her own.

Rather than rehash the basics here, I will take just a bit more of your attention to pass on two nuggets about what I think are some unique features of TouchUp that you may not notice until you have more time to explore the app.

One thing TouchUp adds that is novel in the somewhat crowded market of iOS effect apps is layering. Each effect in TouchUp can be applied in its own layer that blends with the layers stacked below it. This works pretty much like a simple form of the layers you would find in Photoshop or Acorn on the desktop. This one feature gives you a lot of power to create some fairly sophisticated edits to images. Look at this photo for instance, which has had Temperature, Blur, Burn and Dodge adjustments layered on top of the original :

That’s a pretty dramatic difference with a cool result. Notice how the corners are darker now and the center has a highlight. The edges have also be de-focused a bit with Blur and the tone of the upper left is now much warmer. TouchUp makes this a breeze with painting effects on specific areas and blending the results together in layers. It may sound complicated, but the UI in TouchUp is tuned to make this easy and natural.

BTW, that photo is an array of iPads that our friends at Black Pixel had constructed for a cool project they built. Now you know why Apple can’t keep up with demand.

The other cool feature of TouchUp is the Accumulation or Painting effects. Many of the effects in TouchUp and in most of the competing applications on the iPad are applied to your photo with a mask. When you doodle with your finger on the photo you are essentially creating this mask or stencil that is either off or on for each pixel. If the mask is off, the original pixel shows through. If the mask is on, the effected pixel shows.

The painting effects in TouchUp work just a bit differently. Instead of just turning the mask off or on, these effects are applied by building up the effect as you stroke the image. The more you stroke in one area, the more the effect is applied. The simple example is the Paint Brush effect in TouchUp. When you pick a color and paint the Paint Brush effect on your photo, you can keep painting the same area over and over with new color. If you use a brush with some transparency you can also blend the strokes on top of the color that is already there.

Painting, instead of masking, works great with effects like Dodge and Burn. You can burn (darken) or dodge (lighten) an area with multiple brush strokes over and over to keep increasing the effect. Combine this with one of the soft-edged brushes and you’ll get an amazing and natural ‘organic’ feel to your edits. Look at how burning the mid-tones with a soft, transparent brush made the middle row of iPads look like they have been roughed up a bit in this next image. I wonder if the Black Pixel crew got their iPads at a fire sale?

While I’m sure this sounds complicated when spelled out in words, its really pretty easy to grok when you have the iPad in your hands and just start playing. Grab a photo or image with a lot of texture and just start rubbing! You’ll be surprised by the results that make eye-catching pictures.

Now that you have read a bunch of words about pictures, why not download the app and try it first hand on your own photos. If you make anything cool, show us on Twitter or Facebook. We are looking forward to what you come up with!

Things have been quite busy around here lately. We’ve been laboring in the RogueSheep application darkroom with our secret pixel-and-bit developing solution for months. The binary for our next application is hanging up to dry and I am proud to say our first iPad application is nearly done.

We’ve been known for our media-centric mobile applications in the past and our next effort continues on that theme. TouchUp for iPad will allow you to edit, enhance and get creative with photos and images on your iPad. TouchUp includes a variety of image adjustments and effects that you can draw directly on your photos by simply swiping your finger. The large surface of the iPad makes the hands-on manipulation of your images a new and extremely rewarding experience.

Our teaser web site is available at http://touchup.roguesheep.com. You can sign-up for our mailing list there if you would like to be notified when the application is ready in the App Store. You can also follow @TouchUpApp on Twitter or visit our page on Facebook to get more information ahead of the release.

We are almost done proofing the app. We can’t wait to get it in your hands and see the great stuff you all produce with it.

 

 

On October 9th, 2009 RogueSheep was approached to shoot a video by the production company Tipsy Pix and their partner Boston-based NKP Media. NKP Media is one of the top video suppliers to the big textbook publishers in the college market. The video was being shot for Cengage Learning’s best-selling textbook on marketing. The chapter in which we were asked to be a video component was Product Decisions, and we were chosen due to the fact that earlier in 2009 our iPhone application “Postage” had won the coveted Apple Design Award. Postage was a gift that just kept giving. We agreed to be a part of the video.

With our Seattle office under construction the morning of the shoot, the producers were creative and took it outside to use the scenic skyline as a backdrop. It was a perfect way to start the day. Chris Parrish and Brad Ellis were enthusiastic to talk about their product decisions, concepts and show off Postage to a few locals during the short clip. It was a gratifying experience to demonstrate the app in the wake of the huge splash it had made. The video was shot in HD and is slated to be shown all over the country at different universities in marketing classes during the 2010/2011 school year.

Tipsy Pix has produced hundreds of succinct educational documentaries and case studies of many well-known and upwardly-mobile companies. The condensed list includes: Vans, Kodak, Organic Valley, Method, Honda and Raleigh Bicycles. We were proud to join that list and enthusiastic to see the final footage.

It was a lot of fun for the company to get involved with this shoot. It is so rewarding to see something you did some of your best work on spread itself to unexpected venues. We will continue to make top-notch products with a design flair people seem to appreciate. We hope you will enjoy the video. Thank you for making Postage the success it has become!

Click here to watch the video about Postage!!!

Friend us on Facebook (Postage for iPhone) or on Twitter (@postageapp) to keep up with all the latest news, free giveaways and information on upcoming products.

One year old!? Yes, it has already been one year since the release of Postage for iPhone. It has been a special product for us here at RogueSheep. Postage brought out the best in the whole team;  it spotlighted our then relatively new team member Brad Ellis’ design skills and allowed our engineers to shine while creating a much-loved product. If you asked “Does doing what you love pay off?”, we’d say, “Yes it does!” Postage won a prestigious Apple Design Award right out of the chute. As it was our first iPhone application, it was a huge compliment to our far-reaching standards. After receiving a 5-Mouse rating from Macworld magazine, we were further honored to win a Macworld App Gem award that included a booth in San Francisco at Macworld 2010.

Postage continues to make us proud and amaze us, with daily sales around the world! It provides people with a tool to share their lives with their loved ones. We are happy to have some small part in our users’ joy. If you are reading this and have not yet tried Postage, we invite you to get it now and let us know what you think. If you are a long-time user, we thank you for your patronage and support. We will continue to make great products that we hope you all enjoy!

Get Postage ~ Postcards from the iTunes Store today to enjoy the new birthday design in honor of Postage’s 1st birthday.

Please join us on FaceBook at Postage for iPhone.  For a limited time you can get a FREE RogueSheep button! Go to the “Contact Developer” link in the lower right and send us your address and we will send it to you in the mail! Show everyone that you are not just some sheep, you are a RogueSheep!

Thanks again for a great year!

– Liz

Just a reminder that we will be exhibiting Postage and all our iPhone apps at Macworld Expo 2010 in just a few days. If you are planning on attending, be sure to look for us in the Mobile Application Showcase in the expo hall. We’ll be giving out promo codes and some other cool schwag including buttons, and these adorable MOO cards:

If you are not yet planning to attend Macworld 2010, there is still time! It looks like some great events are planned this year, including a special iPad event where Macworld editors will have an iPad on hand to show off. There are also a ton of interesting and entertaining speakersthis year including, filmmaker Kevin Smith, the legendary Guy Kawasaki and the cranky, but lovable John Gruber of Daring Fireball.

The Expo takes place from February 11-13 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. We have a number of free exhibit hall passes to give away. If you are interested, send us an email here : macworld2010@roguesheep.com

We’ve caught the love bug here at RS HQ and have two great new iPhone applications available in the store this week.

RoseGlobe

RoseGlobe is a romance-themed version of the SnoGlobe application we released last December. RoseGlobe is just beautiful and every bit as mesmerizing to play with as SnoGlobe. Be sure to check out the demo video that Brad created at the product website. It’s almost as pretty as the app itself. I think he is going to create a blog post soon to talk about how he worked the magic to motion capture the iPhone to create the animated phone in the short.

Valentine ~ Postage

We have also created a newly themed edition of Postage for the upcoming holiday next month. Valentine ~ Postage has 14 love inspired postcard designs, one for each day of February leading up to Valentine’s Day. Grab it and send your sweetheart a special little message every day next month. I guarantee it will win you some big relationship points!

Postage ~ Postcards

Finally, we have also updated the premium edition of Postage with several of the new postcard designs form Valentine ~ Postage filling out the love category with ten total designs. Be sure to update if you haven’t done it yet.

RogueSheep will be exhibiting at Macworld Expo 2010 this year as part of the Mobile Application Showcase. We will be there showing off Postage and our other iPhone applications, so if you plan on attending Macworld this year be sure and come say hello to us.

If you have never been to Macworld you have been missing out. Its a great time to meet and mingle with Mac and iPhone enthusiasts from around the world. Many of the prominent independent Mac and iPhone developers such as The Omni Group, Rogue Amoeba, FireMint, Riverfold, Marketcircle and Boinx will be presenting their wares there as well. It’s a great way to meet some of the best known names in Mac and iPhone software development.

The expo takes place February 11th-13th in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. We have some passes to give away, so if you are interested in attending drop us a line here : macworld2010@roguesheep.com

We are honored that both Postage and WORD SPIN have been nominated in the 2009 Best App Ever awards. If you enjoy our apps, please consider heading over to the Best App Ever web site and voting!