FocusTwist app is like Lytro for your iPhone

FocusTwist is a new iPhone app that uses the long established technique of focus stacking to create an effect similar to what the Lytro light field camera is able to do. This $2.99 app snaps off three images in quick succession, each focused on a different point on the scene, and combines all three into a single image.

With traditional focus stacking, you would combine the images in such a way that as much of the scene as possible is in focus at once — but FocusTwist has taken a slightly different approach. Instead, the app creates a small applet, that allows you to switch between the differently focused images by clicking on different parts of the photograph.

It's obviously a vastly different technique from the way the Lytro camera actually works. Lytro captures an entire field of light, and allows you to manipulate the way the final photograph is displayed. But the FocusTwist app does provide a similar experience through a much simpler technique. And since FocusTwist requires you to take multiple photos, sometimes small shifts in position can make the final image look strange.

This isn't the first attempt we've seen to replicate the Lytro's adjustable focus images, there's another technique that allows you to do something similar using a DSLR or CSC and video footage.

Unfortunately, since FocusTwist images can't be embedded, you either have to share them directly from FocusTwist's website, or else through a social network built inside the app.

You can see more of FocusTwist's sample images at its website.

 

 

 

(via DPReview)