Prisma Labs, developer of the trendy new free photo-editing application Prisma, has recently released an update that allows its users to apply its unique and artistic filers to videos that are up to 15 seconds long.
Although the update currently only applies to those of us with iOS devices, Prisma says the Android update will be soon to follow. The company says it has plans to add the ability to apply filters to GIFs in the near future, as well.
Prisma, which its creators say works by using a mixture of artificial intelligence and neural networking to turn any picture into a work of art, has already earned some high praise from critics, some of whom think the app is a real upgrade over current options.
Prisma “makes Instagram’s filters look so lame,” says Juan Buis, Digital Culture Reporter for thenextweb.com. “There was a time when people thought a painter’s work was so intricate and personal, it was deemed impossible to recreate. Well, that time is over. With Prisma, you now have your own, personal Picasso in your pocket. Just pick a photo from your phone, and it starts painting.”
I’m with Juan and after testing Prisma out myself on this stock photo of a cat and a few videos, I can certainly say that Instagram’s Valencia, Sierra, and Ludwig offer no comparison. What’s more, this is only one of the many cool filters available through Prisma. I also like that the entire process is offline so it does not require Wi-Fi or data.
As good as it is, Prisma is still the David to Instagram’s Goliath. As of July of this year Prisma had over 1-million active users and 7.5 million downloads, and that number has definitely risen since. Instagram, meanwhile, has over 300 million daily active users, leading me to believe that there is lots of room for growth for Prisma.
But the space is somewhat crowded. Another popular photo-editing app Snapseed, which is owned by Google, has around 50 million downloads on the Google Play store. It is five years old but I could not find out how many of those 50 million downloads were still active users. My takeaway is that Prisma is off to a very good start and certainly has the ability to surpass the competition.
USA Today’s Brett Molina agrees.
“Since launching in June, Prisma has become a summer smartphone hit,” he wrote recently. “While it hasn’t captured the global attention of Pokemon Go, which jumped out as the fastest app to 10 million downloads, users have likely seen the colorful images from the app invading their social media outlets like Instagram.”
Prisma hasn’t been around for very long, so its traction is very impressive for an app that took Moscow-based developer Alexey Moiseenkov around a month-and-a-half to create. It was at the top of the Russian App Store within weeks and is climbing the charts on this side of the pond.
Only time will tell if Prisma is just a fad or if it’s here to stay, but I’m willing to guess it’s the latter. The app is free on iOS and Android so there’s no reason to not try it out for yourself and see what all the hype is about.
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