Windows Phone 7 Image Morphing with Morfo
Liven Up the Windows Phone 7 Pictures Hub!
One of the most impressive things about Windows Phone 7 is the ease with which the camera can be launched and photos snapped, saved and possibly uploaded to Facebook or Windows Live; in less than 10 seconds the image will be on your social profile.
The Pictures Hub is a key part of Windows Phone 7, where all of the photographs you have taken are stored, and you can also use it to browse any images uploaded by your contacts to Facebook or Windows Live. Photos are quite an important and integral part of Windows Phone 7 – so it’s just as well that there is finally a way to do something interesting with them!
Morfo is more than the standard image editing app, allowing you to turn profile snaps of friends and family into something else entirely…
Getting Started
To get started with this great image morphing app for Windows Phone 7, visit the Marketplace on your phone and search for “morfo”. You will have two options – you can either download the limited trial (where some features and saves are restricted) or purchase the full app for £1.99 (UK price).
Once installed Morfo will allow you to find an image from your phone and import the head of the person that you want to morph. Be aware: the results are rarely pretty!
Use the Create a New Face option to find an image from your library, taking care to choose one that is a full frontal portrait and not a side-on view. The image might be one that you have snapped or have synced from a social network – when you have found it, click Done to proceed.
Shaping and Positioning the Head, Nose, Eyes and Mouth
In order to apply the graphical morphing fun, Morfo requires you to size and position some overlays for the head, nose, mouth and eyes. These must be dragged into position one at a time and sized using pinch so that they accurately (or approximately) cover the corresponding element on the face of the subject.
This process can take a few minutes to get right but is necessary in order for Morfo to correctly map various elements and features to the face later on. Click Done after positioning each of these elements; you’ll be given the opportunity to go back and edit them if they don’t look quite right (although to be honest, there is no way they should look quite right!).
Click Finish to move to the next screen, where you will be able to begin tormenting your Morfo creation!
Makeup, Voice and Music
With your face created (or you can use the default face) you can begin to play around. The Fat button will increase the proportions of your head, while the Makeup button will apply various paints to the face, so you can give it a Pierrot look or even an approximation of Batman’s Joker. With the Rock and Music buttons you can elicit some interesting moves from your creation, while the Voice tool will give them some added character, and a Pitch button can be used to apply a helium balloon effect.
Even in the trial version you can export an image, and you’ll have a lot of fun sharing your Morfo creations!
