There are oh so many photo apps out there for editing your mobile snaps, but there's definitely a trend amongst avid Instagrammers at the moment to not just be content with the one, but to combine lots and lots of photos in a quirky way.

The most popular photo-combining-cute-border app is Diptic, but there are a few more available that allow you to stitch everything together, change the shape of the snippets, add different kinds of borders and even create cool reflective effects.

Related: 10 Ways to make your Instagram photos more awesome

If you enjoy taking photos of your face and then editing them beyond recognition, then moreBeaute could be your new favourite app.

Quick and easy-to-use photo application moreBeaute makes your skin look smooth and glowing, a bit like a Barbie or a cherub.

To make your face Mattel-like, simply take a photo using the app, or upload one from your Camera Roll and moreBeaute then makes it look all dreamy. If you want you can then tweak certain elements, like Brightness, Smoothness, Detail and Tone all with handy sliders, so you can view how each affects the photo instantly. You can also toggle between Before and After photos while you edit too, so you can "oo" and "ah" at the differences.

Once you're happy with your new shiny face you can then share your photo to Facebook, Twitter or just your Camera Roll.

Now we're really not saying there's anything wrong with your skin at all how it is. In fact the glowing complexion you get from moreBeaute is a little bit creepy, but if you enjoy playing around with Photoshop, applying blurring techniques and smoothing out imperfections, then this is a really fun and simple way to do it.

But please please PLEASE don't go overboard. You don't want to look like a blow up doll in all of your photos. Or maybe you do. In which case GO WILD.

Available from the app store for free. There's also a premium version too, but the only different is it doesn't have ads, so save your pennies and just ignore the ads. Simple.

Related: PicMonkey: Simple online photo editing with Instagram-style filters

There are a range of different services that promise to turn your Instagram snaps into stickers, calendars and t-shirts, so we're not surprised to see a new company has popped up that lets you turn them into big, beautiful works of art too.

Every week there seems to be a new company piggy-backing on the success of Instagram, offering users the chance to see their photos on all kinds of useless products that they really don't need. However, there's something about Instacanvas that we think could be a bit more successful and appealing, despite the fact its name is sickeningly predictable of course.

If you're particularly proud of your photos, Instacanvas allows you to have them printed on high quality canvas and sent to your home all ready to hang. However, it's also a platform for professional artists and photographers who already have a big Instagram following to connect with others who'd like to buy their artwork. In this way Instacanvas becomes an interesting and potentially very lucrative business model for those looking to make a few extra pennies from their awesome photography skills.

You simply sign up and the site builds you your own gallery, along with a vanity URL and you can then pick which of your snaps you want to feature.

Matt Munson, the cofounder and CEO at Instacanvas, told Fast Company:

"It started with the idea that there are these billions and billions of photos being created every day on Instagram and other social media platforms, and some of us on the team had an interest in selling artwork, and some of us had talked about buying it. And as we looked around all we were seeing on the walls of our apartment was mass-produced artwork that we'd bought at Ikea or Target--things we really had no personal connection to."

As you'd expect there are a few issues that arise as soon as you start delving deeper into the workings of Instacanvas, for instance, artists make only 20% of the cost of each print. As the starting price is $40 that means only $8 for those behind the image, which is a little bit low, no?

Many are also questioning who really owns all of our Instagram content now that it's been gobbled up by big bad Facebook, but Munson said:

"We haven't seen any inkling that that would ever change, and obviously there would be an enormous backlash in the community--so in that sense they'd be destroying the value of the entity they'd just acquired...It's a very different thing the way people use Instagram to take a beautiful picture they want to share with the world verus a picture of your friends having a beer at a party on Facebook."

Related: 10 Services that turn your Instagram photos into cool products

[Via Fast Company]

If you feel that your snaps of cakes and cats just don't look as good as they used to, try following some of our simple tips to make your Instagram photos a little bit more awesome.

When we all first started using Instagram last year, like crazed, filter-obsessed zombies, uploading photos of trees and tea and cats before choosing a simple effect with a cheesy border was totally acceptable. However, over the past few months we've all started taking our Instagram activity a little more seriously, whether it's making basic edits before uploading, adding filters from another app or combining lots of photos into one messy collage. We're onto you all.

So to help you out, here are our top ten tips to make your Instagram photos look even better, whether it's a basic photography lesson or apps to enhance the way your photos look before you go on to share them with your followers.

A new Instagram-based concept called Instaprint has popped up on Kickstarter this week, which scouts out specific locations and hash tags, brings lots of photos together and allows you to print them out in true photo booth fashion.

Instaprint merges the location-based technology of Instagram with our nostalgic love of old photos to bring you lots of snaps to any party and event that's filled with plenty of mobile photography geeks. Simply take lots of Instagram photos as normal, tag the location and then they'll all get sent to the nearby Instaprint box, which will print them out like Polaroids, or store them all in one place online so you can access them later.

We all know how popular crazy photo booths are at parties and events (particularly those that require you to dress up), so we imagine that experience combined with our love of Instagram can only lead to lots of fun times and silly photos.

Find out more about Instaprint over on the Kickstarter page.

Today popular photography company Kodak announced that it will stop making digital cameras, video cameras and digital picture frames in order to focus on other areas of the business following its recent bankruptcy protection filing.

Despite inventing the digital camera, Kodak has been forced into the big move after revealing that it will save the company somewhere in the region of $100 million. On top of its long list of patent sales, it's hoped the move will save the iconic brand and instead its focus will move to online and retail-based photo printing, as well as desktop printing.

Pradeep Jotwani, President of Consumer Businesses and Kodak's Chief Marketing Officer, said:

"For some time, Kodak's strategy has been to improve margins in the capture device business by narrowing our participation in terms of product portfolio, geographies and retail outlets. Today's announcement is the logical extension of that process, given our analysis of the industry trends."

For those who already own a Kodak camera, the company insists that it will continue to honour warranties and provide technical support for all of its products both past and present.

The British Journal of Photography (BJP) is considered to be the top publication for contemporary photography news from across the globe and it's recently launched an app, which brings quality editorial and huge, creative images to your iPad.

The reason we love the BJP app so much is because it's not just a copy of the print publication squeezed into tablet format, it's been specially tailored to really make the most of the iPad's functionality and display.

It allows you to swipe through content with ease, making use of the iPad's intuitive navigational tools and it also displays the incredible photography in a way that really draws you in and fills up the screen. If you think we're being too over the top, just take a look for yourself, it really is "ooo" and "ahh" kind of stuff.

When it comes to the content there's a big mix of features, articles, interviews with key players in the industry, videos and big photo galleries. There's the odd review of photography gear too, but it's certainly not a consumer-y "go buy this neat digital camera" kind of magazine.

In an interview on the publication's website, Simon Bainbridge, the editor of BJP talks about the new app:

"Our idea was not to completely re-imagine a magazine, as some people say they want to. We wanted to translate the elegance and authority and intelligence of our magazine on a digital screen, to be able to show moving images, and to have something that is navigationally intuitive and fun to play with. But we didn't want to do anything too tricksy that took away from the content."

The app is ideal if you need a break from reading emails and playing Angry Birds on your iPad and want to swipe through beautiful, cutting-edge images that are a real treat for your eyes. Be warned though, although the app is free and you get bit and pieces of content for free too, you will have to purchase future issues of the publication separately (for around £6.99) or think about getting a subscription. Only true photographer fans should start downloading.

Available from iTunes for free.

Photo apps, like Instagram and Camera+, and photo storage services, like Flickr and Picasa, are becoming increasingly popular, allowing users to take and share photos in a way that's much easier than ever before. But how are we sharing our photos with our family and friends?

According to a new study by Futuresource Consulting, more than 60% of us are actively sharing our photos online, with Facebook being the top choice for people to store their snaps and Flickr taking second place. It's no surprise Facebook takes the number one spot, although we love to complain about it, for most users it's the key space online where they share everything they do, think and see. If they were to use another service to store and share their photos they'd still have to come back and upload them to Facebook anyway, so that's why it's usually the first port of call.

Over the past year numbers of those using both Dropbox and Google+ to store photos has shot up considerably too. Dropbox's dedicated user base makes us think that the cloud-based storage service will continue to rise in popularity, but it'll be interesting to see whether we're talking about Google+ quite so much this time next year, or whether users quickly uploaded lots of photos when they signed up and won't be uploading many more again in the future.

As you can imagine, it's users between 18 and 34 that are most likely to be taking and sharing their photos online, but the study interestingly showed that there's been a notably higher number of active 'silver surfers' in the USA over the past year, with more than 30% of those using websites being in the 55+ age group as opposed to only 19% in the UK. When they come to share their photos it's a different story to the younger generation too, with most choosing the likes of Kodak Gallery and Snapfish to store their photography.

Futuresource conducted 2,000 online surveys with UK and USA consumers aged 18 and over.

The CameraBag photo app is one of our favourites, it's super simple and lets you flick through just a few great quality filters and apply them instantly. So, we were excited to hear that CameraBag's cool filters and intuitive way of working has come to our desktops.

CameraBag 2 Desktop is a way to add a range of ever popular Instagram-like filters to your photos from your desktop, as well as give you a much higher level of control of the way your images look too. So, you can adjust levels, combine different filters, layer effects, alter the brightness and contrast and much more. Think of it as a cute and simple Instagram / Photoshop hybrid that will cost you nothing (for now).

To have a play with Camerabag 2 Desktop, you can go and download the beta version for Windows or Mac now for free.

However, it's not going to be free forever and once the beta bugs have gone you'll have to pay a monthly fee to be able to edit your photos with ease. So go and make the most of it now to see if it'll be worth parting with your pennies in the future.

We'll add details about pricing and subscriptions as soon as we get them.

It can be hard to get seriously started with photography if you're a bit strapped for cash. Sure you can get a dirt cheap compact camera or just play around with your smart phone, but half decent devices are often quite pricey and that's not even including all the kit you'll need to go with it...

Here's our list of gifts and accessories for beginners who may already have a camera but need a little helping hand when it comes to everything else. From necessary bags and straps, through to lenses and silly novelty gifts, it's an aspiring photographer's ultimate wish list.

As part of our fortnight of Instagram goodness we were sent a 10" Kodak Pulse Digital Frame to try out, so we could showcase our favourite images from a fancy frame and not just squint at them on our teeny iPhone screens.

The Pulse looks like a regular digital photo frame, but what makes it a bit different is the way you can send photos wirelessly from a number of devices, by email or even Facebook.

How does it work?

You can just attach the frame to your computer and send photos across that way, but to take advantage of its super WiFi capability, just sign it into your wireless network and get sharing. You then need to set up a Kodak account and add some photos. This sounds like a bit of a pain, but it actually doesn't take very long at all and once it's done it's so simple to add or delete them afterwards.

The frame has a pretty responsive touchscreen, which lets you control how it works, which photos you see and how you see them by just pressing the large and easy to use dashboard.

How do the images look?

The frame has a 800 X 600 display and the quality of the images obviously depends on which device you've used to take them. The photos I sent over from my iPhone 4 generally looked good, but were a little grainy at times because obviously they'd been blown up a little bigger.

You can make a few changes to your images using the touchscreen, so it's easy to rotate them, change the transitions (have everything flying in from the side!) or view them as a big grid.

The Pulse has around 512 MB of internal memory, which works out at around 4,000 photos, so you don't need to worry about running out of room either.

How can you transfer them?

The Pulse is designed to allow you to share photos in a number of ways, so you can add photos to your Kodak account, send them to a dedicated email address, use a regular memory card or USB stick, or if you have a Kodak Easyshare portable camera you can share directly from the device.

Who's it for?

You can control what's shown on the Pulse from wherever you are, so it'd be ideal as a present for a relative and you could then get lots of family members on board to send photos through as and when. However, if you give it to your grandparents, don't get drunk and send something stupid through. We guarantee you WILL regret it.

You unfortunately do have to have the Pulse plugged into the mains, which is the only main disadvantage of the product as it could look a bit messy on a mantlepiece or shelf. So that's worth bearing in mind if you're giving it to a particularly picky person.

Overall the Kodak Pulse isn't about amazing quality photos or a beautiful display, it's about quickly and easily sharing your photos instantly wherever you are, which makes it perfect for mobile photography fans and a favourite for Christmas.

Available from Kodak for £164.99.

Many of those who have already managed to get their hands on an iPhone 4S have been raving about just how good the camera is. But are the results REALLY that different in comparison to the images produced by the iPhone 4?

Well, instead of just comparing the difference between the 4 and the 4S, Lisa Bettany the co-creator of the popular iPhone application Camera+, has conducted a bit of an experiment with all of the iPhone models over the years to see just how their cameras compare and most importantly how the new iPhone 4S camera measures up in relation to its predecessors. She's published all of the photos in a post over on Camera+ and then Petapixel has placed them side-by-side so you can properly compare the results.

The final images are really interesting, just LOOK at the difference between the first generation iPhone camera and the camera the iPhone 4S now boasts. Admittedly, the iPhone's original camera was only added as a nice to have feature to match up to other handsets on the market, but the difference is still pretty immense.

Interestingly, Bettany also compares the iPhone cameras with the results from actual cameras, and although it's no surprise the DSLR isn't beaten, the photo captured by the iPhone 4S does look just as good as the point-and-shoot she chooses to match it up against.

[Via Gizmodo Via Petapixel Via Camera+]

Last week we launched a mobile photography competition with our friends at Orbitsound to celebrate our Instagram week (which has now turned into a fortnight) and give one reader the chance to win a fabulous T12v3 speaker bar as well as lots of runner-up prizes that we have dug out from our cupboard including iPhone cases, iPhone lenses, games and other iPhone accessories.

All you have to do is take a photo with an Autumnal theme and share it on Twitter along with the hash tag #ShinyAutumn. You can be as creative as you like with your entries, so take a picture of a crunchy leaf or a really imaginative Halloween costume, we really don't mind. Just make it good.

Visit the #ShinyAutumn competition post to find out more and read the Terms & Conditions.

To give you some inspiration and get you started, we've collected together a few of our favourite entries so far...

Entry by @robadob.

Entry by @BoothTim.

Entry by @JoannaHassPR.

This was always going to happen. Following on from the success of Hipstamatic, Instagram and all those other filter-based photo apps comes a new website that lets you create a retro image from any photo online.

It is simple stuff too. You visit the site, upload your image and then mess with a series of parameters including darkening edges, lightening the middle, desaturating colours and much more. Then you can save the image and upload it to your favourite social networking site.

It seems to work well too. Check out the image gallery here. Below is our attempt to cheer old Rupert up with a bit of retro gloss - not entirely sure it has been successful.

Taking good photos can seem so difficult and it's understandable if you think it is a complicated process that requires expensive cameras, big lenses and turning your bedroom into a dark room. Of course all of the above are probably necessary if you want exceptional pictures, but luckily for all hobby photo enthusiasts out there; there are some very clever apps available that make your run of the mill snaps look picture perfect. And all you need is an iPhone and an eye for a good shot - the latter is more difficult to get a hold of unfortunately...

Since getting my iPhone I've regularly checked the app store to see if any new and fun photo apps have hit the market. Having avoided any too expensive investments so far, my favourite discoveries to date are: Instagram, Hipstamatic, MoreLomo, CameraBag and more recently Phototreats.

Never have adding effects to your photos and sharing them been easier!

Below is a selection of the snaps I've taken while out and about with my iPhone (more details about each app can be found below the photos for those who want to read more).

Which photo apps do you use?

For more of my photos check out Daily London.