The camera found in the iPhone and iPad has come a very long way since it was first introduced, and it is now comparable to the output of a standalone digital camera. But there are very few photos that could not do with a little enhancing, and it makes sense to get and tweaking and enhancing sorted out in advance of taking a photo. The camera app built into iOS includes some basic adjustment options, but Camera Awesome goes much further, providing you with a series of tool that enables you to take full control over how your pictures will turn out.

There are some nice, simple touches such as the inclusion of a level feature so you can tell when you are lined up with the horizon, but you can also vastly improve the quality of your shots by taking advantage of the touch screen image adjustment options. Many iOS camera apps include a tap to focus option, and this is present here too, but you’ll also find that it is possible to set exposure in Camera Awesome by tapping in a completely different place.

Digital photography has turned into a pastime that is all about sharing, and to this end Camera Awesome provides you with a range of options for publishing your shots online. You can share images and video with your friends via Facebook and Twitter, as well as using dedicated image and video services such as YouTube, SmugMug, Picasa, Photobucket and Flickr. Sharing can be left as a manual process, or you can automate it so that every photo you take in a particular shooting session is automatically uploaded to the service of your choice.

There also a nukber of tools to help you perfectly compose your shots and you can also use the app to record video – complete with pre-caching so that recording starts before you even hit the record button. It has become the norm for camera apps to include a number of effects and filters that can be applied to photos that have been taken, and Camera Awesome is no different in this respect. This is a serious powerful app, and the fact that it is available free of charge is astonishing. If you use your iOS device to take photos, there is simply no reason not to have this installed.