The good: Groopic is a fun app that lets you put yourself in a group picture, add filters, and share it with friends.
The bad: There's a lot of shutter lag from when you touch the button to when a picture is taken.
The bottom line: Groopic is a must-have for getting the photographer into a group shot, with an easy-to-understand process, filters to spice up your picture, and mostly flawless results.
Groopic attempts to solve the age-old problem when taking group pictures: that the photographer is always left out of the shot. But with this app, everyone can be in the picture. And if you're a little bit creative, you also can make some really funny shots.
Certain Android phones have dual-shot features that use the front-facing camera to bring an image of the photographer into the shot, but Groopic's solution is even better.
Groopic lets you take one picture of the group, then switch photographers and take another. The app then blends the two images into a seamless group photo without ever having to ask a stranger to take a group shot of your friends. You start by taking your first picture, with your second photographer in the photo on one of the sides. Then your second photographer leaves the group to stand in the same spot and lines up the photo with an onscreen ghost outline while you get in on the other side of the photo. Once you've taken your shots, the app asks you to touch each of the photographers on the screen so it can make the complete group pic. The resulting image is a photo of the whole group that seems completely natural.
One thing that's important to remember is that the first photographer has to leave room on the sides for both photographers to get into the shot. You'll notice in one of my shots I'm clipped off on the left side, and Lynn La, the second photographer, had no choice but to line up the shot the same way. It takes some getting used to, but make sure to leave space for everyone in the photo.
Like many photography apps, Groopic also lets you pick from a number of different filters to give your group shot a little extra pizazz. When you're finished, you can share your group picture to Facebook or Twitter, send via SMS or e-mail, or simply save it to your Camera Roll.
The only confusing thing I noticed about Groopic is that it can take some time to snap the photo after you press the button. It's something you can get used to, but it would be nice if the photo snapped immediately when pressing the button. It will be something you'll need to point out to your second photographer to make sure the photos align properly.
If you get creative with Groopic, you can make some funny group shots.(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)
What's unintentionally great about the app, though, is that you can get creative with how you take your group shots to get funny results. In my testing, I had the same photographer take both shots, while I switched sides in the group to make it appear that my twin was on the other side of the photo. There are probably other ways to use the app depending on your creativity. You could have the same couple on each side of the photo doing different poses, for example, and have the people in the middle reacting to their poses.
While there may be other apps (in more than 900,000) in the App Store that blend two images into one group photo, I've never seen one that's quite as easy to use as Groopic.
-CNET
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