Make your photo the first thing you see with Lockscreen Lens

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Have you ever taken a picture with your Windows Phone and thought it would make a great lockscreen wallpaper?

Lockscreen Lens is a Windows Phone 8 lockscreen app that lets you snap a photo, edit it and set it as your lockscreen wallpaper in just a few easy steps. Lockscreen Lens has Lens support to make it easily accessible from your Windows Phone camera app and overall, the photography app makes an appealing first impression.

If you are looking for a simple way to convert your photos into lockscreen images, Lockscreen Lens isn't a bad option and well worth a try.

Lockscreen Lens has a fairly straight forward user interface with control buttons and menu options that let you capture new images to edit and use as lockscreen images or choose an image from your Windows Phone Pictures Hub to use.

If you opt to capture a new image, Lockscreen Lens has it's own camera app that has a few controls at the top of the screen and icons to access the camera settings, snap the photo and toggle between the front and rear cameras. Settings cover the basics from scene choice, flash mode, resolution, ISO, etc. Your camera settings for scene, flash, ISO, and shutter speed will be displayed at the top of the viewfinder.

The internal camera app is fairly basic but does a nifty job of things. The viewfinder controls lack horizontal support but that's not really a deal breaker. However I did have some loading issues that created that dreaded green screen which required powering down the phone to clear.

Once you capture your image you can tap the edit control button to fine tune your image. Editing tools include:

  • Effects: Color correction, convert to grayscale, and invert colors.
  • Contrast Adjustment
  • Brightness Adjustment
  • Hue Adjustment
  • Saturation Adjustment
  • Sharpness Adjustment

You can also dim the lower portion of the image to allow text to be easily visible. Once you have your image tweaked just right, tap the Set Lock button and your image is now your lockscreen image.

The only editing you can do with pre-existing images is the dim button. Otherwise, for images from your Picture Hub all you need to do is frame them up for use, dim if needed and tap the Set Lock button.

Lockscreen Lens is an interesting, nicely laid out Windows Phone 8 app that can help you create some interesting lockscreen images. I do wish you could edit images from your Pictures Hub though.  Still, if you're looking for an app to help you create lockscreen images you should give Lockscreen Lens a try.

Lockscreen Lens is a free app for your Windows Phone 8 app that you can find here in the Windows Phone Store.

QR: Lockscreen Lens

George Ponder
George Ponder

George is the Reviews Editor at Windows Central, concentrating on Windows 10 PC and Mobile apps. He's been a supporter of the platform since the days of Windows CE and uses his current Windows 10 Mobile phone daily to keep up with life and enjoy a game during down time.

20 Comments
  • Nice
  • Hmmm... I am not sure why this is better than just to pick the photo you want through settings? What am I missing lol
  • I was looking at that too. The only reason I can come up with is all the editing features and camera are built in so you can finish all the steps from the same app.
  • Yeah same here, though I do not see the point in the app if the whole thing is about editing the photos. :-P The thing I can come up with is it is just another photo editor which has an integrated feature to change the lockscreen? edit: nah concidering pictures of the app, it is pretty obvious it is made with main focus to change lockscreen.... hmmmmm
  • Everything is integrated so well in WP, we can already snap, edit, and set as lock screen in a couple of steps
  • +1 I see little point in this one...
  • With this app, you can dim the lower portion of the image so text and icons on the lockscreen are more visible. Can't do that in the photo hub.
  • Thanks for pointing. I've almost though I'm alone.
  • I prefer Memorylage, the collages are great and awesome to see a different collage every so often.
    http://windowsphone.com/s?appId=39e034b8-c6b9-463a-92fc-cc9fef41e528
     
  • Its good to see apps being released but everything isnt gonna make my phn
  • +620
  • Nice idea. But I never take a picture with the intent to make it my lockscreen
  • Hmmm, it's a very basic thing. You can literally use any photos on your camera roll or saved albums as your lock screen. If you want to put on effects then you could use photo editor apps but that's not limited to the app mentioned here. Photo Editor from Aviary offers wide range of tools and effects plus the standard photo settings/adjustments
  • This app is for a niche audience (like rdubmu says, its not for him). The sole focus is to get the highest quality photo your phone can take and set it to the lockscreen quickly. I iterate through every available camera API available on the device it is on and give the user the ability to change it (from resolutions to focus modes). This results in a much better photo than you would set from your camera roll.
    So far, I see a couple things from this article to add for v1.2 (update should be available by monday unless you guys request some crazy stuff) Add the ability to edit existing photo hub pictures (thanks George) Some devices don't have a FlashPower camera parameter (can result in green screen if you try to set it). I'll remove it for now. YOUR REQUESTED FEATURE HERE :)  
    Lance
     
     
     
     
  • I could just do this by picking a photo and set it up as wallpaper. Why use a separate app for that. Like the others who have commented, this is definitely in that 'niche' category thing. On the bright side, when you see niche apps being released, that means the platform is growing. So, yay, for that!
  • Very true! More apps the better!
  • Doesn't work in my ativ, deleted.
  • Have you ever taken a picture with your Windows Phone and thought it would make a great lockscreen wallpaper?...game changer words.
     
  • I'm still stuck to my old Lumia 800 with WP7.8...
    I think that I should get a new one...
  • I didn't know my Lumia 810 even had 5 different cameras until I downloaded this app !