Six clicks: Cool camera effects on the HTC One (M8)

I've been using the HTC One (M8) for a couple of weeks and am finding the camera to be much more enjoyable and useful than I originally gave it credit for in my review. The new One will be available in all major US carrier stores next Friday and I wanted to show you a few of the cool effects that may convince you it is a device to consider.

The opening shot above is one taken in selfie mode with the 5 megapixel front facing camera. It has a wide-angle lens and I would call it a "friendie" mode since you can fit in much more than just yourself.

Click on through the gallery to see more about this slick new Duo camera hardware and software.

Related coverage:

• HTC One M8 review: More metal, same limited detail UltraPixel camera
• HTC One (M8) camera exposed: Two cameras are not always better than one
• 8 reasons to buy the new HTC One (M8)
• HTC One (M8) Dot View case: Retro 8-bit look with front cover gestures
• My year with the HTC One; still my favorite smartphone of all time
• The HTC One is the best smartphone I have ever used (review)

Here you can see how UFocus let's you choose to focus on the distant object or the closer object to create two different images. 

The secondary upper rear camera is used to capture the depth information needed to create this shot. It is important to keep everything in auto mode while also not covering the upper camera lens to add these effects.

With these two images I used the Foregrounder effect to change things up. The upper image has Colorize applied while the lower image uses the Zoom Blur effect. You will also find Sketch and Cartoon effects available in the Foregrounder toolset.

There are 11 established filters in the HTC camera software. This image shows the Windmere filter applied to the shot.

The cool thing is that you can also create custom filters with full control over white balance, color levels, exposure, contrast, brightness, saturation, sharpness, grains, and vignette. These can all be applied after the shot and create an additional image so that your original is available for even more effects.

This one may seem a bit silly, but you can also add seasonal effects to your images. As you see her I show snow on the Golden Gate bridge.

The four seasons are covered here with the option to create a video if you want to see the animation of flower blossoms, leaves, snow, or dandelions falling.

There is an HDR mode on the HTC One (M8) camera and it did a good job capturing some detail under the bridge.

One great thing about the new camera interface is that you can create custom camera modes and have buttons to launch these modes appear right in the main UI. This is very handy for HDR, manual, and panoramic modes.

HTC puts a Selfie mode button right on the main camera UI and I show no shame in taking them at times. My wife hates when I take tons of travel photos on my business trips with no people in the shot. She would also like me in some of them so the front facing, wide-angle 5 megapixel camera on the new HTC One (M8) is appreciated. It is also quite handy to setup the countdown timer to get yourself ready for the shot.