Instagram is a hugely popular social network centered around sharing retro images with friends, and while it continues to add users by the millions, it will likely soon see a somewhat sizable defection in light of recent events. Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday announced that Facebook will acquire Instagram for $1 billion. The deal will make Instagram’s small team rich and give the app exposure to millions of new users, but it will also bring a fresh round of privacy concerns that have already begun to surface. For those who avoid Facebook and its suite of services, deleting an Instagram account couldn’t be easier: users can simply visit the company’s account removal page, log in, and select a reason for their account removal requests from the drop-down menu. As it turns out, “privacy concerns” is the very first option.

Adding yet another positive note to Instagram’s biggest week ever — Facebook on Monday announced that it will acquire Instagram for $1 billion — the company’s new Android application has been downloaded more than 5 million times after less than one week of availability. Instagram launched for Android-powered devices on April 3rd, and it took less than one day for the highly anticipated app to reach the one million download mark. As of Monday, April 9th, the application had been downloaded from the Google Play marketplace more than 5 million times, The Next Web reported. Instagram allows users to capture photos or import them from a smartphone’s camera roll, and then apply retro effects before sharing them with their contacts. Facebook expects its acquisition of Instagram to close later this year.

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One of the most popular photography applications for the iPhone has quickly become one of the most popular Android apps. Instagram for Android surpassed 1 million downloads less than 24 hours after its release on the Google Play marketplace on Tuesday. The Android application opened its pre-registration last week, attracting more than 430,000 users. When the service launched it reportedly saw 2,000 sign-ups per minute, nearly crashing the company’s servers. The popular app allows users to capture photos and edit them using a number of filters that give images a unique retro look. Pictures can then be shared through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and email. The company previously announced that it had more than 30 million users on iOS alone.

[Via TheNextWeb]

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One of the most popular photography applications ever to hit Apple’s iOS platform is now available for Android. Instagram allows users to capture photos and edit them using a number of filters that give images a unique retro look. Pictures can then be shared with other Instagram users, and also shared on Twitter, Facebook or via email. Filters can be applied to images imported from a handset’s camera roll as well, and the app supports devices running Android 2.2 or later. Instagram announced during the annual South by Southwest conference that its Android app would be better than Instagram for the iPhone in a number of ways, and now Android users can find out exactly how the new build stacks up. Instagram is available immediately for free in the Google Play store.

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Well, he didn’t actually walk all the way across America, but in his time lapse movie he does. Check out this great stop motion movie created by Peter Cote. There’s over 2,700 individual shots all taken on a Canon 5D Mark II and a 24-70 f/2.8 lens then edited down into a time lapse creation. Apparently there’s a little corporate influence behind the video, because Peter and his company pitched the concept to Levis Jeans, and they sponsored the production. Take a look at the video after the jump along with a behind the scenes one if you’re interested!

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Photo enthusiasts take note, as Adobe is rolling out the official retail version of Lightroom 3 today. Available as a public-beta since October 2009, the latest, official version of Lightroom features a brand new processing engine that improves performance and offers an enhanced, easier to use UI. Noteworthy features include: support for DSLR video files, improved noise reduction, lens correction and sharpening tools, and tethered shooting (with select Nikon and Canon cameras). Lightroom 3 is available for both Macintosh and Windows systems with a price point of $299; an upgrade licences retails for $99. You can grab a copy of this latest offering directly from Adobe today, or from a third party retailer in the near future.

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One of the greatest features of the iPhone 3GS compared to older iPhone models is the camera. Yes, at 3 megapixels it’s still lagging behind the rest of the industry where resolution is concerned and yes, it still doesn’t have a flash (though 90 percent of flashes on mobile phones are just about useless). Despite its shortcomings however, the 3GS’ shooter still manages to capture some wonderfully solid images in good lighting and some way-better-than-average pics in dim lighting. As is often the case, third party app developers have hit the iPhone in full force where the camera is concerned in order to make good hardware even better thanks to creative and functional software. The cream of the crop falls into the paid category in some cases, but if you’re just beginning to explore the optics on your iPhone it’s always best to start out with some free options before you start emptying your wallet. So if you’re a photography fan with an iPhone 3GS (or any model for that matter), hit the jump for a list of 10 essential free iPhone apps that will help make your iPhone-captured photos shine.

Note: All links are iTunes links.

1. Flash for Free: One of three great free photography apps from developer Michael Moon, Flash for Free applies a software flash to images taken by your iPhone. In other words, it lightens/brightens pics with minimal noise or distortion. The are a few paid apps that do a better job but for the low, low price of nada, Flash for Free is a terrific option.
2. HDR for Free: Again from Moon, HDR for Free is a great app that allows you to enhance the contrast between light and dark areas of a photo. The app supports nine preset degrees of HDR.
3. Crop for Free: Moon’s third free photo utility, Crop for Free does exactly what the title implies. It crops photos. For free. While there are a few apps in this list that will crop your shots as well, none are as quick and easy as Crop for Free when all you need is a quick crop.
4. Pixel Perfect: This gem by Code Monkeys at Work is free for a limited time so hit the link now or forever be bound by the constraints of the Lite version. It allows you to apply a variety off effects to your pics including sepia, brightness, saturation and hue, and adjust the intensity of relevant effects.
5. PanoLab: Originate Labs’ lite version of PanoLab Pro allows you to stitch together multiple photos to create a single panoramic image. This version has several limitations and its UI isn’t as intuitive as other options, but for the occasional quick panorama it’s a perfectly usable app.
6. Mill Colour: Our favorite in this list off apps without question, The Mill’s photo editing app is simply awesome. Mill Colour allows you to apply a variety of effects to an image and then fine tune (to a ridiculous degree) the lift, gamma, gain and saturation of the image. You can also choose to forgo the available effects and just fine tune the image to your heart’s desire. The UI is fantastic the quality of the resulting images is second to none. Get it — now.
7. Zipix Lite: The name might lead you to believe there is a full version floating around out there but for the time being, the buck stops here. Neurigen’s Zipix Lite app is a quick and easy photo enhancer that automatically adjusts a variety of variables to optimize a photo. If you’re a beginner and there’s something awry with an image you just snapped, odds are good it can be fixed in about 5 seconds by Zipix Lite with zero effort. The app also supports zooming and cropping.
8. PhotoBox: This app by Christopher Comair is easy to use but don’t let its simplicity fool you. It features 13 awesome filters that result in some terrific photo effects, again with zero effort on your part.
9. Polarize: Also by Christopher Comair, this app allows you to take a new photo or import an existing image, frame it in a Polaroid-like white border and apply a polarizing effect that results in a cool retro look. You can also write a title across the bottom of the frame as your parents used to do with physical Polaroids.
10. Flickit: Great, so you’ve got a bunch of awesome photos on your iPhone thanks to all these great free apps. Now what? Green Volcano Software’s Flickit app allows you to link your Flickr account for easy photo uploads via EDGE, 3G or Wi-Fi. You can set default metadata to be applied to all uploads (including applying any number of your current Flickr tags) or adjust the data for each individual photo, control visibility settings and even geotag your photos all in an incredibly sexy UI. It’s so good it really shouldn’t be free.

There you have it folks — 10 awesome free apps that are sure to impress. Hit the comments and let us know what you think once you’ve checked them out and definitely let us know if there are any great free apps out there we missed.

Could point-and-shoot cameras become phased out by camera phones in the future? With a rising army of high-megapixel and high-quality camera phones, one would imagine that everything your current point-and-shoot can do will also be commonplace on future phones. Kodak, one of the biggest names in photography and imaging, has partnered up with Nokia where they will cross-license one another’s patent portfolios. There aren’t any hard details so anything anyone can say right now is pure speculation, however the deal is said to “provides significant benefits to both companies, [and] is royalty bearing to Kodak.” So far, Kodak has slapped some of their technology onto the MotoZINE ZN5, but its notable contributions haven’t gone much further. We’re hoping this is a really good sign of things to come and there is no doubt this will give a tremendous boost to the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer. Can you guys imagine a 10+ megapixel Nseries phone with Kodak’s Camera Control UI and technology powering the imaging and internals?

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Hot out of the Microsoft labs is a new web service called Photosynth. In short, it allows users to create panoramic images using their own 2-dimensional photographs. The really neat thing is that these images won’t be your standard, boring, linear panoramic displays. Instead, the effect will be like a real 360-degree rendering of the pictures and location. Imagine yourself at a piazza in Rome twirling around like some love-drunk fool taking in the romantic sights and landmarks… We guess it’s kinda like that. Or you can take a look at the New York Times’ image of the Water Cube in Beijing.

Even though the technology isn’t new, it isn’t just for professionals or digital artists anymore. So far, the quality isn’t quite as good as professional-grade work but we have to say, this is a pretty good start. Once Microsoft refines this new software and service, Facebook and MySpace will never be the same! If this thing really takes off, it can be an exciting new piece of technology and will likely enhance business and social networking, too. Imagine being able to slap images like these on Twitter and having them geotagged, or giving a 3D tour of your office or facility without having to hire a 3D artist and Flash developer for your site. See, Microsoft doesn’t waste money frivolously…

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