Introducing tonr. A New App That Fights Washed Out Photo Filters for People of Color.’

tonr

From filters on Instagram and Snapchat to odd ending results on many a photo app, a lot of photo technology still hasn’t quite caught up to the needs of a diverse population.

Alesha Randolph, a senior designer at Vox media, hopes to change this. Randolph teamed up with Brittany Holloway-Brown, Pam Assogba, Aidan Feay, and Scott Kellum to create tonr, a new photo app that fights washed out filters and other photo app effects that often don’t compliment darker skin tones.

“With tonr, our team wanted to create an inclusive app with a variety of photo filters that amplifies how beautiful a variety of skin tones are instead of washing them out,” the app’s developers said in a statement. “The goal of tonr is to create filters that affirm that black, brown and other skin tones are beautiful. We looked towards deepening the subjects’ skin instead of lightening, emphasizing the richness and saturation of melanin and playing with interesting color overlays.”

While tonr is currently up and running, Randolph and Co. plan to keep working on and improving the app with the help of input from users as well as other developers and designers.