Trees are not neon! The Normalize app lets you un-Instagram photos

Before Instagram came along, sunny skies were not aquamarine, and trees were not speckled with neon orange.

Anyone else irritated by the sheer abundance of people who snap panoramic views of a stunning countryside and then alter/enhance/destroy them with a hipster, ’70s-style filter?

Joe Macirowski feels my pain. In a blog post, the app developer detailed his year-long quest to rescue perfectly decent photos besmirched by filters.

Macirowski’s app, Normalize, is now available for $.99 app on the AppStore. Normalize unfilters your filtered photos and restores them to their natural ebullience. If an image is full of shadow, the app can make some subtle enhancements to normalize the brightness and colors. With Normalize, you can see the view as it appears to the naked human eye — no borders or sepia tones allowed.

Once you download the app, simply upload the photo, wait a few seconds, and then use the sliding scale to tweak the color scheme. It’s not perfect, but the original setting does a good job at reverting the image back to its former glory.

Is this an app you would actually use, or would you prefer to remain in our retro-glam, darkly lit, post-Instagram world?