Support
Need help with TRAIL? Email [email protected] and tell us your device model and Android version — it makes camera issues much faster to diagnose.
Getting good results
Long exposure needs darkness. Light Trails keeps the brightest value each pixel ever had. In a dark scene, only the moving lights are bright, so only they leave a trail. In a brightly lit room everything is bright, so the whole frame slowly washes out. That is the technique working correctly, not a bug — go outside at night, or find a dark scene with bright moving light.
Hold the phone still. Anything that moves leaves a trail, including the phone itself. Rest it on a wall, a railing, a car roof, a bag — anything solid. Handheld shots smear the entire frame.
Give it time. A car crossing the frame takes several seconds. Short exposures produce short trails.
Which mode should I use?
| Mode | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Light Trails | Headlights, traffic, city streets at night |
| Comet | The same, but trails fade behind the light instead of staying forever |
| Silk | Waterfalls, waves, clouds — anything flowing that should smooth out |
| Light Painting | Drawing in the air with a torch or phone light in a dark place |
| Motion Art | People and crowds, rendered as soft ghosts against a sharp street |
Common questions
The camera preview is black. Check that TRAIL has camera permission in Android Settings → Apps → TRAIL → Permissions. If permission is denied, the app falls back to a built-in demo scene and shows a "DEMO SCENE" badge.
My exposure stopped at 15 seconds. That is the free tier's limit. TRAIL Pro removes it.
The image gets brighter and hazier the longer I shoot. You are pointing at a scene that is already bright. See "Long exposure needs darkness" above.
My trails look dotted rather than continuous. The light is moving fast relative to the camera's frame rate, so consecutive frames do not overlap. Increase Trail thickness in the controls, or shoot the subject from further away so it moves more slowly across the frame.
The image brightness pulses during a long shot. Your camera is adjusting its own exposure mid-capture. TRAIL compensates for this in software, but some cameras drift more than others. Locking focus and exposure on your subject before starting helps.
The phone gets warm on long exposures. The camera and GPU are working continuously and the screen stays on. This is expected. Exposures are capped at 10 minutes for this reason.
Where are my photos? In TRAIL's own gallery (the icon at the top right). They are stored inside the app on your device. Use Share to send one to your photo library or another app.
The app says it cannot run on my device. TRAIL needs graphics support for high-precision frame stacking. Without it, long exposures would band and posterise, so the app tells you rather than producing bad images.
Subscriptions
Manage, cancel or check your subscription in the Google Play Store → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions. Uninstalling the app does not cancel a subscription.
Bought Pro and it is not showing? Tap Restore purchase on the Pro screen, with the same Google account you used to buy it.
Refunds are handled by Google Play. Email us and we will help where we can, but we cannot issue refunds ourselves.
Contact
[email protected] — we read every message.