I know this runs the risk of not being read since its posted so late, but Snapseed is free right now. If you don’t have it, get it.
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All posts for the month May, 2012
If you follow me on Tadaa, you might have seen me issue a challenge called the 10 minute challenge. The idea is you start from home or work and walk, bike, run, drive for 10 minutes and then stop where you are. This is your location to shoot something interesting. Its challenging because you don’t really know where you’ll end up or what the light will be like at that location.
I ended up right at this old garage that I’ve noticed a few times. Its not too inviting with all of the ‘no trespassing’ signs. I wasn’t sure if they were because its directly across the street from an elementary school, or because the neighborhood was sketchy. Either way, I didn’t venture far enough onto their property to find out. If I had, I’d have a much better angle on this old garage.
I really wasn’t happy with the original photo, but I decided I had to rise to the challenge and make something out of a mediocre shot. I used 645 Pro to shoot. I edited with Snapseed, ShockMyPic (review coming soon,) and lenslight. The result is so much more interesting than the original.
If this 10 minute challenge sounds like something you might be up for, go do it and share your photos on your blog. I recommend taking a few minutes to take in the sights and sounds of your location before shooting. Get a feel for whats going on there and try to figure out a way to share that with the viewer.
If you haven’t done any research into file types and the advantages for each, let me briefly tell you about JPEG’s. They suck…for many reasons (I’ll leave the serious discussion for my other blog.) I have no love for JPEG’s, but I didn’t have much choice on the iphone. At least, not until 645 Pro introduced their “developed RAW” files. Really, they’re TIFF files.
Yesterday was the first time using this app. It saved a TIFF and JPEG version of the few photos I took. The difference is very clear to me. Below are one set of pics. Not very interesting or pretty (not every pic can be a waterfall,) but its a good example of the difference in file types.
Neither one has been edited by me.
JPG – looks how I’d expect it to, given the conditions. Plenty of contrast and saturation. Its slightly cropped, for whatever reason.
TIF (dRAW) – much less contrast and a noticeably wider dynamic range. Notice there is more data in the shadows and highlights.
Which photo has more potential? The one with more data to work with, the TIFF file.
I shot from a handful of different spots, but this is probably my favorite composition. I steadied my phone on top of my Nikon, which was on a tripod, so I have a similar pic I’ll probably share today or tomorrow. The detail in that one is awesome and its easily one of my favorite shots of all time. I had it up on my desktop almost all day yesterday, even when I wasn’t working on it.
We’ll consider this iPhone shot the low res preview. This is definitely a nice photo from the iPhone and it made the 24 hour feed on Tadaa for a while. Thats very hard to do because that place is usually reserved for those with 1000+ followers, not necessarily the best pics.
Shot with ProHDR and edited with Snapseed.
Developers like to give away apps for free around holidays. It just came to my attention that Grungetastic is also free today. Its another app from JixiPix, who make a number of apps that I’m a fan of, including PhotoArtista Oil, SimplyHDR, and Dramatic BW. Given their track record, you can expect this to be a good grunge app.
After just 5 minutes of using it, I can tell its a solid app if you’re into the grunge style. It looks better than the grunge tool in Snapseed.
Here are a few examples from the developers.
Fotor – Camerabag is free right now. They call themselves the best all-in-one camera and photo editing app. Its definitely not the best camera because of a few features that are missing, but there are so many tools in this app that its worth a look. I haven’t spent more than 10 minutes playing with this, so I can’t tell you a whole lot about it, but it looks pretty decent.
A few features that stand out:
- HDR camera that merges under and overexposed photos.
- Frames
- Filters with opacity sliders
- More than just the basic editing tools, including 1-tap enhancing.
- Collage
- Tilt Shift (big aperture)
- Color Splash
This is the mountain that I used in the Superimposer pic yesterday. I was driving from one beach to McWay falls when I noticed the way the light was hitting the mountain. It looked so good that I had to pull over and turn around. In my experience, its always a good idea to turn around when you see something cool. Or, if you don’t turn around, make note of the time of day so you can return when the light might be similar.
I couldn’t really decide how to edit this one. I sort of like the grunge look, but its a little dark. The one below is more true to what I saw, but its not as impressive as the real thing. Sometimes the iPhone isn’t the easiest device to edit with. If I used photoshop, I could probably get this looking the way I want in a couple of minutes, at most. Its a little more complicated when you have to bounce around between apps and hope they don’t crash (i’m looking at you filterstorm.)
Superimpose is free in the app store right now. Its a good way to combine multiple images together. It’s similar to ImageBlender, but has more selection tools. Of course, more tools and options makes for a more complicated user interface, but it looks like a very good app after using it for about 20 minutes.
This was my first attempt with the app. I’m sure the mask could have been done a little more cleanly, but I haven’t figured out all of the controls yet.
LensLight by BrainFeverMedia is very similar to LensFlare, but it has even more to offer.
For me, the strength of this app is creating or enhancing the lighting of your image. In my example picture of the tree below, the morning light was very nice, but not defined or gold enough for me. LensLight fixed that quickly and easily. Continue Reading
This is the pier at WR Hearst Memorial State Beach. I think its pretty photogenic as far as piers go. There were 2 other photographers out there with their tripods shooting it from the other side.
I sold another iPhone print today at a garage sale. Its always funny seeing people’s reactions when I tell them its from my phone. She also took my card for her daughter who is an event planner. That would be great if I wasn’t moving.
I finally found time to sit down and create some new stuff with LensLight while manning the garage sale today, so I’m going to work on that review now. Keep an eye out for it either today or tomorrow.
Shot with ProHDR and edited with PhotoToaster.
Yesterday I was getting annoyed with all of the marblecam pictures being posted to Tadaa and wanted to show people an example of creativity. Marblecam is a one trick pony where all you do is press a button and the app does all the work without allowing any adjustments. BORING!
I created this from the pier shot I posted yesterday. In total, I used 7 apps to create this image. ProHDR, Snapseed, SimplyHDR, FX Photo Studio,WaterMyPhoto, Tadaa, and ImageBlender.
I stopped and shot a couple of piers along the coast on my way north. This is the one in Cayucos, CA. I was feeling more of a grungy/gritty type of pic to bring out the detail in this one.
I know these pier shots have been done a lot, but I thought I’d share one anyway. Theres something about all of the lines that are appealing to the eye.
Shot with ProHDR. Edited with Snapseed and SimplyHDR.
I think this is what you might picture when you think of Highway 1 in California. The ocean off to one side, some rolling mountains, and poppies growing along the roadside. It’s really not like this the whole stretch, but I did manage to find a spot with the poppies growing out of control.
I saw some odd things while on the road the other day. Three separate times, I saw someone peeing out in the open, including a woman who was probably 50-60 years old. No bush or car used for cover. Maybe she was unaware of the bathroom that was maybe a 3 minute walk away. Or, maybe I was in hippie territory. Yes, the Big Sur area has lots of dirty hippies unique individuals.
At this spot, there was someone down by the bluff either painting or shooting with a tripod. I couldn’t tell because it was so far away. Whatever he was doing, was really pumping him up. I heard him scream, while throwing his fists in the air, at the ocean several times as some waves crashed against the rocks.
Another idiot gentleman was riding his bike in the middle of traffic, weaving back and forth between both lanes, seemingly trying to aggravate tourists. I saw him 3 different times throughout the day, and he was doing the same thing each time.
Don’t let the weirdos discourage you from visiting though. They make for some good stories.
These clovers were growing all over the place at Limekiln State Park. They looked especially cool as a carpet underneath the redwoods. I don’t remember what I shot this with or what I used to edit. I’ve been doing too much editing to remember.
I got a nice email yesterday from the marketing manager at Nik Software, the people who make awesome plugins and Snapseed, thanking me for the support of their product and telling me I’ve done great with it. =)
Yesterday afternoon I posted a photo from Limekiln SP to my other blog, but it got a whopping 10 views. Go have a look because its a good photo from my Nikon and an example of long exposure which is the new collaborative effort Nick and Shannon are hosting. Be sure to folllow my other blog if you want to see more stunning shots from Big Sur in the near future.
It must be award season. I see a lot of people getting them lately and a few people have been kind enough to give me some awards. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone on this list below.
At the end of last month, Daniel C. Doolan gave me the versatile blogger award. Sorry it took so long to show my appreciation Daniel! He’s got a lot of wonderful travel photos from Europe. Go check out his blog.
In the past week, Jaclyn nominated me for the Very Inspiring Blogger and One Lovely Blog Awards. Shes another iPhoneographer that has found inspiration from my blog. Maybe I should keep a iPhoneography family tree for all of the people I’ve inspired to shoot with their iPhone and see how it grows as they inspire others. If you’re into iPhoneography, go check out her blog and see what shes up to.
Desiree nominated me for the One Lovely Blog award. Thank you Desiree! Have a look at her blog because you know you don’t follow enough iPhoneographers.
Sara (Podnumber2) also was nice enough to mention me when she recently got the One Lovely Blog award. Thanks Sara! Its been fun watching her iPhoneography progress.
I don’t even know how many things I’d have to tell you about myself if I replied to these all individually and followed the rules of the awards. I’ll give you a few and call it good, just so this doesn’t turn into a biography.
- I recently deactivated my Facebook page and am thoroughly enjoying watching their stock tank. Its amazing how much more free time I have when I don’t have to check in on the mundane things people are doing each day.
- I like to listen to the Jim Rome Show almost everyday. Its a pretty entertaining sports talk radio show.
- I’m a perfectionist. It sucks.
- MY favorite TV shows right now are Community and Game of Thrones. New Girl is close because of Zooey Deschannel. I’ve been a fan of hers since her modeling days. I’m a sucker for big eyes.
Now for the video of the elephant seals from my Nikon. I’m not a video guy….yet. I didn’t edit this and add punch like I probably should have. Its seriously lacking contrast and saturation.
There is a lot going on here, so it might take a few views in fullscreen HD to take it all in.
These look like juvenile males practicing their fighting. They bite each other in the neck area a lot, which can get bloody. Then, it heals up and the skin gets thicker, creating a shield of sorts. The boys are pretty territorial, as you can see in the video.
There are also a few babies in the shot. If you’re wondering whats up with some of the seals skin, they’re molting.
