Foolproof

Last month, a friend of mine sent me a painterly image and told me to check out this app called Foolproof Art Studio for iPhone. There is a free version that you can play with. I was lucky enough to get the paid version while it was available for free.

Basically, you import your photo and make all of the strokes with your finger, or try the auto mode. Its very simple, you can adjust the brush size and the paint effect, and then go to work. It even saves a video of you creating your painting if you’d like to watch it back or share it.

I have a few apps that turn photos into paintings. Foolproof delivers the ability to create some dreamy paintings. I’ll be keeping this app on my phone for a while

Dream Homes

Yes, I’m still here…and alive. The pain has gotten worse since I went on this hike a few days ago. I thought I was feeling fine, so I pushed myself to be active. Now, I’m paying for it.

These ridiculous homes are set back a little ways from a cliff overlooking the ocean. Life must be rough for whoever lives on this gated road.

Shot with ProHDR. Snapseed and SimplyHDR for the edit.

Cloudporn

We had some cool clouds coming through this weekend. Both of these were shot just from the front yard.

If you follow me on facebook or flickr, you saw this beauty yesterday. Everyone sees different things in the cloud. What do you see?

Nikon D7000 shot.

iPhone4 shot. Camera+ and snapseed used.

Clouds and Rays

I know I’ve done this angle a few times already, but I still like it. People probably give me weird looks when I go out into the middle of a road and put my phone on the ground. Oh well. I’ve learned to tune people out and focus on the photos.

I can’t decide if the rays are adding to the image or taking away from it. What do you think?
Shot with ProHDR, edited with simplyHDR, Snapseed, and Rays.

Ashland Sunset

I meant to go out and scout locations for the storm coming in, but I wasn’t feeling too good yesterday. Luckily, my roommate saw this out the window and we went out on the balcony to enjoy the view for 5-10 minutes. I took multiple pictures with the iphone and Nikon (haven’t even looked at those yet.)

I hardly ever settle for just one shot, especially around sunset when the light conditions are changing rapidly. Take lots of pictures and only show the best of the best. I’m thinkin there may need to be some sort of challenge soon where you take at least 100 shots of the same subject. Shannon! Where are you?

These were simple to edit. I shot with camera+ and added some drama to both in Snapseed. That was it. Drama is great for making the clouds more dramatic.

Another Fork

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
Henry Miller

There always seems to be a fork in the road. It would be nice if there were signs letting you know what was up ahead.

Shot with ProHDR. Edited with Snapseed.

Another from Laetitia

Today I am born anew and my birthplace is a vineyard where there is fruit for all.

-Og Mandino

I woke to find that a photo editor from a local online journal emailed me and asked to feature some of my work in next months issue. So thats kind of exciting. Especially since the circulation is about 35-40,000. I didn’t even submit anything, they just found me on flickr and said they thought I was undiscovered talent.

Now for today’s photo. This is out at Leatitia Vineyards again. Theres a very short trail along a hill overlooking some of the vineyards. There are also some large trees obstructing the views, so I used them as frames. If you saw me taking this one you’d probably scratch your head or laugh at me. I had the D7000 around my neck, but resting on my chest, I was holding my iPhone on top of the lens, and leaning back to fight the wind. You do what you have to for the shot.

I used ProHDR, SimplyHDR, Snapseed, and Tadaa. I’ll make another post today about Tadaa and why I’m a new fan.

Laetitia Vineyards

I went out yesterday thinking I’d do some HDR with my d7000, but so far I’ve only processed the hdr from my iPhone. This is out at Laetitia Winery. Theres no shortage of wineries around here. Thats one of the perks of living between Paso Robles and Santa Barbara.

The image was created with ProHDR. The one above was processed with Snapseed and SimplyHDR. After I processed with Snapseed, there was a lack of focus and the image looked dull. I like how you can change the lighting of an image by applying tints in SimplyHDR. It definitely fixed this one.

This second image is the same one from above. Created with ProHDR and edited with Snapseed before painting it in PhotoViva. I left the original sky alone, but needed to reduce the noise with FilterStorm. I also tone mapped the whole image while in Filterstorm. I tried to take it a step further by using Percolator on the sky and blending it in with ImageBlender. The circle watercolor look didn’t quite mesh with the painted ground. No harm in trying though.