From the Road

This shot couldn’t have come out much better. I was driving about 65 mph and saw this dirt path leading to an oak tree. I got my iPhone ready and pressed the shutter when I thought I could get a shot without a car blocking the view.

I kind of missed these oak trees. They’re my favorite. Of course, now I miss the forests of Oregon.

Shot with camera+. Edited with TouchRetouch, Snapseed, and FilterStorm. Ugh Filterstorm. It took about 15 minutes to save this time because of poor coding. If I cancel a filter, it shouldn’t go through the process of rendering and canceling it during the save process.

Worth Saving?

I didn’t love this shot after taking it. I didn’t really like anything I shot at this location, but I thought I’d try to create something decent. Thats really not a good approach to photography. Don’t go out and snap mediocre pictures with the hope that you can turn them into something cool in post processing.

Even after the editing, I’m not excited about this one, but I did experiment with new techniques. I shot this with ProHDR, edited with filterstorm and lenslight. I sucked detail out of the image by reducing noise a couple of times in filterstorm, which gave it a slight painterly look. Then I added some light and bokeh with lenslight.

Not crazy about it, but its better than what I started with.

Garden Glow

We added a bunch of plants to the garden this weekend. At least it seemed like a lot when the cart was full, but getting home and planting them in the half acre yard made it seem like we barely got anything.

I shot this with camera+ and edited with snapseed, filterstorm, and imageblender. There was a natural glow on the plant that I wanted to enhance with Filterstorm. To do that, I added blur and set the blending mode to soft light. Then I lowered the opacity to something like 40%. It was still a bit much after I’d saved, so I used imageblender to blend it with the original because its a hell of a lot faster than trying again in Filterstorm and waiting for the 5 minute save process.

If you don’t have filterstorm, you can add blur with another app and use something like imageblender or superimpose. Just set the blurred image to soft light blending mode and adjust the opacity til it looks good.

Stormy Road

 

Good news! I got published for the second month in a row in the SLO Coast Journal. Its a local online journal with a good amount of readers. Even cooler still is one of you also got published in the journal. Congrats Lace! Go check out her photos on Flickr (shes not a blogger yet.)

My photo that got published wasn’t even one of my top 3 shots for the month, but the editors sure liked it. You can see it over here on my other blog.

Highway 1

 

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.

An Otter Sunset

An otter sunset…get it? Yet another sunset from Shell Beach. This was taken the other evening when I was out there. There were a few sea otters watching me shoot from about 100 feet away. A couple of them came pretty close to the shore, but of course, they waited for me to take my zoom lens off my nikon before doing that.

This image really came out better than I anticipated. The original looked bland, but there was enough info throughout the entire tonal range that I was able to work with it.

I did most of the work in FilterStorm, which I’m starting to think is probably one of the top 3 most powerful editing apps. If it didn’t take over 5 minutes to save when I’m done it would be hard to beat. I also used Snapseed and Tadaa to add the finishing touches. The final result was much closer to what the scene actually looked like when I was there.

Alright Sarah, I think I may actually head to Big Sur today. If I post from my phone later with ugly elephant seals, it means I’m heading up the coast.

Another Sunset at the Beach

I was out shooting with both cameras at the beach last night. When I first started towards the beach, it looked extremely hazy and not too promising. Luckily it wasn’t bad when I got there. I had trouble just jumping out of the car and hunting for good pictures, so I sat there for a few minutes soaking in my environment (something I’m trying to do more before I shoot.) There was a golden glow and a little magic in the air, but the sun was so bright and at an angle that wasn’t going to let me shoot in the direction I wanted to.

App Crazy

I think I have something like 45-50 photo apps on my phone right now. Thats after deleting a bunch that aren’t up to my standards. For this image, I used more apps than I ever have on a single image.

1. ProHDR
2. Snapseed
3. LensLight- Added the moon
4. FX Photo Studio- Created mirrored image
5. Tadaa- Added a couple of filters to get spacey/rainbow colors.
6. NIR Color-  Made a copy to blend in image blender at low opacity.
7. PhotoArtista Oil- Made a copy to blend in image blender for the painted reflection.
8. ImageBlender
9. FilterStorm- Separate curves adjustments for the sky and reflection

I’m pretty surprised I remembered all of that. You should click on it to see the large version.

So what do you think of the final outcome? Was it worth the trouble?

I also want to share a few blog posts that I contributed to recently. This one is on iphoneography, instagram, and being part of the in crowd. I’ve enjoyed my recent conversations with Shannon. She knows what shes talking about.

I did two posts for Mariam where I shared what I think helped me become not only a better  photographer, but a more creative individual. Here they are:  1 & 2. In the second post, I share a popular training website that offers 24 hour free trials to all of their videos. Go check it out!

Moon over Ashland

This is another photo from rural Ashland. I tried something different by adding the moon to this image with LensLight. I got the promo code yesterday and plan on doing the review after I’ve had enough time to experiment with it.

Shot with ProHDR, edited with Snapseed and FilterStorm. I’m still nervous everytime I use FilterStorm because it crashes more than any other photo app I have. Of course it crashed today just as I was saving 5 minutes worth of work.

Hope you’re having a lazy weekend. I’m going to crawl back into bed now

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.

 

Abstract Creations

I wanted to try something different today. In the past, I’ve used photoshop to take a portion of an image, copy it, flip it, combine the 2 images, copy, flip and combine again to make something abstract. Make sense? I wanted to see if I could do that with the iPhone too.

This is what I started with.

I used Filterstorm to flip it. Then I used Nostalgio, which is a frame app, to combine the images twice. Its a pretty simple process and makes for some interesting creations.

I also wanted to give you all a heads up. App developers tend to feel generous around holidays, which means you can find apps on sale or free this weekend. I’ll let you know if I find any good ones. For starters, Dramatic BW is only .99 now.

For Those in Colder Climates

Lately I’ve seen my friends posting about how they’re getting snow, hail, and rain, so I thought I owed it to them to go out to the beach and watch the sunset last night. The tripod and I nearly got taken out by a wave when I first started shooting on the shore. Luckily I saw it out of the corner of my eye when I was looking at my phone. I was able to grab the tripod and jump back onto some rocks just in time.

The first two images were created with Slow Shutter, which allows you to do long exposures, and edited in Snapseed. You really need a tripod to get long exposures as sharp as possible. I do use a tripod, but I don’t have a case to mount it on their properly. I just hold my iPhone as still as I can against the tripod. I think I need to break down and get some real equipment for better results because they could be sharper.

The third image was created with ProHDr, edited with Snapseed for the drama and selective adjustments. Finally, I used Filterstorm to tonemap the water and apply a curves layer to the sky in an attempt to lighten it up a bit. I like Filterstorm, but it takes so long to save an image. This one took about 2 minutes.

An App Cocktail- Tolosa Vineyards

I was out roaming the county yesterday and stopped off at Tolosa Vineyards. Unfortunately I didn’t stop for the wine, just for a few quick pics.

After playing with Dramatic Black and White, I wanted to blend black and white images with color like I sometimes do in photoshop. Check out this workflow.

1. Shot with ProHDR. I’m not happy with the weird color on the edge of the road and it needs a crop.

2. Snapseed edit #1. Add drama, selective adjustments, and crop.

3. Dramatic Black and White for the bw conversion. This looks pretty good and I wouldn’t mind stopping here, but I have something else in mind.

4. Import last 2 images into ImageBlender. Blend mode set to luminosity at about 65% opacity. You could also try overlay or soft light to get interesting effects. By setting to luminosity, the hue and saturation remain the same while the brightness is altered. I had this blend mode in mind because I wanted the vignette created in Dramatic BW to show up. It was a little strong for my taste, so I lowered the opacity to 65%.

5. TouchRetouch. There were some distracting elements that I wanted to remove.

6. Filterstorm. The noise in the sky needs to be reduced, even if just slightly. I also want to brighten the clouds and vineyard. To do that, I used a curves layer and pulled the midtones up slightly, then masked in the effect where I wanted it.

7. Snapseed edit #2. I want to put the finishing touches on it by adding just a little contrast to  brighten up the middle of the image.

App Review: Filterstorm

I’ve had a few weeks to play with Filterstorm now and I still don’t feel completely comfortable using it. Its a deep app that others have said is like photoshop in your pocket. It certainly appears to be a powerful app, if you can master it, but there is a steep learning curve. This isn’t an app that I’d recommend for beginners. If you’re a professional photographer, or someone that has a grasp of most of photoshop’s features, I’d say give Filterstorm a try. No matter what level you’re at, watching the tutorial is a must!

Drama

“Beauty in things exist in the mind which contemplates them.”   -David Hume

I think I’ll start sharing quotes once in a while now because I’m a sucker for wisdom. Today I’ll start with Hume because I was a philosophy major once upon a time.

I know when I look at a scene like the original above I don’t see what most people see. I tend to see the potential drama of a scene that I can bring out with HDR and post processing. This is something that comes to you the more you shoot, so don’t be discouraged if you can’t visualize the final image ahead of time.

Of all the apps I’ve played with, I don’t think I use any feature more than the drama filter in Snapseed. It immediately makes most photos more dynamic and dramatic, 2 things that I’m always looking for. I’ve also found the tone mapping feature in FilterStorm to be a good way to make an image more dynamic. In this image, using both filters really brought drama to the sky and helped recreate what I saw when I took the photo.

Shot with ProHDR, edited with Snapseed and FilterStorm.