Happy Feb 14th

A flower falls, even though we love it. 

-Dogen

I hate to be that guy, but I’ve never been a fan of this holiday. Probably because I spent too many of them alone. Shrug. 

I’ll probably be spending the day eating junk food and doing something artsy to express myself. 

I hope you have someone special to share it with. Don’t forget to spread the love and let your single friends know you love and appreciate them too. 

This hyacinth was shot with ProShot and edited with Snapseed and iColorama. Then I used artista Impresso for the painterly look. 

On Beauty

Is it the thing thats beautiful, or how we perceive it?

I’m sure most of you know the answer. For those that haven’t thought about this before, its a good question to ponder.

I got dragged to the dollar store the other day. Thats a place that you’d be hard pressed to find something inherently beautiful. Near the checkout, I saw a bunch of cheap fake flowers and thought I could create something pretty. My girlfriend looked at me like I was crazy to even try, but I knew a painterly app would make it so you couldn’t tell the flowers were fake.

I used the native camera app to take the photo and then processed the image with artista impresso.

Whitehorse Falls (Nikon & iPhone)

This is a candid that I did while on a recent photo adventure with my friend. We hit 4 waterfalls that day, including whitehorse falls. I’ll be sharing another shot or two from this location that focus solely on the falls.

Speaking of adventures, if you’d like to go on a photo adventure with Shannon and me, we just announced our first photography workshop this fall, which takes place in New Hampshire. There will be 1 or 2 more announced soonish. For details on the first one, please go here.

I shot this with my Nikon and edited in Photoshop. Then, I ended up editing it on my iPhone with Artista Impresso, Mextures and Snapseed. I know Cora Edwards does all her dslr editing on her iPhone, and, I have to say, I like the way this turned out.

How To Salvage Your Out Of Focus iPhone Photos

Ever take an out of focus photo? No? Me neither.

Let’s pretend a toddler stole my phone and took a photo, for the sake of this post.

Ok, seriously, I was using my iPro macro lens on my iPhone yesterday, and my focus missed on each of the 4 shots I took of this flower. I wanted the petals in focus, but I couldn’t tell if they were or not, at the time of shooting.

The challenge with macro lenses are the extremely small depth of field you have to work with. The closer you are to your subject, the smaller the depth of field. That goes for any lens you’re using, but when you’re inches from your subject, depth of field can be very tiny.

I saw this out of focus shot as an opportunity to show people that you don’t have to delete these mistakes. If you have a decent subject, and a decent composition, you can still make use of the image.

First, you’ll want to make your basic adjustments in Snapseed. Then, use a painterly app to convert the image into a painting. I used Artista Impresso, but I also recommend Brushstroke, iColorama, and Glazed. Or you can use whatever your favorite painterly app may be.

Now that the photo looks like a painting, my little mistake isn’t so glaring. You can stop here, and share with your friends, or you can play with more apps, and do something a little more artsy.

I chose to try some formulas in Mextures, to add some light on top of the image. A little warm light from above isn’t bad at all, for this shot.

I also tried another formula that was much more extreme, and I think I like it.

Now, compare these images to the original, out of focus image. So much better! I don’t have to be embarrassed if someone sees these photos anymore.

I’d love to see some of you salvage your images too, so feel free to share your images in the comments. Or, if you want to create your own blog post, with a before and after, leave a link to your post in the comments.

Painted Jacksonville

I found myself walking through the neighborhood of Jacksonville, OR again this past weekend. It’s a nice little touristy, historical town. Lots of old buildings, wineries, art, etc. Its small, so the people are unusually friendly, and actually know each other.

I walked through the neighborhood, from my friend’s place to the main strip, and all of the houses looked perfect. I got the strangest feeling, though. There were hardly any cars on the street, and no people, even in the late afternoon. I kind of felt like I was on a movie set. I wanted to take photos of a lot of the houses, to try and capture the strange vibe. Next time…

This was edited with Snapseed, then Artista Impresso. I also took a version of the snapseed edit and edited with TangledFX. Then I took the 2 painterly versions into ImageBlender, where I masked in the TangledFX style on the tree, grass, and parts of the house. Finally, I took the merged image into iColorama, where I used some dry brushes on the tree and sky, then a flower brush on other parts of the image.

I don’t normally edit like this, but I was allowing myself to play and have some fun. I need to have some play time, after all the other work I’ve had to make a priority lately. Don’t ever let anyone tell you being a photographer is only about taking and editing photos.

LR Mobile & My Mailing List

Last night, I went for a walk around the neighborhood, and I brought my iPro lenses with me, just in case. I ended up only using the super wide angle, because I’m a fan of wide angle photos.

As I walked, I kept looking for stories to tell. The main two that kept jumping out at me were the amount of garbage on the side of the road, and the first signs of spring. Amazingly, I saw a bag for In N Out burger in a ditch. The closest In N Out is like 150 miles away.

In the end, I chose to shoot something totally different, because I drawn to the lines of the image.

I edited with Lightroom Mobile, which is free if you have a subscription to photoshop and lightroom. I just started using Lightroom mobile recently, and I have to say I’m a fan. I love having most of the same tools as I do on my mac. Plus, it syncs to Lightroom on your desktop, which means you can even make edits on your desktop, and they will sync to your iPhone. Pretty cool!

My favorite features in Lightroom mobile are the clarity slider, the shadow and highlight sliders, and the vignette (which is one of the better vignette tools I’ve seen.)

After making the edits in Lightroom mobile, which you see in the above image, I decided to try a painterly look with Artista Impresso (below.)

Finally, I’m starting a mailing list. I was going to announce this alongside the launch of my new site, but there are still issues that need to be worked out there. As a little incentive to sign up, I’m going to be giving you an ebook that I’m finishing up, which is my guide to the Big Sur Coast. I share a lot of my favorite locations, what you’ll find there, and when you might want to visit them.

The mailing list will be used to share info about upcoming books, workshops, and stuff like that. So go here to sign up, and I’ll send you the Big Sur book as soon as its finished, which could be within a week.

Some More Arista Impresso

Disclaimer: these photos have not been edited in anything other than Artista Impresso. They would probably look more polished if they were run through Snapseed before, or after.

I’ve got a lot of photos sitting on my phone, waiting for the right app to come along and make them useful. Artista Impresso has done a really good job at making some nice snapshots look more interesting.

I have to say that sometimes, its hard to see much effect on the iPhone screen. I ran a couple of images through the app twice, to see if doubling the process made it more impressionistic. I like the results so far.

I felt like there was still too much detail in the first image of the pony, so I imported that version into Artista Impresso, and tried adding another layer of the effect, but this time, with a larger brush setting. I also used the center detail on the face, to make the app use smaller brushstrokes there, keeping more detail.

Lets look at another example of running an image through the ringer twice.

And, the second time, with a larger brush setting.

My first impressions of Artista Impresso are:

My one word to describe it is “clunky.”

I’m still not a fan of JixiPix’s user interface in their apps. I shouldn’t have to access another panel, just to compare the original image with the current edit.

I hate how every tiny adjustment causes the entire image to be reprocessed. It takes about 3-4 seconds each time I make an adjustment on my iPhone 5s. Way to kill an artist’s creative flow! This creates a time consuming workflow in this app. JixiPix needs to do something about this ASAP.

The overlays are not adding to this impressionist effect, in my opinion. They’re good at messing up your colors.

I don’t like how, upon importing an image, the view is zoomed in on the image. I want to see my image fit to the screen at the beginning. Forcing the user to zoom out before doing any kind of edits is silly, and again, slows down the workflow in this app.

Having said all that, the effect is still quite nice. Just be prepared to have a little patience.

Artista Impresso

I wasn’t going to post an image today, but I just bought Artista Impresso and think I like it. I’ve been wanting an impressionist style app for a while, so this is a nice surprise. I might do a proper review soon, time permitting.