Smoosh: New Fab Painting App from Pixel Blend Creator

Pixel Blend, a painting app that simulates the process of Time Zero Polaroid SX70 emulsion "painting" is one of my favorite apps. Now, Michael Valdez has come out with its easier to use cousin: Smoosh. (Smooshing is what we SX70 enthusiasts used to say we were doing when we moved the emulsion on the Polaroid prints.) I tried it and I love it! It's intuitive and user-friendly - even if you've never heard of SX70 or Time Zero or heaven forbid, Polaroid.

To test it out, I pulled up a "nothing" shot of a rose that I took intending to paint it one day.

I painted (smooshed) it. Even took out the bug on one petal just by smooshing. Cool. It's still just an ok shot, but the paint strokes are wonderful.

 I finished it off with cropping and adding a couple of textures.

 My good friend and photographer Theresa Souers challenged me to "paint" one of her photos so she could watch the process. (Seriously a bit like watching paint dry - not a spectator sport, but we had wine so it went okay.)

 She had this lovely shot of a beached red canoe, mountains in the background, nature all around. After warming and toning with Tiffen PhotoFX app, I set about painting with Smoosh. I liked it a lot, but decided it needed something (always). So I took it into Painteresque app, which is way too much, but combined both images in IRIS app and voila. We both liked it. Collaborative art, once again.