Iphoneography Abstractions Process Part II

At the request of many of you, I've included the steps to my latest abstraction. I can tell you that I most frequently use these apps in creating them: Matter, Fragment, Tangent, and Shift (all Pixite apps); also Master FX, Alien, Sky, Alayer for textures, and Glaze. Rarely do I use them all for one photo, but usually some combo thereof. I will say that when I start, I have no idea where I am going. It's a surprise to me every time.

Here are the steps to Kachina Echoes. Enjoy and I look forward to seeing your creations.

I started with a photo of calla lilies that I've posted previously and took it into Tiny Planet for this rendition.

Next, I went into Matter app and chose this object (I almost always get rid of the shadow).

I then chose another object in Matter and came up with this.

I took the photo into Fragment which added these shapes and changed the color as well.

Fragment again - it has the feel of Japanese paper cranes I've seen at Manzanar, the internment camp in California that is now a National Historic site. I'm wondering if this will turn out to be cranes or a kimono.

I Fragment it again.

And again.

And one more time - now I am seeing the Kachina face and I feel where this might be going.

I take it into Glaze for painting look - I don't like it.

I go back to the face and change the color palette in Shift app.  Better.

I change the color again in Shift. I'm liking it more and more.

I add a texture in Alayer, which also shifts the color a bit. It feels very Southwest in origin to me now.

One more layer of texture in Alayer and I add a white vignette - not sure if I got it in Snapseed or PS Touch, but one of those. It feels complete to me now.

Peek-a-Boo Blossoms

A couple of months ago at a photo seminar at Hui Hoolana, John Barclay challenged students to create a folio, a sort of focused self-assignment. Taking his advice to heart, I began photographing a series of single flowers that were hidden in plain sight - what I termed Peek-a-boo blossoms. Here's the first sampling of an ongoing self assignment. (BTW Check out huiho.org for more info on John Barclay and Jonathan Kingston's annual photo seminar with guest artists Dewitt Jones and Rikki Cooke.)

What's Here To Photograph?

Recently, Dewitt and I were teaching an iPhone photography playshop in Kona, Hawaii. On arrival day, we gave ourselves the assignment to find art on site at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel.  After all, we genuinely believe there is beauty everywhere. Here are a few of the shots I “found”. All were optimized in Snapseed and Touch Retouch.

Instant Gratification with InstaFusion App

I love collaging and combining multiple images. I have most of the collage apps and use them in various situations depending on the look I want. Seriously, I did not think there could be another interesting app for image combining - that is, an app that offers new options other than the zillions I already have.

Then the TechBla folks came out with InstaFusion. And yes, it is something new under the sun! It has features like Unistrip (yep, puts a strip of a photo in another, very cool.) Radial Blend is another cool mode. There are too many intriguing aspects to show them all here. Here are just three made with the same two source images.

This first image combines two images of Mardi Gras past: a mannequin wears an brightly colored ornate costume and a sequined clock approaches midnight.

For a different look, I used the darker blend mode. I changed the color balance using fave app Color Thief. Finished it off with dark grit frame in Camera+.

 

 This is my favorite of the series, using yet another blend mode (worked so fast, I'm not sure which one) but InstaFusion lets you see thumbnail versions of the effects so it is easy to find one you like. The clock moving toward 12 lends a disturbing tension to this image.  I finished it off with Camera Awesome Frame, which has a muted effect on the photo.

Petal Pushers Two

Artists Candy Spring and Carol Robinson share some lovely iPhone flora of their own in this guest gallery. Enjoy!

Haunting Beauty on Kalaupapa Peninsula, Moloka`i

One of the most beautiful, heart wrenching places on Earth is Kalaupapa peninsula, Moloka`i, Hawai`i where people with Hansen's disease (leprosy) were exiled, until a cure was finally discovered. We were blessed to be hosted by dear friends for a couple of days to immerse ourselves. Here are a few iPhone memories.

Beach Leaves       Apps: Snapseed, Camera +, Camera Awesome

The visitor area where patients and family members were separated, unable to touch.
Apps:   Snapseed, Camera +, Camera Awesome

Early morning on the peninsula.   Apps: Autostitch, ProHDR, Photoforge

Cottage and Graves    Apps: Snapseed, Camera +, Pixlromatic

Big Fun on the Big Island of Hawaii

Dewitt and I just had an amazing day with fun folks from Penn Mutual at the Fairmont Orchid Mauna Lani on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii Island. We explored photography, mostly with the iphone all around the grounds of this lovely resort. Yes, more of us fell down the rabbit hole of iphoneography - so much creative art work happened in such a short period of time that I promised to reprise the apps we used (and mention a few that we didn't so here they are!)

Snapseed                This is what I call the baby photoshop - the best photo optimizer by far. It also has some intriguing special effects like grunge, drama, and frames. It's robust so to get the most out of it, tap the question mark in the upper right to get help and links to instructional videos online. I always say, if you can only have one app, this is the one! And it's free!!!! The above photo of palm tree and gazebo roof was optimized in Snapseed and then zapped with the Drama filter in this same app.

FXPhoto Studio        Myriad special FX including frames. This app is easy, intuitive, and fun. There are so many effects that you could play forever with your existing photos and never finish. This great app is FREE today!

Pro HDR                    HDR stands for HIgh Dynamic Range and this app is a necessity for any iphoneographer. Anytime you have bright highlights and dark shadows (eg anytime you are shooting outdoors on a sunny day) you can get a photo that exposes for both areas, giving you a perfect photo that looks like what you see.  Set it on auto, hold it still while it analyzes and shoots 2 photos and then it will combine them into one. Save the result to your camera roll. Then app it with some other apps or just sit back and wait for compliments. The gazebo at sunrise below would have been a silhouette against the rising sun without ProHDR.

TouchRetouch           Want to get rid of power lines, annoying poles or trash in your photo? This is the go to app for content aware healing and removal of unwanted objects. Open your photo, use the little paint brush icon to select the part you want removed, and hit the go button (shaped like a little right arrow). Then just like magic, it's all fixed.

Autopainter              Cool painting app that is absolutely intuitive. Just use a photo from your camera roll, pick from a number of styles, and voila - amazing photo art. Works so well with plants and architecture. Two variations below with the laua`e fern and the palm tree (lithograph style).

Portrait Painter            This app is not just for portraits - in fact I never use it for people pix. It is fabulous for landscape and plants, birds. Like autopainter, it's an easy, one step app. Still you can also fine tune and adjust the effects. Great artistic app.


Blender                    Great app for combining images - very intuitive interface. Just import one and then another photo from your camera roll and it will put them together. It's like a double exposure or collage effect. After you choose two photos, you can also choose from a number of blend modes - go up to the two overlapping squares at the  top and it will bring them up. Try combining unlike images for a surreal effect. Terrific creative fun. The photo below was created with blender combining two shots of palm leaves and blend mode exclusion.

Other apps you might want to experiment with:

Simply BW                Absolute best B and W app - like a teeny Ansel Adams living in your phone.

Pic Grunger              Vintage and grunge effects - great if you are into that sort of thing - we are!

Autostitch                Panoramic - best. Can shoot panos from within the app or shoot with camera and combine later. It can handle lots of shots and big files.


Perfectly Clear        Best 1 stop shop to fix pix with no muss, no fuss, superior noise removal

This will keep a photographer busy for years. And likely whet your app-etite for more.

Guest Gallery iPhone Art

Here are a couple of great shots by iPhone Diva contributors Diane Rupnow and Judy Norton. Enjoy!

Diane shares: " I just had to share this recent image. I took this with my big girl camera in the town of Springdale, Utah, just outside Zion National Park. It was a nice image initially, but I used a couple of apps to bring the feeling that this was taken at the time this little cemetery was new,and then carried around in someone's pack for a few generations. Apps used: Iris, Picture Show."

And Judy writes, "There's one for you. I've been playing around with KitCam and love love love it! You can do multiple images as we used to do w Big Girl cameras, plus you can control the exposure of each image. Also, it has changes of film and lenses, plus a spirit level for straight horizons. It also takes video but I haven't tried that yet. Hope u like it! This image is 3 different azalea bushes taken as multiple exposure."

My Own Private Paris

It can be challenging to find  new views of places that have been photographed so much. Even more so with iPhoneography where you have a single focal length and fixed aperture (unless you app it to approximate a larger one). So I'm always thrilled when I can take a photo that I've not seen before of a popular destination. Here are three views of my last trip to Paris that fit the bill.

The Peace Wall was shattered on one side and had not been fixed. It seemed a poignant frame for the Eiffel Tower. Apps: Camera+, Snapseed.

A rainy afternoon in the Latin Quarter seemed a busy colorful blur, so I used Slow Shutter app to capture the feeling. Optimized with Snapseed.

The Mona Lisa in the Louvre in the process of being captured by a Smart Phone. I like the blend of old and new image making. Apps: Camera+, Touch Retouch to remove distracting details like an arm coming in the left side.

Simply B and W Has a New Home

Good news, iphoneographers! Simply Band W has found a new home with app developer FotoSyn, the folks who brought us Bleach Bypass and Gelo. I am so happy!

Here's the press release from developer Jim Moore: 

Simply B and W will be joining the Fotosyn stable of apps.  A few weeks ago, Brian Kennedy of Mr B Ware, author of Simply B and W began discussions with myself about looking after and taking on the presence of Simply B and W in the App Store. As that handover will soon be complete with the app reappearing in the next week or so I wanted to let you know what was happening and where we’ll be going in the next few months with the app.

First of all… Simply B andW is one of the stalwart apps in the App Store. It’s hugely respected for its simplicity and effectiveness. That’s something I too very much believe in what apps should do -  a set number of tasks but doing them well. Simply B and W definitely has an enviable reputation in the App Store and it is something that I will do my best to keep up as the app develops over time. One of the most important things I wanted to put across first off is that the app will remain free. Free download, and free without any in-app purchases or advertising. The app, in it’s current form, fully free, will form the basis of going forwards. This is in keeping with the generous spirit of Brian who has selflessly handed the code over to me lock stock without looking for any financial gain. I respect this standpoint very much and I hope to continue with the development of Simply Band W in this spirit.

The app itself will relaunch, unchanged but will allow the app to progress and its user base to re-enter the update cycle, initially from maintenance mode in the initial months to an app that will keep up to date with the developments of iOS and the iPhone and iPad family. Initially I would see updates allowing for the larger sizes of the iPhone 5, possibly an iPad version as well as other tweaks including geolocation within EXIF data. From there, and as I shape the other apps I have (Bleach Bypass and Geló) I will draw on what works – allowing for easy workflow updates and enhancements to the UI, so that all three offer a unified user experience with the focus on taking pictures and editing them straight on your phone/tablet.

To say I am delighted to have been chosen to look after Simply Band W is an understatement. My passion has always been photography and image processing, so to be given the opportunity help others develop their photography through apps, and now with Simply B and W will be a great source of pleasure for me in the coming years.

I will be supporting Simply Band W with updates in line with my other apps; launching an app site to showcase the app as well as writing tutorials specifically related to Black and White photography which will appear on the newly (relaunched) Fotosyn website in the coming weeks. I am also entering into discussions with a world-class landscape photographer about writing some tutorials which will form the basis of inspiration in using this great app. This is in early stage but it is someone with whom I have worked extensively with in the past.

 If you require further information please contact me on this address info@fotosyn.com or on mobile 07714 214117. I am also available for Skype on jimmoorephoto.
Many Thanks and Best Regards… Jim

Fotosyn is a small independent developer of iPhone apps based in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. Started by Jim Moore in 2010; the stable includes Bleach Bypass and the recently launched colour tinting app Geló. Simply Band W makes up the third app in the range.

Note: This app is Simply B ampersand W - unfortunately Blogger does not allow ampersands in a post.  So I have written the word and in its place. Sigh.

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.