iPhone in the Palouse

Capture Camera+ Processing Snapseed

I enjoyed my two weeks in the Palouse, one scouting, the other leading a tour group through the amazing land of Eastern Washington State. I must admit I had to really concentrate on getting my iPhone out to shoot as I was moving fast on my scout and often just wanted to get a shot with the big camera, but every so often the iPhone came out too! Sometimes the shot needed minimal processing and other times my vision was for heavier processing.

Hipstamatic Capture and  OGGL processing

In the end, I enjoyed using Hipstamatic as a quick default shooting app using the Jane Lens and Inas 1969 film. Sometimes I ran that captured image back into OGGL for further filtering with Hipstamatic options.

Walking through the town of Colfax one day I noticed this architectural detail and Hipstamatic was again my app of choice.
I will be reviewing how to set up and shoot with your Camera + and Hipstamatic Apps and more in my "Getting Started in iPhone Photography" workshop this Sunday August 24 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
For more information and registration Click Here

Hipstamatic Oggl ~ Winter at the Beach

Watts Lens and BlacKeys Supergrain Film

This is my last week at the beach before closing the house for the winter. It was very cold last night as a Canadian blast of cold air came through. The beach in winter, and it does feel like winter, is ghost like. People abandon it and return it to the wind, the birds and the sea. As the WWII watch towers now stand guard over the abandoned picnic tables, winter is coming on. All these images were shot using the Hipstamatic Oggl app. The coolest thing about Oggl is the ability to control exposure and then to choose the combination of Lens and Film after the shot is made. It was a bold blue sky day when I made all these images and I like to think in Black and white on those kind of days. Processing all the images here in Oggl I chose several Lens and Film combos to achieve the results.

Watts Lens Blackeys Supergrain Film

 The dune fences give way to the wind and the sand.

Watts Lens and Rock BW-11 Film

Shells are tossed to shore and nestled into windblown sand.

Foxy Lens and BlacKeys Supergrain Film

Beach pines filter the harsh afternoon sun.

 

G2 Lens and BlacKeys Supergrain Film

Beach grass struggles to keep rooted in the shifting windblown sands. The ice lockers are locked and the refreshment stands are shuttered. The bath house benches are empty. Winter is here!

Lucas Lens BlacKeys XF Film

Lucas Lens D-Type Plate Film

Loftus Lens BlacKeys XF Film

Beach Pines~ You can never duplicate the exact image unless you write it all down!

This is an image I posted on Facebook over the weekend. One Facebook friend said they hoped I would write a tutorial on my blog for this processing. Well...... I can tell you what I shot it with and maybe a few steps along the way. However to duplicate the exact same image after the fact, with a process one could share, without writing down the original process, is almost impossible. I am not one to write down my processes with exacting steps. In this tutorial I have tried to recreate the image to some degree here. Hopefully these steps will be a starting point for a creative process you might want to try.

Original Image Capture: Hipstamatic Oggl ~ Lowry Lens Kodot XGrizzled Film
The reason I chose Oggl is because you can control exposure. Using the reticles in Oggl I wanted to open up the deep shady areas of the pines. I didn't care if the sky blew out because it was gray and overcast anyway. I did want a hint of horizon line from the ocean. SO controlling capture is important to me as well as processing. I knew I wanted to add textures to the sky area when I shot this image.

Original Capture

Processing:
A. Open the Hipstamatic image in Mextures then choose
 1. Grunge Filter Painterly
                                           Choose Blend Mode Multiply

Screen shot of Mextures Grunge interface

Then Adjust texture to 50% Check and continue to add filters in Mextures.

Screen shot of Mextures Vintage User interface

   2. Then add new filter in Mextures
       Landscape enhance "Vignette" at 20 %  Blend mode overlay (not shown) Check and continue  to  add filter in Mextures.
   3. Then add new filter in Mextures
          Vintage "Polaroid" at 20% Blend mode Hard Light 
Save file to Photo Library

B. Open the saved Mextures file in AutoPainter and apply Benson filter and save.

AutoPainter file

C. Open the last saved Mextures file (not the AutoPainter file) in Leonardo and apply the Clarity slider as shown in screenshot and save to Photo Library.

Screen shot Leonard Clarity interface

D. Open AutoPainter saved image in Snapseed and add ambience and warmth in the Tune Image Command and save file.

Screen shot Snapseed

E. Open Image Blender and open The last saved Mextures file from Leonardo first, with the last saved AutoPainter file from Snapseed and blend with Lighten mode at about 45% and save.

Screen shot ImageBlender interface

F. Open the saved ImageBlender file in distressed fx and use filters to adjust color save.

Screen shot distressed fx interface

G. Lastly to the saved distressed fx file add a vignette in Mextures and save. This is close but not exact in tone and shading however, I hope the tutorial will give you some ideas for future processing of your images.

Check out my next all day iPhone Sessions in DC on November 24 sponsored by Capital Photography Center (click here for more info) and in Chestertown, Md on November 23 sponsored by The Chestertown River Arts (click here for more info on Chestertown.)

Final image

Hipstamatic Oggl~ Now you can create an HDR with your favorite Hipsta Combo!

Image Capture: Hipstamatic Oggle Processing: Pro HDR, Glaze, Leonardo, ImageBlender

When the folks at Hipstamatic launched Hipstamatic Oggl in May of this year, I passed it by; thinking, Why would I want to pay for a subscription on an iPhone app? (It is only $9.99 a year) But now it has been through several version updates, with the most recent one on October 17 and it is packed with goodies! You can import all your existing Lenses and Films from Hipstamatic Classic, you can control exposure, you can swap filters, you can share with the Oggl community, you can import images from your camera roll and apply Hipstamatic filters and now you can create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) Hipsta image with a little creativity and a tripod mount. (If you are a classic Hipsta shooter, how many times did you wish for control over exposure? Well Oggl delivers it now.)  As far as a tripod mount: Kirk makes a cool tripod mount that fits its regular tripod plate here is a link for it: Click here: but there are others, its just really important to keep the iPhone still and in the same position when making the two bracketed images.
Here is how I created a Hipstamatic Oggl HDR image...I was playing with Oggl, with my iPhone mounted on my tripod at Longwood Gardens on Saturday. It was a bright, windy, sunny, contrasty but beautiful fall day. I wanted to capture the sky and shady areas in the landscape. So, I thought, now that you can choose an exposure point in Hipstamatic Oggl, I did and made an exposure for the sky, which of course threw the ground and shady areas into almost complete darkness. Then I made an exposure for the ground and shady areas which blew out the sky! Perfect! Now I had the two Hipstamatic images I wanted to blend together in Pro HDR by eyeApps LLC (ProHDR has not done an update for iOs7 but seems to work fine)...It worked!!! here's the proof! So now I would recommend purchasing Hipstamatic Oggl! Its Hipsta Classic on Steroids!
Here are the files I used to achieve the opening image. For both sets of image files I used Ina's 1969 film and the Jane lens.

 

Exposure made on tripod and created to capture details in the shady area, which blew out the sky.

Exposure made on tripod and created to capture the sky color, which threw the areas in the shade into darkness.

Combined image in Pro HDR

So because I could I made another image in the same way. Here is the finished "Glazed" image and the shots I used to get to the final image.

Captured for detail in the shady areas, sky blows out.

Captured for the color of the sky, shady areas go almost black.

 

 

Combined previous two images in Pro HDR

Processed in Glaze and enhanced in Leonardo for final image.