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.

Apple's Announcements Impact on Accessibility

This week Apple announced a variety of new hardware and software products at media event. While Apple executives didn't devote stage time to accessibility announcements as they have in years past, the announcements still impact accessibility and assistive technology.

Mac

Apple previewed OS X Mavericks at their World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. This week Apple released the Mac operating system to the public and announced that it would be a free update. Like iOS 7, Mavericks includes some exciting accessibility improvements including enhanced dictation and Switch Control. Click to read more about each new feature.

iPad

The main focus of the event was updated iPads. Apple released a new full size iPad named iPad Air. The iPad Air is considerably thinner and lighter than the previous full size iPad. In addition to the slimmer design Apple included the new A7 processor which increases performance. The iPad mini was also updated to include a higher quality retina display and is now called the iPad mini with Retina display. Notably, the new iPads don't include Apple's new Touch ID finger print sensor that debut on the iPhone 5s.

Updated Apps

Apple updated their iLife and iWork software for both the Mac and iOS devices. The updates have some useful new features, but I have not found any new accessibility features in these updates. Notably, Apple's education focused iOS apps iBooks and iTunes U were not updated. I'm hopeful that these apps will be updated soon and include new features. In particular, I hope Apple adds improved text-to-speech integration for iBooks. In particular I hope a "read" or "speak" button will be added to allow continuous text-to-speech with highlighting for all books. Currently continuous text-to-speech with highlighting is not possible in iBooks. 

iOS 7.0.3

iOS 7.0.3 is a minor update to iOS 7 but the new release includes a few accessibility improvements. In iOS 7.0.3 the reduce motion accessibility setting decreases navigation animations. This is designed to limit motion sickness that some users reported after updating to iOS 7. iOS 7.0.3 also includes VoiceOver fixes for a sensitivity issue that was present in previous versions of iOS 7.

OS X Mavericks Includes Switch Control Similar To iOS 7

Apple's new and free Mac operating system called OS X Mavericks includes a new accessibility feature called Switch Control. Switch Control allows switch users to navigate and use their Macs. Switch Control allows switch users to interact and control their Macs. Switch users are users who are only able to activate a few large buttons and who don’t have the ability to interact with the complexities of a keyboard or mouse. For example, a quadriplegic may be able to activate switches mounted on their wheelchair with their head. Switches come in all different sizes and configurations but they give users who are unable to interact with the keyboard or mouse the ability to control their computers. It is exciting to see Apple continuing to improve OS X accessibility as well as iOS accessibility. Switch Control on the Mac is similar to other switch interfaces and very similar to Switch Control on iOS 7. Click here to read about Switch Control for iOS 7.

Watch the above video to learn more about Switch Control on OS X Mavericks. Click here to download OS X Mavericks.