Thursday, July 10, 2014

Tutorial Creating Composite Photographs in Filterstorm Neue

Aloha dear reader, 

First, let's begin with a definition of a composite photograph:

A composite photograph is one that has been created by superimposing two or more separate photographs (or smaller parts/sections of other photographs) and can also include other elements such as textures and overlays.

After recently uploading a couple of composite photographs created using Filterstorm, iPhone photos and Stackables layers, I had a few requests about how I achieved these effects, so I thought it might be helpful if I created a very basic tutorial to demystify the process.

Before we begin, I would like to recommend you get a stylus pen, I use a Targus brand, with a rubber tip, there are lots of different types of styluses, I suggest you start with one that feels good in your grip, but you might need to experiment as to whether you prefer the rubber tip or a more pen like tip.  I am used to the grip on the rubber tip and like the feel of it better than the other ones I've tried. 

You'll also need to get Filterstorm Neue https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/filterstorm-neue/id728479183?mt=8 from the App Store if you haven't already.

Step 1

. Open Filterstorm app on your iPhone

Step 2

. Select Photos and then select Camera Roll
. Select your first iPhone photograph for editing

You should now see your image on the screen with a menu list of options down the left hand side of the screen.

You can zoom in and out of your image by using two fingers to pinch together (to zoom out and make smaller) or move fingers apart (to zoom in and make larger). 

Step 3

. Select 'Edit' from the left hand menu
. Scroll down the menu and select +Image
. Select Camera Roll again
. Select the second image you want to add to the first image

Step 4

There are a couple of different ways I achieve superimposing my second image.  Here's the first way:

. With two fingers, you can now pinch the first photograph, to move it into the location you are happy with in relation to the second photograph.  You are looking at the composition here and figuring out where the placement should be.  This is where you put to use all that you've learned regarding composition.  You need to take into consideration where the place of say, a figure, should be, in relation to the first image.  In my case, with the adding the boy, I needed to pinch my first image smaller, and move it to the left, so that the boy would be large enough and positioned on the right hand side of the first image.

. Once you feel that you've accomplished the correct positioning, select the brush tool.  You will notice that the second image you imported has disappeared, but it's actually still there in the layer beneath the first image.

You should now see a set of Masking Tools now, you need to select the first brush in the set on the left hand menu.  You can now (or at any time) adjust the strength of the brush (size and opacity) in the sliders at the bottom of the screen.

Using your stylus pen, begin 'erasing' the first photo to reveal the part of the second image that you want in your composite photograph. After this, you can zoom in by pinching your fingers apart on the screen.

Once the elements are revealed from the second image, it's time to select the eraser or the third 'brush' from the menu on the left hand side of the screen. 

To adjust the strength of the eraser brush, select the 'cog' and the sliders will reappear in another window that opens on the right hand size of the screen, to adjust size and opacity.  After  you've adjusted to the strength you need, it's time to erase the parts around the second image, to make it look perfectly blended with the first image.

Step 5

When you are happy with your composition, select the 'tick' or 'check' to apply changes.

Step 6 

. Finally, select 'edit' from the left hand menu
. Then select 'export', you should see another menu open on the right, from here you can select 'Get Image Size' to find out how the edits affected your file size and then select 'Save Image'.
. You should see another menu appear from the bottom of the screen and from here you can select 'Save Image'.

Step 7

. Go to your native Camera app on the iPhone to check that your new composite photograph has been saved to your Camera Roll.

I hope this helps those of you who are interested in trying out this technique with your iPhone photos!  Feel free to share this post with the link, on your favourite social network platform and be sure to visit me at the links below to see more of my art and photography!  Have an aloha kind of creative day!  

Karin


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Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Silver Gull - making the most of mistakes




































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Aloha dear reader and thank you for visiting my blog!!  I am sharing today about a mistake I have made, with a really lovely image, however, I've learned a lot from my mistake, and that's really what I want to share.  After completing a course with Emil Pakarklis through iPhone Photography School, iphonephotographyschool.com I now have a much better understanding about what makes a good iPhone photo.

I took this with my iPhone 5 at the beachfront on a day where the seagulls were being thrown left over takeaways from a picnic, the couple left, but the seagulls stayed behind and were eager for me to feed them too.  Unfortunately that day, I had nothing to give them, but when I motioned upward to the sky with my arm, they would fly off the ground or the perches, in search of the morsel I'd apparently thrown them (as you can imagine, this didn't go on for very long before they realised I was tricking them).  This gave me ample opportunity to shoot in burst mode.  I capture 2 to 3 great shots out of possible 80-100.  So, where did I go wrong?

The first issue I noticed, was that after I cropped this image quite a lot, there was visible grain. I could have used a tripod, to help me avoid shaking, I could have kept the original file and tried cropping it less severely, and I also could have tried some other techniques in turning it to black and white, using filters that cause less problems with resolution and compression of the file when saving it, I could have re-edited it a number of different ways also, and chosen the best possible one with the least grain.  Doing these things would have resulted in a larger image file, (as this is less than 1MB) and possibly less grain.  I could also have set exposure onto the overexposed eareas on his head and wing, to make them less overexposed, before I took the shot, by setting exposure first.  I also could have taken the photos in the native amera app which has a faster burst mode than the app I use called Camera+

Instead of deleting the photo completely, I found it still sitting in my Dropbox last night, and it really is a lovely photo, I wasn't able to just dispose of it altogether, so despite feeling a bit upset that it's really not something good enough to print out on it's own, I've realised that it might be something valuable that I can keep and use later on, as I'm about to undertake another course, this time through Bob Weil who was iPhoneographer of the Year by IPPA.  This course is about using parts of photos to make another complete image, they are called composites.  So, all is not lost and this photo could still be valuable if used as part of another piece, rather than just on it's own where the quality issues might show too much.

So, I thought I'd share it with you, after applying some texural overlays and filters, I think the grain now looks a little less noticeable and I get away with it ....just!

Thank you for reading, please feel free to share my post on your favourite social network platform and visit my art gallery at redbubble, and photo galleries at EyeEm, Instagram and Tumblr and my print shop and follow me on Facebook and Twitter,  to follow my journey see  more of my paintings, photography, drawings, writing, etc. at the links below.

Have a beautiful aloha day full of creativity my friends!


Saturday, July 5, 2014

Golden Snails and Jumping Spiders

Aloha dear reader,

It is my pleasure to share with you, some of the iPhone macro photos I took yesterday in my own backyard.  I was looking around for something to photograph and there seemed precious little, perhaps it's because the winter chill is now feeling more bitterly cold than it has in past days.

I noticed a leafhopper and took a few shots, they are beautiful but hard to capture, so that didn't work out, then I noticed these little tiny snail shells, no more than 2mm in size, they were all over our fence, but each time my clumsy fingers tried to grip one, it would fall and I lost 5 of these in total.  I nearly lost this one, because I breathed too closely near it and it flew off the bench I was using, yes, that's how tiny these little things are, and I don't know why they aren't surviving.  Perhaps the ants get to them, I'm not sure...but they do make for a lovely photo, with their translucence letting the light come through their pretty shells, giving them golden tones.



I then was on my way inside, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a jumping spider, and a big one compared to some I've seen, he must have been around 3mm, just perfect for the 10x Olloclip macro lens to capture, now, I thought, if only I can get a few shots.   Trouble was, he was wedged in a hedge and I didn't like my chances, so I used a stick initially, but he didn't want to jump onto it, so I ever so gently plucked the leaf he sat on, and then we had our little photo shoot, possibly 200 photos were taken to get just three optimal shots, but I was really glad for time spent with this cutie.  I just adore these little fellows.  They display a defensive behaviour when you follow them, and that is jumping right on you or at you.  In my case, they seem to like to jump either on my hand, up my sleeve or directly onto the lens itself.  You need a fair bit of patience to capture them, unless you are lucky enough to come across one that is in a perfect position already with the light just right, it can be a little bit tricky.  They move a lot, and often around in circles.  You learn to predict their movements so you can get into position beforehand, but still, it's tricky and can be frustrating.

I took these with the Camera+ app for iPhone and edits were done in various apps.  The first two images were edited in Snapseed, going for the black and white with a red filter applied.  The bottom three images were edited in Filterstorm. and the final image you see here, was edited in a combination of Filterstorm and Stackables.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and reading my post, viewing my photography, I appreciate it very much, please don't hesitate to share this post on your favourite social media platform, with a link back to me here.  Have an aloha day!

Cheers, Karin

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Friday, July 4, 2014

The Joy of Experimentation: iPhone Olloclip Macro Photography



Aloha dear reader and welcome to my blog!

As you can see, I've been very busy taking iPhone macro photos of my latest favourite thing, glycerol!!!  Thanks to a lovely friend pointing me in this direction, I've been experimenting, and if you were to see me now, you would think I was surely a mad professor.   I have been so excited about this whole new adventure, I seem to barely sleep, eat or breathe....which are all necessary for living...!!!

I hope you like these, they are just a few of my favourites.  I'm sure you'll be curious as to how these were taken and want to know a little more, so I thought I'd share a little bit about how these were captured.

How these effects were achieved.

1. I experimented here with a tall glass tumbler, inside it I stuffed some colourful wool.  On the outside of the glass, I used a glass eyedropper to apply some glycerol and let it drip.  With Camera+ I set the mode to 'burst' and took a series of images while the drip was moving down the glass. I purchased glycerol at my local pharmacy for about AUD$7.  What you see here is the wool fibre being 'reflected' or shown through the glycerol.  Not sure that reflection is quite the right word.

2. Next up, we have what is actually a leaf stalk held upside down, with a drop of glycerol applied to it.    In the background, you can't see anything, because I've masked it out in Filterstorm app, using the black and white mask, only partially, over the background area, I removed all the background, using a stylus pen with a rubber tip.  To create the decorative effects, I transferred the image in Procreate for iPad and worked with the stylus pen and brushes in the app, to create this rather lovely fresh pattern, underneath the stalk wasn't all that attractive so here I just tried to beautify it for aesthetic reasons.  You'll see in image #3 why, the stalk just isn't all that pretty.  The reflection this time is a ball of wool or wool fibre that was very colourful.

3. Same as 2, except in the reflection we have blue raffia/dried grass like stuff you buy from the local $2 shop in the craft section.  I thought it was a neat effect, so voila!!!  I hope you like it!  The blue in the background, is of course, the blurred raffia.  When you take photographs with the olloclip macro lens, it automatically blurs the background, so what you see here, is edited slightly but not much really, just cropped and a little brightened and contrasted in Filterstorm.

4. this one is again, the stalk of a dried leaf that blew into my backyard from a neighbouring tree.  I don't know what the name of it is sorry about that, I must ask my neighbour to identify it for me.   The tip has a blob of glycerol, which is an oily clear substance, and works well for shine and is sometimes a little bit heavier and more stable (and shiny) than water.  I also love using water.  I've altered the colours ever so slightly in Filterstorm, I am not sure, but I don't think anything was being reflected deliberately this time.

5. This was fun to create!!  I got some dried water paints that were about $2 for the set, I wet them and when semi dry, I gouged some out and applied them to the glycerol drop, which this time I sat on a mirrorred surface which is how the reflection of the glycerol comes about, and in the background, I set up an old colourful paint palette, which had leftover dried paint on it, so that it too would add to the reflections being cast.

6. Lastly this is a glycerol drop also, but this time, I placed the glycerol directly onto an old paint palette covered in dried paint, here I dropped it right on top of some silvery gold pigment and later I did edit this quite a lot, using filterstorm and filterstorm neue, to add colour and foreground, while subtracting a lot of the background to make the drop pop.

Thanks for visiting my blog, I am looking forward to sharing with you more often!!

Have a wonderful aloha day, please feel free to share my blog posts with a link back to me here, on your favourite social media platform and visit my other links, especially my art gallery and print shop at redbubble www.redbubble.com/people/karin and like my FB and Twitter pages if you'd like to keep updated and watch my journey unfold!

Karin

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Sunday, June 29, 2014

Discovering New Worlds within Water Drops

Aloha dear reader,

Here are my latest photos, of glycerol drops on decomposing leaves.



I hope  you're having a really lovely day today.  That said, it's quite beautiful here where I am.  Tho it's freezing cold it is very sunny Australia this morning, we are experiencing blizzard type weather south of here.   I've been so fascinated with taking iPhone macro photographs of water on various things, and a friend of mine recently suggested a great idea to help me with this, is to use glycerol instead of water, which is more oily, but still as transparent, and has a bit more shine and polish and staying power, so works well for reflections.  So, I've been experimenting.   I've been learning so much, and I am especially keen to tell you how, now that I've learned how important setting exposure and focus is, I'm starting to do a little bit better with both, and seeing my photos improve, which is so great.




My friends on Instagram, are saying all kinds of cool things about my water drops that really tickle me, so I asked if I could quote them, and they kindly said yes.

@yarmentis - instagram
. each water drop is a magical trip in a micro universe!

@msmsgs - instagram
. like a world in a Water Drop

@caroladdassi - instagram
. like a vessel cruising in outer space





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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

she sells sea shells by the seashore




Last night I thought I'd try something a little bit new with some sea shells I'd collected a long time ago which I have on display in a recessed glass 'window' coffee table, with some sand and other things I've collected by way of sand, twigs and unusual leaves, because I'm doing a 7 week course at the moment run my Emil Pakarklis of iPhone Photography School through his iPhone Photography Academy which is proving to be a wonderful success, I would highly recommend his course to anyone interested in improving their iPhone photography.

We were doing a tutorial about VSCOcam app, so I decided I'd try out some of the filter presets and see what I could come up with, all in all I was fairly happy with the outcome, using in two of them, another app called Stackables and Filterstorm for the finishing touches.

The app I chose in VSCOcam changed the colour from a somewhat too warm colour that had far too much in the way of yellow tones, as I like the more worn beachy feel of the washed out, cooler colours, it seems to suit the theme and the subject better than very warm tones that were there, due to shooting at night with just a lamp for lighting.  As you probably know the iPhone doesn't work as well in low light situations, so using the VSCOcam app to change the look and feel slightly, really helps with colour distortion.

I hope you like my shells! Thanks so much for looking, and don't hesitate to visit the links below to my art gallery, print shop and photography gallery, etc.  Please like my FB page and follow my journey, don't be shy to say hi and introduce yourself to me, and do feel free to share any of my journals on your favourite form of social media with a link back to me.  Have an aloha kind of day!

Karin


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Monday, June 23, 2014

Fungi and Decay


Aloha!  There is something so beautiful about fungi and decay, the fungi I found outside yesterday growing on some old fence posts that were soaked through from the rain, there seemed to be three different varieties or the same variety at different stages of their life cycle, very fascinating.  When I looked at them more closely under the macro lens, they reminded me of sea anenomes and someone thought one resembled a Lion Fish.



The lace is represented here by decaying plant matter found at the bottom of shrubs in my neighbour's garden, to me they resemble things you might find belonging to a fairy, a friend of mine thought the little round fungi resembled a fairy's beanie, and the larger lace one that has sepia tones reminded me of a fairy's bed or cane/wicker chair, and someone else was reminded of a boat or ship with a sail.

I can see how we become so inspired by what we see in nature, you can see that fashion, interior design and all types of creative artists could easily be inspired by the beautiful things in nature, even fungi and decay have their place in the scheme of all things.  I hope you like these images I took with my iPhone 5 and Olloclip Macro lens.  Thank you for looking, please say hello and tell me what you think, and please don't hesitate to share on your favourite social media site (please link to me) and visit the links below.  


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Sunday, June 22, 2014

Partial to Water Drops



Guys, hello there.  Hope you're having a great day out there!  As it happens, I am a little bit partial to water drops, water in general, any body of it, anywhere, anytime, yes I'm a sucker for that clear, liquidy stuff, that comes in all hues of blue, green and everything else in between.

This fascination with water has led to less partiality and more all consuming passion, with water drops, reflections in water drops, water drops on plants, insects, all kinds of surfaces and especially dried and used up acrylic paint palettes.   So this is where I'm coming from today, this image before you, is actually a drop of H2O yes, it's just water as clear as crystal from a syringe (less the needle bit on the end).  No tricks were employed here, just natural lighting, and an old paint palette, with some dried up acrylic on it.  I simply dropped a water drop, right on top of what looked like a miniature scene going on, got out my olloclip macro lens, and presto, voila!!  Something new, exciting and certainly different and unexpected emerged from the shot.  To me, it doesn't look like a water drop at all, it looks more like the paint has just been sort of plonked there, now you get different results every which way you turn the paint palette, so is it any wonder I'm hooked, I've collected ten or so paint palettes and old brushes, so that should keep me busy photographing for days, until the sunshine comes out to play and I can return to my first love, nature, insects and naturally formed rain drops and dew drops on leaves and stuff.  I hope you enjoy this one in the meantime.  More coming your way soon!

Aloha from Karin x

Oh yeah and ps, a pretty cool thing happened to me the other day, Olloclip, yes! Olloclip noticed my photos and actually featured one of my worn pencils on Instagram. Thank you Olloclip.com for giving me access to the most wonderful invention of all, the Olloclip macro lens, it's changed the way I look at my world!



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Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my blog, it's wonderful to see you!  I hope you're having a great day.

I began this blog to record and share my experiences as an iPhone photographer.  My journey with iPhone Photography began not all that long ago really, it started to become a lot more important to me once I had a macro lens and could see the world up much closer.  Since then (perhaps 12 months ago) I've photographed numerous things, all out of curiousity and my love for experimentation.  I'm excited to begin a blog and start to share more of my experiences with you.

I also look forward to sharing about the iPhone apps I use and discover, poetry that I sometimes write to accompany my photographs, talking about the equipment I use, my muse which is nature and sharing my photos with a wider audience. I look forward to getting to know you and walking the journey together.



Tibouchina Bud with natural bokeh in background. Equipment used, iPhone 5,
Olloclip Macro 4-in-1 lens 10x, iPhone apps (Camera+, Filterstorm Neue, Glaze).
Shot in a neighbouring front garden, north east coast Australia.




























It's our winter now, but the flowers are still blooming, we have some Autumn colours entering our field of vision, here and there, you see golds and tawny browns, and beautiful reds, mixed in with some still vibrant violets, pinks, blues and yellows that seem to be left over from the late Summer and continuing warm weather we've had so far.  The skies are blue, and then it rains, we are having extremes, lots of thunderstorms mixed with hot and cold weather, so one really doesn't know from one minute to the next what the weather will be like, it's incredibly changeable.  I am enjoying watching the gardens as the seasons change, this is my first year of truly absorbing what's going on around me and it's really interesting to note that a lot of the bugs and beetles, caterpillars and butterflies that were everywhere, are now more sparse and difficult to find, it seems they have been replaced with your common garden variety of fly.  Still, I'm keeping on the lookout for anything new and if I find it, you can be sure I'll be sharing it with you here.

This is what is so exciting, I am almost 50 and am still seeing something new each time I go out.  Today I noticed what looked like insect spit, and I also saw some gorgeous drops of water on red velvety leaves, I couldn't get a photo of this, as the light was too poor.  I'll go back again another day and revisit that garden to see if it's possible to photograph that beautiful image so I can share it with you.

I had the privilege today also of meeting two of the people in my neighbourhood, a lovely gentleman and nice lady who were slightly curious as to what I was doing in their bushes, I often find myself reassuring people that it's fine, I'm just photographing bugs. I've had various reactions, some think I'm suffering from a mental disorder, others (like my new friends today) began searching for bugs to help me and wanted to see my photos, and still others have thought I must be physically ill, as they've seen me all bent over or curled up in a ball on the grass, and apparently I must look like I am in the throws of a hangover or something, everyone's being very understanding though, and perhaps it's a good thing (the curiousity) as I get to meet people I would never normally meet, even though I've lived in this street for almost 20 years, I know barely a soul, but I think that's all about to change!  So don't be a stranger, stop and say hello!  Please feel free to share my blog and journals on your favourite form of social media.

aloha from Karin x


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