iPhone Photography Tips – Page 2

iPhone Photography Tutorials #3 – Create A Little Post-Apocalyptic Scenery

The film industry, and Hollywood in particular, have filled our imagination for years using post-apocalyptic visions of submerged cities in ruins and all that jazz. To achieve the effect in a sumptuous Hollywood-style would take too much money, I am afraid. Anyhow, with little effort and simple means, you too can recreate on the iPhone your own little post-doomsday scenery.

This effect works great on bold architectural details, like the top of bell towers, skyscrapers or other buildings, but it can be applied successfully to a number of other objects, so feel free to experiment.

Apps I used: WaterMyPhoto, Cameramatic, Infinicam.

I choose an average photo of the Hallgrímskirkja, a local church with an impressive and unique bell tower. The photo is slightly tilted. I load the photo into WaterMyPhoto (->Photo Album). For quickness’ sake I choose this app, mainly because it’s so simple to use and you don’t have to make other adjustments apart from selecting the area of the image you want reflected. Unfortunately, the app only saves at very small resolution (a less than satisfactory 390×502 pixels). The app is free, but it displays ads. If you care to remove them, you can purchase the in-app remove ads feature for $0.99. I adjust the photo, making sure I am keeping the cross on top of the tower into the frame (I like that detail) and tap on the Crop button to confirm. After the app generates the water reflection, all I have to do is saving (->Done Editing->Save Photo).
Choosing the photo.

Applying the water reflection effect.
I open the image in Cameramatic. I adjust the image to the square cropping tool and from the Light Box, I tap on the monkey wrench button to access the edit area. From filters, I select a monochrome filter. In this case I picked Retrochrome (Filter->B&W->Retrochrome), but anything balanced, not too contrasted or faded, would have worked. Then I apply a frame (Frame->Texture->Grunge Paper 03). I save to Light Box and then to Camera Roll by tapping on the “+” sign.
Turning into monochrome and adding texture.
I open the photo in Infinicam because I know it has some lovely hazy effect. Autochrome, which is one of the presets that come with the app, is my personal choice. Since I like the hazy look, which makes the texture and reflection look subtler, but I don’t think the reddish hue fits the mood I am trying to convey, I apply another filter: this time it’s one of my own presets (whose code is DJX-63A0), which turns the image into a more appropriate sepia. All I have left to do is saving.
Applying haze with Autochrome.

Turning the photo into sepia.

This is what I did in this very specific case. There are many other ways to achieve the same overall result. For example, you could choose other tools to apply your favorite textures and borders, to fix exposure or to tilt your subject further, for a more dramatic effect. You could go either for an uncropped image or for a different format than square, which I used here. It all depends on what makes you more comfortable or what pleases your eye.

iPhone Photography Ttutorials #2 – Painterly Aged Photo Effect

Antique monochrome photos have an incredible charm. Most of them not only have a strangely surreal and almost ghostly feel, but also a beautiful painterly quality: for a long time, the influence of painting over photography was very strong and photographers often tried to imitate stylistic principles followed by painters.

With just a few easy steps, I intend on demonstrating how to achieve the evocative feel of aged photos on your iPhone. This is just one of the many processes you can follow.

Apps needed: iCamera HDR, Iris Photo Suite, Plastic Bullet. Optional: Bracket Mode.

1. Take two bracketed exposures of a landscape of your choice. Daylight photos featuring skies with significant detail (huge, fluffy clouds, etc.) will work better. You can either take your exposures directly within iCamera HDR or use Bracket Mode, whatever makes you feel more comfortable. If you already have photos you want to use, jump to step 2. If you have the HDR composite, go to step 3;

2. Merge the exposures in iCamera HDR, choosing Tone Balancer. Adjust the parameters to obtain rich, neatly contrasted details, without exaggerating with overblown brightness, and then save;

3. Open your saved HDR picture in Iris Photo Suite. Tap on the layers icon -> One Touch -> Grunge. For this example, I picked Noise, but you can go for one of the other effects, if it suits your photo better. Leave the value to around 100 or little less, so the effect enhances the contrast of your image. Apply and save;

4. Load the image you just saved on Plastic Bullet. Our aim is to have our final image look like an old, aged picture; Plastic Bullet’s monochromes are particularly convincing for our purpose. Generate random styles by pressing on the refresh button until you obtain something that has the right balance of blur and brightness: we want the picture to look old and deteriorated but we want at the same time to preserve as much detail as it is possible. I decided to go for a dark silver tone with a thick border. When you find a style you like, save to your camera roll and you’re done!

And here is our final result:

iPhone Photography Tutorials #1 – Easy Dramatic Black and White In The Film Noir Style

I’ve been asked how I achieve a dramatic black and white look on photos taken with the iPhone. I have more than a way to do it, but today I am sharing one among the processes I follow.

Sometimes you take a photo, especially of some architectural detail or building, and it looks all right at the moment of shooting; then you take a look at your photo moments later and you realize it’s sort of forgettable. The light isn’t as great as you remembered it and the final picture has too much noise; perhaps the colors aren’t stunning either. Something tells you though that you still have some use for that shot, a detail perhaps, the shadow casting, a suggestive angle, and so on. How to improve this kind of photos, adding to them a dramatic twist in the style of old school film noir?

Apps needed: Film Lab, DXP.

1. Choose your average building photo, the one that didn’t turn out as you would have liked but that for some reason you still think has some potential. The photo can be taken simply with iPhone’s native camera, but you can use also shots taken with HDR apps or fake HDR apps, like Dynamic Light;

2. Open Film Lab. Choose Film Simulation -> Vintage -> Daguerreotype – High Contrast -> OK. This filter not only will turn the photo in a black and white with character, but will also enhance contrasts, bringing out the grain of iPhone shots taken in so-so lighting conditions. Adding the grain digitally usually doesn’t look very natural, so I always try to avoid it;

3. Still in Film Lab, go to Tool Box -> Brightness/Contrast. Increase contrast even more, so that dark areas look almost pitch black but light areas are still quite evident. Press OK and save when you are done;

4. Browse the Internet for some vintage looking black — or at any rate very dark — frame on white background, something that will give a flair to your photo without making it look extremely dirty or scratched. There are many textures you can use for free and/or in the Creative Commons on sites like Deviantart or Flickr — but there are many others besides these two. When you find something that suits your taste, save it. It doesn’t have to be a black and white frame, you can desaturate later;

5. Open DXP -> Load from Album. Choose your edited black and white image. Load From Album again and choose your frame. Make sure that in the Settings “fit to first image size” is selected, otherwise DXP will crop the image in the case the second picture is of a different size than the first. Tap on DXP Effect -> Multiply. Move the slider knob to 100%, towards the end of the slider;

6. In the case you are working with a colored frame, tap on Effects -> B&W. This will turn your final image to B&W and will also merge both layers. Save to Album.

7. If after merging the photo with the frame you want to further adjust contrast and brightness, you can go back to Film Lab and repeat step 3 till you like the final result.

That’s it! Pretty easy, uh?