Iphone Photography

Thankyou for the comments left so far for the giveaway- I am loving the recommendations, random and otherwise, it's still open if you haven't commented for a chance of winning.   I have had a few photography questions in the comments so I thought I would show you via a couple of Amitie Bring Me Flowers block of the month blocks.  I have been tempted to by a camera whcihc goes beyond the standard automatic point and shoot snap shot camera (this is what I have) but being realistic, I am so much more likely to grab my iphone and ipad than fiddle around and learn how to use a SLR camera and store/transfer the photos.  Iphone has its limitations but I recently came across a superb app, VSCOcam which elevates iphone photography.  All the pictures in the giveaway post were taken with it.

Before:  Picture taken using VSCOcam with no filters.

When you take a photo on this app there is no standard iPhone touch screen focus option, you can't move in and out with your fingers, you just move closer with the camera, but it will go close up and  there are two circles- a focus which places the lens focus in a particular place and an 'exposure' option which I either move to the darkest area or in the same place as 'focus' option.  Once the picture is taken there are basic editing options like crop, rotate contrast, brightness etc.  I don't use these much beyond the first two as the filters that follow will sort out a lot of issues.

After: with filter F3

For those familiar with Instagram, VSCOcam has a series of filters but they each indiviually adjustable with a sliding scale.  I bought an extra set of filters on offer for a few dollars.  You can get really fancy with this and the VSCOcam video gives  you a huge amount of options.  

The same pic, different filter: I increased the exposure of this one and used filter C1 which has a slightly different effect.

You can play around and get a huge range of filter effects and the photos are easily exported to your camera roll and social media sites.  The app will only store a limited number of photos so I tend to export as I go.  It is a very handy app for taking photos with a theme, for example, I knew all the Swedish Bloom quilt photos would be in one blog post so I used the same filter throughout.  The weather that day was a mix of sun and cloud with a threat of a big shower so the natural lighting was variable and the filters helped perk this up.  I love it, a great, easy to use app!

Making a photo pop! For non photographer types

I have to prefix this post with a warning for anyone who really does know anything about photography, what follows are a few tips that I have found useful to make my photos pop using iphoto.  I am slightly embarrassed and almost reluctant to share this,  I am an arty type but I know very little about photography so no technical stuff here.  My iphoto is a few years old but I'm hoping this still applies to the newer version.  My brother is a graphic designer and passed on a few ways to pimp my pics in iphoto and also why some pics pop and some don't.  Please don't laugh at my feeble explanations and layperson terms!  My iphoto is a few years old but I'm hoping this still applies to the newer version.

It is all about using the adjust tools, one of the options that run along the bottom of the window that comes up when you open iphoto. (Click and of the pics in this post to see everything a bit bigger!)

Pic 1:  A bit dark and you can see this when you click the adjust icon (bottom centre of the iphoto window)

See the graph?  All the zigs and zags are over to the left and it flat lines on the right.  Now you can adjust this pic by moving the slider arrow that points to 100% on the right and drag it until it reaches the zigs and zags

Your photo will now be much lighter and have a bit of zing.  I 'm happy with that, click done, good pic.

Sometimes there is a flatline at the beginning of the adjust graph as well as the end- see below

Do the same as we did before, drag the slider until they meet the coloured zigs and zags- adds light and a bit of contrast.

Happy so far- we can take this further, there are lots of options in the adjust window.  This pic was for a fabric stack theme of warmth and I wanted to make my pic glow a bit.  An easy way to do that is to adjust the Tint, see it in the adjust window below?  Drag it leftwards to the red circle and it makes everything warmer and glowy

rightwards, towards the green gives a cooler feel

Don't like what you have done?  click Reset Sliders.

This reminds me of when you are watching a TV drama or a film and the director has gone for a certain colour palette and you notice lots of green and brown or whatever they have opted for.   Some photographers have a particular style they go for- lots of contrast, green tint or whatever.  Some of us are just happy to make a pic taken on a dull day look good for posting on a blog or Flickr.  Have a play with the adjust tools, they are a bit more subtle than clicking the enhance button.  Effects has some good options too if you haven't had a go with it before.  

When you have taken a good pic, the adjust graph has no flat lines; the light and colours are balanced,  you wouldn't want or need to change it- this is a nice pic from me this week.

I dedicate this post to Lynne, she knows who she is...x