Spring Abundance (A Mobile Tutorial)
I can’t believe the trees this spring. They are covered in blossoms. Just covered. Maybe last year they were too, and I was so busy mourning the loss of my bare tree branches I didn’t notice. But this year, I’m not missing them! Most days you’ll find me out snapping a photograph or two of these amazing blossoms.
On a neighborhood walk on Saturday, I photographed this amazing tree. The branches looked like garland, they were so covered by flowers. It was perfect for a little new app play!
Here is the original photograph, captured in ProCamera 7.
I liked this original photograph, showing the abundance of the flowers, but it wasn’t something I was inspired to do a fancy edit on. Enter a couple of new apps, Vintango and Classic Vintage. As I played with these apps, I realized that my great exposure in the camera was leading to overexposure in the processing, so I took the original and decreased the contrast and brightness in Snapseed. It may seem odd that I needed to do this, but if things are coming out too bright in processing you always have this option to adjust the starting photo.
Next, I pulled the Snapseed-adjusted image into Vintago. This is a color filter app, just applying film effects. It is very simple and does not offer any filter adjustment, but I’ve found so far that is fine, because the film effects don’t seem to overwhelm the photograph.
I used the “Basic 09″ Effect. There are 25 effects in the basic pack that comes with the Free app, and then you can purchase additional packs in-app. I like to switch to the “Live Preview,” a selectable button at the top of the screen, to see my image with the effects. Also, I went into the “Options” menu and choose my output file size as “original” so it wouldn’t decrease my image resolution when I save.
From there, I edited the photograph in another new app, Classic Vintage. This app allows you to apply paper textures, crackle effects, borders and sepia tone. This app provides a lot of variety and customization. The free app comes with a great beginner pack and I very quickly assessed its possibilities and purchased the additional packs. For this edit, I applied one of the Free papers at 25%:
I found this app has the possibility to completely overwhelm the photograph with its effects, so playing with those percentages is important. I set Crackle and Sepia to 0%, because I just wanted some texture and the border. Here’s the final image again:
I like the color shifts provided by the Vintango filter and how they are pulled through the frame border applied in Classic Vintage. I don’t know that I love the final image, but the starting image was not one of my favorites from the day either. That makes it a perfect image to play with. Since I didn’t have a strong feeling on it, wanting it to come out “good,” I could let myself explore and play more freely.
That’s a little creativity tip for today as well: If you find yourself stuck in a processing rut, pick something you don’t care much about, get a new app or two, and play. You never know what might happen! If nothing else, I explored the possibilities of two new apps.
This month’s mobile recipe is a simple exercise in app stacking, and here is the graphic sequence for you to download and save for future inspiration:
Happy App-ing!
