Speakers Notes for Iphone-Ography(2015) © Jerry Hug 2015
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Speakers Notes for iPhone-ography(2015) © Jerry Hug 2015 iPhoneography – The Best Camera is the One that Is With You 40% of every photo and video taken in the world every day is with cell phones and other mobile devices like the iPad and iPod Touch and similar devices. The iPhone has become the device to copy because of the quality of the camera and the large number of apps available for photographers. Why is the cell phone so popular? It is always with you and it is so easy to take photos and share with others directly from the phone. This one button camera is like the historic Kodak Box Camera that made photography so popular to the masses. Kodak said push the button and we will do the rest. Basics: 1. A cell phone with a good camera(s) and applications (apps). I use an iPhone because of the many photography apps available to edit the photos right in the cell phone. I find that with the apps I can produce art that goes beyond record shots. Recording things that you see is OK. Painters had sketch pads. Now everyone has pocket cameras and cell phones. 2. Learn to shoot, organize, access, backup and share your images. Additional information is available through the references enclosed. 3. Expand your creative shooting and image processing by trying a collection of applications (apps). All apps are downloadable on a Mac or PC. Listed in these notes are some of the important apps to start your processing. Learn how to use a few apps to get results before adding others. 4. Open your eyes and start shooting with your cell phone. Stephanie C. Roberts* suggests that you create secret missions (subjects) and try until you find the subjects that really spark your imagination. Then go in depth with those subjects. DeWitt Jones, is one of America’s top professional photographers and twenty years with National Geographic as one of the world-class photojournalist, states about how to learn and use these wonderful iPhone apps. “The most important thing to remember when using the apps is to simply explore and play. The iPhone is a wonderful place to experiment: to take creative risks. Don’t think too much; push all 1 the buttons; slide all the sliders; PLAY!” Dewitt is the author of iPhone Art in My Life:Volume One Part I “Most applications for the iPhone cost either $.99 or $1.99. A few are very powerful; most do one or two things well. The simple ones are self-explanatory; most of the powerful ones have good documentation (or videos) on their use. More and more of the apps have an iPad version as well as an iPhone version.” Learn how to take better photos with your iPhone. Here are a few simple steps in capturing better photos. 1. Hold the cell phone as still as possible. Use two hands to hold the phone with your elbows close to your body to eliminate movement when tapping the shutter. Try this technique. 2. Before you take the photo, set the exposure and focus by touching the screen. An outline of a box appears on the screen. That box is where the exposure and focus is locked on. If you do not like the brightness or darkness of the picture viewed on the screen, try touching another area to change the exposure. Where you touch controls the overall exposure. Set the exposure and then snap the photo as outlined in #1. 3. There are other camera apps that allow more control. The advantage of the built in camera is that it is fast and always on the opening screen. Other camera apps that I recommend are Camera Awesome, ProCam and Camera+ by Tap Tap Tap to name just three of many cameras available. These are dedicated cameras compared to the cameras that come within most editing apps. Hipstamatic is another camera that is anything but a straight photo camera but rather where you pick a given lens and a given film for a unique look. This can be useful for a series of photos when developing a portfolio or series of images on a given subject or topic. I use the” Jane” Lens and Blackkeys Supergrain film for older looking black and white images. For color images I choose the John S lens and Kodat film. The best app for large panoramic photos is AutoStitch. Another special camera is SlowShutterCam – it takes multiple exposures that looks like a slow shutter blur. Each camera has unique uses. High end camera is 645Pro. This is not like a simple point and shoot effort. You need to get the 645Pro PDF for instructions. It 2 is well worth the effort and your results is more like a complete adjustable camera. For big sharp images I go to ClearCam app. See this YouTube video for instructions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld0_5H75N3s&feature=playe r_detailpage 4. HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography – HDR is where 2 or more exposures are taken at the same time with little or no movement within the scene. This is an attempt to photograph what your eyes can see but cameras cannot record the extreme bright highlights or open up the dark shadows. For a totally Auto mode HDR shooting, I like “TrueHDR” for fast and easy auto setting results. My favorite HDR app is ProHDR in the manual mode. (Manual means you move a box to the bright highlights of the scene and another box to the shadows for details that are important.) ProHDR is by far the strongest app for high contrast light. iPhone 5 does have a built in HDR. The results are not as effective as the 2 apps mentioned. For faster shooting in HDR, use Bracket Mode app. Shoot the images in Bracket Mode and then later place the dark and bright images (that were saved to the camera roll) into ProHDR using the Actions clickpoint. This is my latest shooting technique for HDR. Remember: nothing should be moving when shooting HDR. Part II Basic – Simple Editing with a traditional photograph 1. Once the photo is automatically saved to the Photo Library within the cell phone, you can begin to edit and make the photos more like what you visualized or wanted to see when taking the picture. Viewing the photos (one at a time) in the Camera Roll, you can open the Edit button and do basic general auto edit and crop the photo. You then save this new version of the photo. The original is like your negative. It remains along with your edited version. This is very fast but with limited editing tools, may not give you the final polished image that you want to use for sharing or printing. 2. The basic app I use to go beyond the Camera Roll editing is Snapseed. Snapseed has been updated and added Shadow brightening and a new single image HDR control for an over detailed look of HDR. It is very effective for old rusty cars etc. Touch/Retouch is also the best app for taking distractions out of an image. Example: Removing a beer can laying on the ground in front of the family photo. 3 3. The old adage is true with photography. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Sometimes the more advanced we become with our photography we tend to over edit and get a digital look. Part III - Advanced Editing with more controls available. There are many applications that give the photographer control similar to what one had in the old chemical darkroom with out the mess and aggravation of chemicals and tons of equipment. These advanced editing tools are so easy to use that Photoshop users dream that these applications will become available for their computers. 1. The first editing app that I recommend is Snapseed. This app is also so easy to use that it is difficult to call the app “advanced”. Details needed in almost every digital photo are included like sharpening, straighten and besides the global sliders affecting the entire photo, you have selective adjustments to control limited areas of your photos. Snapseed also has various “artistic” editing controls that go beyond the basic traditional photo. Frames are available to set off finishing the image. Frames are very useful for on-line and e-mail sharing. They set off the images from a white or black page. 2. Touch/Retouch is the best app for removing items from a scene. It is like content aware in Photoshop. I use this app every day. 3. FrontView is for fixing keystone effects of aiming up or down and your vertical lines begin to converge. “Like shooting up at a skyscraper at close range.” 4. Filterstorm – Very powerful app. Filterstorm allows you to create layers and masks for all effects. This is a great app for sizing and preparing photo for sending on line. I use this app on almost every image. If you have had experience with Photoshop or Elements, you will understand some of the layers and masking concepts of editing just part(s) of a photo and not always global edits for the entire image. 5. PhotoForge – Wonderful oil paint and water color effects as well as a smudge/paint tool. This is a great app to add textures and do masking for more controls. 6. Iris Photo Suite (new name Laminar+) – Powerful app. Levels give both input and output controls, Blend Modes to blend layers and Color Balance lets you shift tones in shadows, midtones and highlights which helps to take away color casts.