Friday 22 August 2014

Variations on a Theme

Here's a short article looking at what you can do with iPhone and iPad apps to create images that really pop and leave an impression.

First, we have the original image captured by ProCamera 7, because I use that app to separate Exposure and Focus Point which allows me to expose for the sky and let the shadows go.

Next, I run it through a series of processes in Snapseed to bring back all the detail, texture, colour and light that I saw at the scene. The camera, or rather, the file, actually has all these details, but we have to coax it out of the file and back into view.

So the above, is the benchmark image that then spawned what you see below as it is run through a different app (each time starting with this "pristine" image).

First up is a bizarre little app called Percolator. It's hard to describe exactly how the controls work, and it's best simply played-with. Sometimes ya get something, and sometimes ya don't.

Monokrom is my new favorite B&W conversion app. It's intuitive to use, easy to get results, and the flexibility outdoes all the others.

Moku Hanga recreates the image as a Japanese-style woodcut.

This one uses AutoPainter 3 to render the image as an oil painting in the style of Val d'Orsia.

Tiny Planets folds the image into a planetoid.

Or, conversely, produces a "rabbithole view".

The Seurrat app does a not-really-convincing pointilist version.

Craze is a oil / acrylic media type app.

And the very fun duo of AlienSky and LensFlare yielded this classic:

One of my favorite apps is Painteresque. Here, I've used it to show the image as a lithograph.

I think, though, that this simple, delicate watercolor by Waterlogue is the nicest variation on the theme.

Variety is the spice of life!