Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, T is for Tintype.

Tintype is a very simple app.  Coming from Hipstamatic, Tintype’s one job is to make your photos look old.  There are four “colour” options:  BW, two kinds of sepia (Tintype does not give them names), and colour.  You can crop to square from rectangle (but you can’t decide how it crops), you can adjust the plate grain and add a frame (type decided for you), can emphasize eyes when working with portraits, and adjust the depth of field.  That’s it.  No sliders or anything else to do.

Here are some websites to check out

• Tintype App Brings the Magic and History of Tintype Photography to iOS

• How To Use TinType App To Create Beautiful Vintage iPhone Photos

• TinType Review

And here are some examples:

Original image

B&W with frame

Sepia 1 in square with frame

Colour +increased grain and frame

Sepia 2 + lowered grain no frame

Sepia 2 + high grain no frame

BW with low grain and narrow depth of field and frame

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter T. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter T, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, S is for Snapseed.

I’m gonna keep this short because most people who work in mobile phone photography know about Snapseed, and I can’t possibly do it justice in a short post.  I also have “used” Snapseed for awhile, but only knew some of its features until last night when we learned WAY more about it in my iPhone Artography class.  I’m looking forward to trying more!

Snapseed has an amazing suite of editing tools, presets (that you can add to), curves, filters, brushes, healing, cropping/rotating/perspective, and masking (which is cleverly hidden, but cool cause you can walk through all your edits and delete them, revise them, or use masking to apply them to only specific parts of the photo.)  And the best part of all?  It’s FREE!!!

Anyway, here are some sites that can talk to you more about it.

• Snapseed online
• Snapseed at Wikipedia
• Complete Guide To Using Snapseed To Edit Your iPhone Photos
• NavEdits YouTube Channel for Snapseed – amazing tutorials!

And here are some recent creations I made, all created in Snapseed:

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter S. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter S, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, R is for Reflect.

This is a simple little app, with a very similar design to Alien Skies, likely because they have the same developer.  You add reflective surfaces to the lower half of an image.  There are also a few enhancement options like textures and elements you can play with, and you can add a layer of fog on the top of the added surface.  I have to admit, it is one of my favourite apps right now, and I have been adding water to images like crazy.  Another one of those fads that will go out of style at some point, but between the menacing moon and the flood waters, I have some pretty good dystopian images right now (not sure what that is saying….)

Reflect app tutorial

Reflect app review

Here are some examples:

Original Image, and the enhanced original I used in Reflect

Water Presets: Mirror Lake 3, and Mirror Lake with added lightening effect

Ocean Presets: Ocean 4 (with fog)

Ice Presets: Smooth Ice, and Fractured Ice 2

Floor Surfaces Presets:  Steel, and Wood Floor 2

Sci-Fi Presets: Matrix Grid

Beaches Presets: Beach 3, and Rocky Shore 3

Tiles Surfaces Presets: Checkered

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter R. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter R, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, Q is for Quaint Quirky Alien Sky.

Ok, ok, ok.  I am definitely cheating today, but only because the one app I could find with a Q in it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk doing that free three days then be charged an arm and a leg per month if I forget to stop the subscription.  It looked kind of cool, but not in a way that was different from other apps I have and like.  So, today is a fun one called Alien Sky.

Alien Sky adds elements to images, like planets and moons and lightening and comets.  To the sky, get it?  Alien sky.  It also has some textures and filters and has layers so you can literally layer one element on top of another.  It has some masking ability, but I haven’t played with it yet because, well, I am enamored with adding large menacing moons to all my images with skies lately.

Honestly, I found this app by looking for something that I could add a moon with.  That’s it.  And now I use it all the time (and probably will until I get tired of big menacing moons…)

Here are some examples, where I’ve layered elements onto the image one at a time:

Original Image

From the Planet category

From the Moon category

From the Sun/Stars category

From the Alien Worlds category

From the Nebula/Galaxies category

From the LensFlares category

All of the above with an added texture

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter Q. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter Q, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, P is for Picsart.

Picsart is a huge (and I mean HUGES) app with features ranging from basic editing, to effects, the ability to add text or stickers, cutout options, adding photos onto photos, removing backgrounds, brush options, masking (adding dust, shadows, sparkles, etc. over top of the image), drawing options, shape masks, frames, and borders.  I kind of ran out of time to do justice to this post, so I am going to give you some links to sites and show you some examples.  What I use Picsart for the most is effects, cutouts, and masking effects.  But the more I explore the many many options, the more I think I want to use!  Picsart is also a social media platform, but I don’t think that’s a part I’ll be checking out myself…

• Picsart.com
• Picsart on Wikipedia!
• Picsart on Forbes

Original Image

Effects – Artistic – Fan (very subtle)

Effects – Magic – Undead

Mask – Artistic – Art5

Nightmare Frame

Tools – Dispersion

That’s all I have time for today.  This is what happens when you have a long weekend and do NOTHING on your A to Z project!

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter P. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter P, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, O is for Oilist.

So, this is a very new app to me, having been briefly introduced to it at my iPhone/iPad Artography class the other night.  But, man, it’s a cool one!  I don’t claim to have figured it all out yet, but here is what it can do in a nutshell:  “At its most basic, Oilist is a utility to make your photos look like oil paintings. But unlike similar art apps, this one cares as much about the process as the end result. Given a photo and a set of inputs, the app “paints” a composition right before your very eyes, stroke by stroke. It’s a living, breathing art filter.” Review: Oilist a virtual oil painter in your pocket.  And it really does work that way – you can watch the painting happen, and can “snap” a still of it at any stage.  In addition, there are presets and other editing features you can use to “drip” paint, or change the brushstroke angles – all things I still need to explore!

Now, I don’t necessarily advocate for making photos look like painting – perhaps you should take up painting for that.  But as a piece of a greater whole art work vision, running the painted version through other apps, it adds some neat effects.  In the end, you don’t necessarily know where you are going or where to end, so be quick to snap if you see something you like in the moment, because it will very quickly be gone.

There are many many styles to choose from, from Van Gogh, Escher, Manet, Monet, Kandinsky, Picasso, Hokusa, Klimt, Munch, Jennifer Bartlett, and many others.  Painters like Van Gogh and Monet even have several subsets of styles to choose from.  Once you choose a style, you select from a range of options from more to less abstract, then watch as the magic happens (and change presets and options as needed or wanted.)  It’s hard for me to describe, you really need to try it.  Here are some sites to review:

• Oilist Review: A Painter in Your Phone
• App of the week: Oilist review

Here are some examples with snaps from start, middle, and “finish”

Original image

Van Gogh – Spirals less abstract

Hokusai Gold more abstract

Jennifer Bartlett Ovals neither less nor more abstract

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter O. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter O, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, N is for Noir.

Noir is a pretty simple little app.  It turns pictures black and white, well monochrome anyway, with very few options, but some pretty stunning results.  There are 6 preset vignettes which you can fine tune by moving them around the image and pinching them in and out.  There is also a set of three control dials to control contrast, outer exposure, and inner exposure.  Finally you have four monochrome settings: sepia, silver, blue-gray, and chartreuse (green).

I like this app because it does little, but does it well, and you can use it before or after running photos through other apps.

• Noir app review
• Noir photo from the App Whisperer
• App Review Noir Photo

And now some examples:

Original Photo

Preset Vignette 1 + sepia colour

Preset Vignette 2 (moved to right)+ silver

Preset Vignette 3 (on bottom) + blue gray

Preset Vignette 4 (at top) + chartreuse

Preset Vignette 5 (bottom right) + sepia

Preset Vignette 6 (top left) + blue gray

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter N. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter N, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, M is for Mextures.

Mextures is what you think it is: texture overlays, along with filters and the ability to adjust the looks.  I do find it a bit confusing and hard to figure out how to get everything to work together, but it can create some pretty cool looks.

Textures (or layers) available include the collection of: radiance, grit and grain, light leaks (1, 2, 3), emulsion, grange, landscape enhance, and vintage gradients.  The Formulas (combinations of layers/textures) include the following sets:  landscape, black & white, destroyed film, spring, summer, fall, and winter.  Formulas are built in, but you can create your own fomulae and I believe can even share them.  You can apply a formula then personalize it.  So, start with textures and build up from there, or start from layers and build down.  And enhance both as you go.

• Mextures.com
• How To Add Wonderful Textures To Your iPhone Photos With Mextures App
• Mextures app review
• The Mextures Collective

Examples (all have been touched up)

Original Image

Grunge (equator) Texture

Light Leaks 2 (UFO) Texture

Combination of Grunge (concrete jungle), Emulsion (Jefferson), and Radiance (Solar) Textures

Destroyed Film (Parisian) Formula

Winter (walking dead) Formula

Destroyed Film (Parisian) Formula minus Roosevelt and Kansas layers

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter M. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter M, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, L is for LightLeap.

LightLeap is a sibling app to ArtLeap, along with a whole bunch of apps by LightTricks, and is designed primarily for photo editing, but has a few cool little features that are fun.  What I like about LightLeap specifically is its ability to replace the sky, but it has several other features I’ll just describe briefly here.

• Looks: Include types like winter, summer, vintage, fantasy, and night
• Magic:  auto fix (with a slider for control)
• Heal: Deletes things from the photo
• Sky: Sky replacement with types like haze, sunny, sunrise, sunset, storm, night, and spooky
• Filters: tons and tons of filters to choose from
• Sparkle: Literally adding sparkles to the image
• Overlay: Add bokeh, grunge, texture, light leaks, shadows, and other effects
• Element: Add something new to the photo, like lens flare, clouds, birds, lightening, flames, etc.
• Color: enhance specific colours in the image
• Details: Enhance depth, sharpness, or grain
• Adjust: Basic editing, including light, contrast, vignette, saturation, etc.

Website with information about LightLeap

And now, here are some examples of how I use this app:

Original Image

Sky Replacement

A Vintage Filter added

Sparkle added

Overlay added (rain)

Element – flames added

Vignette added

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter L. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter L, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Welcome to my April 2022 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Today, K is for Kaleidacam.

There are several kaleidoscope apps out there, and some of the larger apps, like ArtLeap, have kaleidoscope features.  But most of the stand alone apps only work with the camera, and these posts are about post-production.  So, the app I am featuring here is Kaleidacam because it allows you to access pictures on your device and add the kaleidoscope effects to them.

There isn’t a lot to Kaleidacam.  You add your image, and then have four free kaleidoscope types (my reading revealed them to be called Pie, Squares, Hexagons, and Split), each with a slider to increase or decrease the effect.  You can purchase additional options if you like. I am keeping it free for now!

Kaleidacam.com

Kaleidacam Tutorial

Here are some examples:

Original image

Option 1 – low slider then high slider setting

Option 2 – low slider then high slider setting

Option 3 – low slider then high slider setting

Option 4 – (no slider options)

Thanks for visiting my 2022 A to Z Challenge – Letter K. You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter K, A to Z 2022 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).