Colorado iPhone Image - The answer to how it was done...

I don't pretend to be an expert at using iPhone apps for photo enhancement. But I do have one image that seems to be quite popular and can actually recall every step I did to get the end result. I'll explain the entire process in this post. At the end, two alternative results of post processing are shown as well as an image taken with Hipstamatic and presented 'as is' with no post processing. This post is especially for those who've inquired about the process involved in processing this image. (Oh, and this is my first post for Skywatch Friday and Weekly Top Shot.)

Two images captured in BracketMode on the iPhone; I chased clouds for miles in an attempt to find scenery worthy of the sky... the red barn and rolling fields did it for me!

On the left is the HDR image obtained from merging the two BracketMode images using the Pro HDR app; on the right is the retouched image shown after removing the telephone pole and overhead wires with the Touch/Retouch app. (The two images shown at the end were those achieved by continuing with subsequent processing from starting with the left image OR the right image. Regardless of which image was the starting point, the steps shown from here forward were the same.

The image on the left shows the top right image in the previous set of images after it has been processed through AutoPainter with the Benson effect applied. The image on the right is the previous two images blended in Iris with the retouched original HDR image set as the base layer and the Benson effect image blended at 50%. Setting the original as the base layer allows one to keep the high resolution of the original image in the resultant image. No masking was used.

The image on the left shows the previous image slightly desaturated and the one on the right is cropped to achieve a more pleasing composition, to my eye anyway!

On the left, is the same image as the previous without removing the telephone pole and overhead wires; on the right is an un-retouched image shot with Kodot film and the John S lens of the Hipstamatic app.