Thursday, February 16, 2012

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.)

BracketMode dark imageBracketMode light image
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!

BracketMode images blendedblended image retouched to remove telephone pole and wires
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.

Benson effect, AutoPainter applied to imageAutoPainter image merged with Pro HDR image
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.

reduced saturation imageTAG
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!

colorado roadside sceneHipstamatic image
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.

20 comments:

  1. excellent Victoria. I sent you an email a few minutes ago. Please contact me as soon as you have a chance.

    Thanks,
    Elliot
    Blue Ridge Photography Workshops.

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  2. Excellent work, great photos. I'm a new follower and newbie to the camera. Nice to meet you!

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  3. Wonderful post with great information. I'm downloading AutoPainter right now!! Happy Skywatching.

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  4. That is beautiful!! Me too gonna check it! Happy weekend!
    SWF

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  5. Lovely pictures! I love the little red barn in the hilly landscape. And the work you done on it to make it look like paintings are wonderful. But I always find it a bit unusual to find the red barn and cottage that I so strongly associate with the landscape of Sweden on the other side of the globe. My grandparents had a little red cottage in the woods with white corners. Thanks for your comment on my webpage and best wishes for a lovley weekend!

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  6. Beautiful photos and excellent post-processing.

    Regards and best wishes

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  7. Wow! That's amazing. And what a perfect scene to play around with! What a fun app. I use my iphone a lot, but the only two apps I use are instagram and diptic. I'll have to look into this one. Check my skywatch out...it's taken with my iphone.

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  8. An interesting explanation and a great image.

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  9. Interesting to see so many different versions of a very nice photo! Like:)

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  10. I really liked seeing this process. The phone pics are getting better and better! Love the red barn.

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  11. These are iPhone images??? Oh, they are so wonderful! (No iPhone here, and my Droid 2 doesn't impress me with its photo capabilities. I'll stick with one of my many cameras.)

    So glad you chose the rolling hills and the red barn!

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  12. just beautiful! I love how you show us the different processing techniques, so much fun.

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  13. Love the red barn and I can't pick a favorite processing. Love them all.

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  14. SO excellent! Wow, it is a marvelous shot to begin with and when you were done tweaking... well wow! Thank you for sharing on 'Weekly Top Shot.' I hope you'll come share again next week...

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  15. Hi Victoria. Thanks again for this post! I just posted some examples using AutoPainter (http://sparepartsandpics.blogspot.com/) and gave credit to you and your blog. Just wanted to let you know!
    Peter

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  16. Beautiful images and great lessons!

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  17. It's all amazing, Victoria. If someone had told you 10 years ago this could be done on your phone, would you have believed them???!

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  18. Beautiful photos. I've never heard of autopainter but have long admired effects like it in other's photos. Thanks!

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  19. Very informative...thanks much for sharing. Two thumbs up!

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  20. I love this photo! The post processing is great too, although I prefer pre-cropped version.

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