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3 Photo Apps You Should Be Using

  If you are an avid photographer you have probably been posting your work on Instagram to share with the masses.  And you have probably noticed how difficult it is to make your work your own to stand out from the crowd.  Anyone can take a picture - a monkey can be trained to take a picture - but to create something unique and one of a kind that can be called your own style... there in lies the challenge of being a photographer and an artist.

  Here are 3 unique photo/creative apps that will broaden your horizons and take your creativity to a new level.  As is with all photo/creative apps, you need to find one that produces results that you like.  And to maximize the full potential of what the app can do, you need to try all different combinations of settings - don’t just try a couple of settings and stick with that... use it over and over and over to learn what the different settings will do with different subjects and colors.  One common theme I have noticed with the apps listed below is that certain colors will give you superior results and well-lit photographs will give you the best results.  

PhotoTropodelic:  Downtown Chattanooga at 8am - posterized in vivid rich colors.  Notice how the app cuts off parts of the picture (the black areas along the left, bottom and right).  

1. PhotoTropodelic:  A classic that I have used for years.  The name comes from the psychedelic art style of the the 60’s and 70’s with bright day-glo colors, stars, circles and rays that were common place on album covers and concert posters at the time.  PhotoTropodelic will posterize a photo into either bright fluorescent colors, or colors found within the photo itself.  The app gives you control over the colors, number of different colors and detail level - the best settings I have found is to set the detail level at 4 out of 5, number of colors at 11 to 22, and use the Image colors.  The Tropodelic colors are great, but after a while they get to be a bit much.  The image colors selects colors found within the photograph, so if you take a picture of a colorful subject the results can be much more acceptable.  The interesting thing about this app is that it can produce fascinating images from mundane subjects as it will leave stuff out of the original image and merge colors.

DECIM8:  My all-time favorite photo app.  The original picture was slightly washed out, drab and just a boring picture of a VW parked on the side of the road.  The results can be very dramatic and stunning.

2. Decim8:  I came across this app over a year ago and it has quickly become my all time favorite app.  I have used it steadily since then and I would venture to say that I am one of the biggest users of the app.  Decim8 has a strong following of artists who are not content with just creating a nice photograph - they want to destroy it, decimate it and glitch it so that it becomes something it was not originally, which is also known as Glitch Art.  Decim8 and Glitche are two of the front-runners in this niche market - they both do some things that are identical, and other things that are completely different from each other - if you like one, you should get the other to maximize the potential.  Decim8 has 27 effects and you can pick 1 to 5 effects to process a photo with.  The fascinating thing with Decim8 is that no effect will give you the same identical results twice.  That is what makes this amazing app so unique - you can run the same photograph over and over and over with just one effect, and each time you will get different results, or you can add in more effects as you process a photo to achieve further unique results - the possibilities are truly endless with this app.    This app takes a lot of patience to understand how to use it to achieve truly spectacular results - if you use this app for an hour and give up on it, shame on you for not sticking with it.  If you stick with this app, learn what all the different effects will do, you will be handsomely rewarded with artwork that will knock your socks off.

ShockMyPic:  Take a boring picture and create something stunning.  Look closely and you will see that it looks like a linoleum-block carving.

3. ShockMyPic:  This app produces an effect that makes your photo look like a linoleum-block carving that we would do from time to time in art school.  The effect does not work on every photo, but with certain photos the results can be incredible.  The bad thing about this app is that it just achieves one result - a linoleum-block type carving, and you can only control the “carving” aspect by giving it a fine carving or a bold carving, with approximately 15 different widths of the “carving tool”.  You have very little control, but once you start using it you can see that the width of the carving makes a big difference.  This app falls in to the category of apps that are useful to have to achieve a unique look once in a while, but it is not an app that will work on all your photos and is not an app you will want to use all the time.  But it is definitely an app you will want to check out and see if it works out for you.

Picture Of The Day.

RANDOM PHOTOGRAPHY:  The University of Texas at Austin is one of my favorite places to take pictures.  On this particular day I snapped a random picture of bicycles near the UT Tower, which is also known as the Main Building.  Random Photography is an exciting way to take pictures - randomly take pictures without taking the time to use professional photography techniques, and instead, just randomly take pictures as you walk and at the end of the day go through your pictures to see what you caught.  At that point you can experiment by taking your pictures in to various photo apps to see what you can create.  

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Entry Thingy

FLY SEAGULL FLY.

  Who knows when and where opportunity will knock.  
  And who knows where your next great picture will present itself.
  Take the picture above.  Just another seagull flying along the beach at South Padre Island, right?
  No - the pink sky kind of gives it away that this is a unique picture.  At the time, I was on vacation and had ventured out into the surf to take pictures of my son as he played among the waves.  It was a blazing hot summer day, and I was preoccupied with not dropping my iphone in the water.  Then a seagull darted about and zipped by me.  
  Instantly my artistic goal changed from taking pictures of my son, to trying to snap a picture of this elusive seagull.  I quickly realized how impossible this seemed though, as they flew by quickly and seldom within range.
  As is often the case with photography, patience is a virtue when trying to capture a subject.  If you conjure a great image in your mind as to what you hope to capture, it is hard to stop trying until you think you have achieved that result.  I stood there on the beach taking pictures of my son, but also trying to capture a close up picture of a seagull flying near the sun.  It seemed impossible, but I kept trying.
  Dozens of shots later, I took the above picture, and later through the magic of Photoshop I wound up with a seagull in a pink sky.  Yes, the shot probably would have worked with a crisp blue sky, but the whole image works best with... a pink sky.  Why not - how many pink sky pictures do you see every day?
  I had originally sat out that day with the intention of taking pictures of my son at the beach, but when opportunity presented itself, I switched gears and caught a picture of something completely different.  Then I took that image and created something unique.  Far from my original intention.
  Now you are probably asking yourself, what does this have to do with the blog title, Entry Thingy.  
  Good question - Entry Thingy is a website - www.entrythingy.com - in which people and organizations can set up an art contest and have a Call For Entries.  The website hosts the  art contest and takes a small cut for each entry submitted.  You can set up an art contest yourself right now if you have the inclination, and probably make a nice profit in doing so.  Neat business model, right?  
  To come full circle, opportunity presented itself, again, when I stopped by a local library while working one day and happened across a flyer on a bulletin board that was advertising a Call For Entry for an art contest being promoted by a local artist organization.  I had not entered an art contest in many many many years, but suddenly I felt the desire to want to enter my work.  And in trying to come up with an interesting mix of work to enter, I decided to enter the above picture - something different, unique and eye-catching.
  It has only been a week since I entered the contest, and but I expect to find out by the end of the week if the above picture, or any of the other four pieces of work I entered, made it into the art show.  If I do not have anything accepted into the art show I will not be disappointed, and instead I will just chalk it up to experience and it will be inspiration for me to try even harder to achieve the artistic goals I have set for myself.
  But if I do have anything accepted into the show, will be a great sense of accomplishment - and inspiration to continue trying hard to achieve my artistic goals.  And if I do have something accepted into the show, you will find out about it here first.  
  Wish me luck!

How to quickly delete pictures from your iPhone

  Since my iPhone has become my camera of choice, I tend to accumulate 1000’s of pictures to the point to where I frequently max out the available space.  This will typically become most noticeable when I am at my son’s basketball game and I decide to film him playing, only to run out of room on my phone.  

IF I HAD A PICTURE that had anything to do with my blog post, I would  have added it here.  Instead, I added some eye candy.  Or iCandy, as I call it.  

  To remedy this situation and keep my phone roomy and spacious, I came across a way to delete all the pictures on my phone one at a time, a 100 at a time, or all at once.  Yes, you can tap on each picture on your phone one at a time, but, there has to be a better way, right?

  Turns out it is very simple:

1.) Connect your phone to your computer via your USB cable.

2.) You will not be going in to iTunes, and instead, you will go in to ImageCapture.  To do this, on your beloved Mac, go to FINDER, go to GO, scroll down to APPLICATIONS.  This will pop up a small window and in there it will have a list on the left side - scroll to APPLICATIONS - all APPLICATIONS will show up to the right.  Scroll down to IMAGE CAPTURE.

3.) In IMAGE CAPTURE, your phone and other available devices, if any, will pop up on the left side.  

4.) Click on your iPHONE, and all PICTURES will pop up to the left - hit CLOVERLEAF (COMMAND) + A to select all pictures, or hit SHIFT and select pictures in groups.

5.) At the bottom of the IMAGE CAPTURE screen is a RED CIRCLE with a line through it - click the icon to delete all the pictures you just selected.  It will pop up a dialogue box asking you if you want to delete the pictures, as the action can not be undone.

The Launch Pad

  An elderly artist recently observed my digital artwork, carefully eyeing the large giclee prints in amazement.  Being an old-school oil-painting artist who once painted charming images of cheerful birds and delicate flowers when she was younger, she studied my work intently before remarking, "Your art is stunning - I've never seen anything like it.  I love the color and I am fascinated at how you have created something so unusual and out of the mainstream.  Have you tried to get it shown in a gallery?"

  "No Mom,"  I said, "but thanks for the compliment."

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