Archives for October 2015

October 31, 2015 by Kat

Late Sunrise (New Stackables Formula)

Time changes tomorrow! Don’t forget to move your clocks back tonight. I am personally very happy to get that hour of morning light back. It’s been hard to get out and hike in the mornings and still get in to the office at a reasonable time. I have to get out on the trail before sunrise, so I’ve seen a lot of sunrises lately.

This has made for some interesting autumn photographs in the early morning light, though. And I’ve been enjoying some of the heavily textured nature looks I’ve been seeing around Instagram, so I created this Stackables formula called “Late Sunrise” that I’m sharing with you today.

To download the “Late Sunrise” formula for your own use, do the following:
1. Make sure the Stackables app is installed on your iOS device.
2. On your iOS device, download the formula file from this link. (This is a Dropbox link, and you may be prompted to save the file to your Dropbox account, if you have one. Go ahead and save it to your Dropbox and then download from there.)
3. When you go to download or open the file on your device, use “Open in…” and choose the “Open in Stackables” option.
4. Stackables will open and ask if you want to import the formula, click “Import.”
5. To use the formula, load a photo and then go to Favorite Formulas (the ones with a heart!). You will see the imported formula there.

Here is the original photo, before applying the formula. Big difference, huh? I just love what you can do with post-processing!

Here are a couple of different images, using the same formula…

For this next one, I modified a few of the layers, removing, lightening and/or rotating them. Don’t forget that you can continue to make adjustments after you apply the formula! It’s one of the great features of the Stackables app.

Today sunrise was at 7:47am where I live. It was the latest sunrise until late December/early January, so I get a little reprieve on the morning light. I don’t know how those of you further north do it in the winters! People around here complain about the rain, but I think it’s the short days that get me the most.

I’m very happy to “fall back” to tonight!

October 28, 2015 by Kat

And the winners are…

Whew! That was fun. A giveaway is like a little party on the blog. Maybe even an open studio, where people come by you haven’t seen in a while. It’s been festive around here. So my piece “Party in the Sky” seems pretty appropriate to share today!

But let’s get down to the winners… Because I know that’s what you all are waiting for!

Framed Print: Lauri

eBook Download: Kate, Jen and Shelly

And the iPhone 5/5s gear…

Custom Case: Mary

Olloclip & Case: Leon

Waterproof Case: Marrianna

Everyone has been notified via email as well as announced here. Congrats to these winners, and thank you to everyone who entered! We’ll do this again soon.

October 23, 2015 by Kat

Open Studio + Giveaway Extravaganza!

Yay! It’s time for my favorite event… The Philomath Open Studios Tour. My studio will be one of 15 studios open on the next two weekends, Saturday and Sunday noon to 5pm. There are 37 artists participating and exhibiting their work. Come visit! It’s great fun to meet the artists, see where they work and talk about their process. It’s an education you just can’t get any other way. (You can find details on the artists and a map here.)

My guest artist this year is Nena Bement, who works in glass. She and I got the studio all set up yesterday, and I forgot to take pictures! Argh! I’ll post some on Instagram during the event, because it looks great. Here’s one I took the other evening, when Roman so delightfully posed in front of my work. I think he was trying to blend in. He goes quite well with Vanishing, don’t you think?

And to celebrate this big week, with the release of the Digital Photography for Beginners eBook and the Open Studio, let’s have a giveaway! I’ll give away a few things and make it an “extravaganza.” Fun!

Before I get into the prizes, here are the details:

Leave a comment on this blog post anytime between now and my next blog post (no sooner than Tuesday morning 27-Oct-15 4AM PDT, but could be a bit later). I’ll do a random drawing for the winners when I sit down to write the post.
One entry per person.
If you are interested in the iPhone 5/5s gear, add that to your comment. I will only give these items away to someone who can use them.

Here are the items I’m giving away:

Small Framed Print of Your Choice

Do you have a favorite image? Choose from any of my square iPhone pieces. These are all limited edition prints I create in my studio here in Oregon. Your piece will be numbered, signed, matted and presented in a black frame, ready to hang or sit on a table. Here is an example of several of this small size together in a group. They look great, don’t they?

If you don’t win, you can buy these in my Etsy shop, anytime!

Digital Photogaphy for Beginners

Do you need to brush up on your fundamental photography skills? Do you know someone who is just getting started? Then you need my new eBook, Digital Photography for Beginners! I’ll give away a copy or two, either to you or, if you don’t need it, you can gift your copy to a friend.

If you don’t win, be sure to take advantage of the Launch Special: The eBook is just $5.99 (reg. $9.99) right now. SALE expires Oct. 28th, 11:59pm PDT.

iPhone 5/5s Accessories

Since I’ve upgraded to my iPhone 6s I have several accessories which are now obsolete to me. Sad!! I’d love to see them continue to be useful. Please leave a note in your comment that you want to be included in this part of the drawing. All items are gently used and in good working condition.

Custom Phone Case

One of a kind! This case is printed with my iconic piece, Vanishing. It’s eye-catching!

Olloclip Lenses and Homemade Case

These Olloclip lenses have been great to use. Small, compact and good image quality. This one has the fisheye, wide angle and macro lens all-in-one. I’ll also throw in the homemade case I created by cutting off the corner of an old plastic case. Not fancy, but works great! And it’s hot pink, so it’s just plain fun.

Waterproof Case with Fisheye Lens

This Optrix waterproof case is awesome! You can fully use the phone and camera in or under the water. The attached fisheye lens is high quality, too. I had fun with this, as the image of my nephew under the water will attest.

I hope to see you at my Open Studio! And if you’re not close enough to stop by, hopefully you’ll get a little piece of my creative world through the giveaway. Don’t forget to leave your comment to enter!

October 21, 2015 by Kat

Digital Photography for Beginners eBook is here!

Do you want to improve your creativity and artistry with a camera? To capture great images that speak to your heart, you need both technical skill and creative vision. Today I’m excited to share a resource to help you get started on your journey as an artistic photographer with the information you need to create beautiful images, using any camera.

Digital Photography for Beginners: Understanding Exposure, Light, Composition, and Using your DSLR is a guide to the technical skills of photography, thoughtfully written in a non-technical format. This easy-to-follow guide also includes great explanations, photo examples and enjoyable exercises to help bring your camera skills to the next level.

This material was originally created as a six-week eCourse I taught online, and it’s been updated and repackaged into a beautiful 73-page eBook published by PhotographyBB. Digital Photography for Beginners is an eBook delivered in PDF format for maximum compatibility on all of your digital devices. To utilize this eBook, all you need is a digital camera and the photo editing software of your choice.

It’s a perfect fit for new photographers learning how to make the most of their DSLR or point-and-shoot camera.

Download Digital Photography for Beginners Now

LAUNCH SPECIAL!
Get Digital Photography for Beginners for just $5.99 (reg. $9.99)
SALE expires Oct. 28th, 11:59pm PDT

And, if you follow me because you are using a mobile device camera, you will find this eBook helpful as well. How do you think I’m able to coax so much out of my iPhone camera? It’s not just the apps. It’s a fundamental understanding of light, exposure, composition, and how a camera works. You can get that too, in Digital Photography for Beginners. I’m so excited to share this with you!

October 17, 2015 by Kat

On the Other Side (Mobile Tutorial)

I have been loving the recent change of season. Autumn is one of my favorite times of year. It’s the combination of light, color, and emerging bare branches which inspire me creatively. It’s been fun to get back into editing and experiment with a few new techniques, so it’s time to share a Mobile Tutorial from a recent edit.

I created this piece, “On the Other Side,” yesterday morning and it’s the perfect candidate. I was looking to see how abstract I could go and still retain the feel of the light on leaves. I like the balance of contrast, color and abstraction I was able to achieve in the final piece.

Here is how I created it…

I started with an image captured in ProCamera with the iPhone 6s. (If you missed it, see my first impressions of the iPhone 6s here.) I composed for the lines of the main branches, knowing I could eliminate the branches from the tree behind in post processing.

My first step in post-processing is eliminating those extra tree branches using Handy Photo.

Next step is start altering color and effects. The colors are just too… real. I altered the color using the Tone effects in iColorama. This is an amazingly full-featured app that I am trying to use more. You can get lost in it, there are so many effects and options.

Continuing with artistic effects in iColorama, I experimented with different effects and ended up here:

I liked the shapes and the smearing of the color, but this has gone too abstract. You can no longer tell what it is. Time to reign it back in by blending with other images. To create some alternate images for blending, I started with Autopainter, one of my go-to artistic apps, on the toned image from iColorama:

And also ran the toned image through Autopainter II, for the chalk effect:

Now it’s on to blending using Image Blender. First, the iColorama output with the Autopainter output:

And then with the Autopainter II output:

It’s getting there. There are several problems I need to fix:
– The leaves are still too abstract, so I want to add some shape to them.
– The color is too blue-purple, so I want more warmth.
– The bottom open area of the image is too patchy, with some abrupt transitions, so I want to fill it in a bit.

I can solve the first problem, the abstraction, by blending the image back with one of the original photographs to add the structure of the leaves. Then, I can use color filters and textures to shift the color and fill in the open area. To do this I used a couple of texture apps in sequence. First, textures in XnView Photo FX. You can see how the color has started to shift and the texture has evened out the background.

And finally, with Radiance and Grunge layers in Mextures, adding further texture and shifting color to achieve the final state:

I just love the transformation you can create with a few apps on a photograph. It’s magical!

If you would like to learn more, you can preorder my book on Amazon, Art with an iPhone: A Photographer’s Guide to Creating Altered Realities. It includes information on these and other apps, tips on blending, and much, much more. Thanks for your support to make the book a success!

October 13, 2015 by Kat

Impressions of the iPhone 6s

I’ve had my new iPhone 6s for a little over two weeks now, so it’s time to share my impressions. Was it worth it to upgrade? Let’s see…

The Device

First, let’s talk about the device itself. Wow, is it fast! Everything is faster to respond… Touch ID, opening an app, focusing in the camera, booting the device… Everything. There is a noticeable difference between my old device, the 5s, and this one. Just in daily interaction, that’s a great overall improvement.

The 3D Touch is very cool. It takes some getting used to, getting the press right to get the quick menu. The device gives a little “click” vibrate when you get it right, a nice little piece of feedback, and the background blurs as the quick menu comes up with four shortcuts. Do a quick tap on your selection, and bam, the app is opening to just the right place.

These short cuts combined with the overall speed of the device make a big difference in how quickly you can get in and begin using an app. Unfortunately not all apps are using 3D Touch yet, but hopefully this will be adopted broadly soon. I can see that I’m going to quickly get used to 3D Touch; I’ve already tried to use it on my iPad Air without thinking.

(One future improvement: It would be nice to be able to program your own menus. I’d love to program different modes on my camera app for even quicker access. Maybe someday!)

The Hey Siri feature, which allows you to use voice to access Siri when the device is locked without pressing the home button, is useful too. It was added for all devices in iOS 9, but for the 6s you don’t have to be connected to a power source in order to use it. I’ve been driving and used Hey Siri to read me texts, without ever touching the phone. Cool.

Finally, coming from the 5s, I’m finding the larger screen of the 6s nicer than I thought. It was especially helpful at my last art fair, when people were signing for credit cards – more space for that awkward fingertip signature. It’s still small enough to fit in my pocket or the palm of my hand, so the larger size is an improvement and not a detriment. The 6s Plus would definitely be too big for me.

Other than that, no real observations on the device itself. Battery life seems fine. I’m having no problem with overheating, like some people are experiencing. I’ve had a couple of instances where it’s gone into a deep sleep mode for apparently no reason, and I have to reboot to get it out. I’ll be watching that closely.

The Camera

Oh, but you wanted to know about the camera, right? Well, for starters it’s twelve glorious Megapixels and you notice it! The sensor size is 4032 x 3024 pixels, giving me just a bit more detail in every photograph and a little more room to crop of I need to. The aperture remains the same at f/2.2 and field of view is 29mm, so no real changes from the 5s there. Minimum focal distance seems about the same, at 2-3 inches. (I didn’t do any scientific tests here.)

Like everything on the 6s, the camera is fast. It’s quicker to focus and expose for each frame. Between that and opening the device and apps quicker, it means I can start taking photographs faster when I see something interesting. Very nice.

Detail, color, and sharpness of the images are all very good. Here’s an unedited JPEG, full resolution and straight out of the camera, to give you a better idea. The largest branch in the lower right of the frame is where I set my focus point. Zoom in to see the details.

I haven’t tried out any photographs in low light to see the performance there, but will let you know when I do.

That’s all about the back camera, and there are improvements in the front camera too. It’s now 5MP, up from 2MP on the 5s. I don’t use the front camera a lot, but I’m sure the family selfies I take on vacation will see some improvements. Woohoo.

The Verdict

Overall, the iPhone 6s is a noticeable improvement over the 5s, both as a camera and a general purpose device. The upgrade was worth it for me!

The only problem… All of my aftermarket lenses and cases no longer fit! I’m trying to decide what to do with them. Stay tuned, I may give them away here!

Archives for October 2015

Upcoming Events