Advanced Image Editing Using Masking & Picsay Pro on Android

If you’re like most photographers you’ve probably revisited images wishing there was something more to them. A unifying element of some kind that helped to bring an image to life even more. A bird flying over an already perfect landscape or a figure standing in the middle of a quiet meadow.

Capturing these types of images can be a challenge and are often dependent on simply being at the right place at the right time. Today, Android Editor member, @DroidEdit, Atle Rønningen shows us otherwise as he walks us through some advanced editing tips that will help you introduce these missing elements into your work. 

Check out the FULL ARTICLE where @DroidEdit member Atle Rønningen shares some incredible tips for manipulating and blending images on Android devices.

This is the final Darkroom Tutorial from DroidEdit for the December collaboration with AMPt. If you missed the other tutorials from DroidEdit you can check them out @ ampteam.org/darkroom or visit @DroidEdit on Instagram.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

We have decided to celebrate the coming holiday season with a must have shopping list for mobile photographers. From editing apps to gear, our members share their favorites. Don’t forget to check the app store for cyber monday deals!

Read the FULL TUTORIAL to see what AMPt loves this year.

Check back for new Darkroom mobile photography lessons every Monday @ ampteam.org

Photo submitted by AMPt Member Anna Cox (@annacox)

•sound and light•

I’ve found myself wishing for warm weather and the beach since it has gotten cold so I thought perhaps a beach photo would be a fun revisit. This year the only time I spent at the beach was in the early morning and evening strolling my 4 month old. It was such a sweet serene time for me

Process: opened the image in snapseed and put it through the tune image paces. Adjusting contrast, saturation, etc. The buildings in the background caused me a little trouble. I couldn’t get them dark enough without losing some of the color in the foreground so I darkened the image to get the houses in silhouette and hit save. Then reopened the image and edited the rest of the image to my liking. Hit save again. I then had two images- one with the houses how i liked them and one with the water how i liked it. Then I opened both in juxtaposer and replaced the buildings in the lighter version with the buildings in the darker version. Hit save. Took the whole shebang back over to snapseed to add a touch of old lens in the center focus feature keeping the blur at 5 to smooth some noise at the top of the photo. Hit save and then finished my coffee :)

AMPt Member Graham Preston @grahampreston Title: in the woods, is perpetual youth Description: For me, the main difference between the old world of film photography and the current world of digital, is number of shots I take. I take loads !! I do it when I shoot on the street because time is short and I like to give myself some choices when I go back through my work. But last week I shot with my film camera alongside my iPhone for an afternoon. I shot 1 roll of 24 b&w film exposures against well over 400 digital ones. My point is that does quantity give you quality? After waiting 5 days to get the roll of film processed and it costing nearly a tenner all in, I did get 5 keepers though. This shot above has taken me 3 weeks to select from 798 I took that afternoon. We spent about an hour on a swing we came across in the woods and I used QuickPix to shoot. This camera app allowed me so underexpose and fix it. Then you just stick your finger on the button and off it goes, rapid fire capture of frames and lots of them. I have concluded the iPhone isn’t the ideal platform for selecting shots from hundreds of similar shots, so I had to download to my mac for that - but I copied this shot back for editing. Used Snapseed for warming up the white balance a bit and a little center focus without blur.

Photo by AMPt member Rebecca Cornwell (@repinsk) Title: Concentrating on the Abyss Description/story : early in my photo editing experience, I was determined to master the #decim8 app. I had taken a ton of photos at my eldest daughter’s dance recital. The quality was not very good but the movements where clear. I used these images to master some of the fxs of decim8. Recently decim8 released some new effects. Once again I returned to my dancer shots to study the new fxs. Edit process: this image originally held two dancers. I cropped the photo to hold only a single dancer. I tuned the image in snapseed and ran it several times through the decim8 app using the KOMPLIANCE and BEAMRIDER fxs saving several versions of each. I merged several of these versions together to create the illusion of the dancer spinning. I used scratchcam to add texture and change the color. I loaded the image into superimpose and added a few branches. Finally a created a BW version and ran it through decim8 again with the BEAMRIDER fx. I merged this version with the last color edit version and then added a couple of fresh branches in superimpose. Hashtags: #decimateddancer_repinsk

Photo submitted by AMPt Member Nei Cruz (@n_cruz) The Hudson River I love to take walks by the Hudson River during sunsets. It’s such a great place to walk in NYC. I took two shots in the same spot. Both taken with the native iPhone 4 camera. Make sure you are very stable when you take the shot. I put my finger on the shutter but only release it when I’m totally stable lifting my finger gently. Both edited with Snapseed. First shot: using the Tune tool, I warned the colors pushing the White Balance to +30, Brightness to -10 and Ambience to -10. Saved. Second shot: using the Tune tool, I cooled the colors pushing the White Balance to -40, Brightness to -10 and Ambience to -10. Saved. Then brought both to Diptic using the horizontal double layout setting. Adjusted the borders to 0 on Effects. Saved. In Camera+ I added a touch of Cross Process at 5%. Saved. Finally, I added the simple text with Phonto.

Photo submitted by AMPt Member Martin Reisch @safesolvent Taken in St. John’s, Newfoundland at Cape Spear in September this shot was unfortunately left out of my “in realtime” posting but i’m glad to have a chance to put it up here finally :) The ultra-distance was achieved with iTimelapse.app setting to an interval of every 60 secondes in order to have enough time to make it that far. This was shot on my iPhone 4S at the time so it’s still part of the Cross-Process style i was using with that device. Overall i have a strong feeling that i was mimic’ing a Boards of Canada shot i remember seeing back in the day especially the cold-tones and being on the east-coast of Canada it looks alot like Ireland

Basic Tips for Great Landscape Shots

I live in Kentucky, which is home to millions of  barns so my subject matter was going to be easy, or so I thought. The first time I went out to shoot was a colossal failure- boring to the max. Second and third? A little better. Trying to get shots that were actually worthy of showing you was much harder than expected. Fortunately, I like a challenge so you will be seeing shots from my seventeenth time out. Thankfully, I met a fantastic old farmer yesterday morning that allowed me to wander around on his farm for two hours. 

Read the FULL TUTORIAL where Anna will cover some basic tips to keep in mind when shooting landscapes. As you’ll see, light, focal point and the rule of thirds all play a major role in setting up the best shot.

Check back for new Darkroom mobile photography lessons every Monday @ ampteam.org

Feature 500 photo submitted by Sean O’Connor - @seanoconnor

Title: Love Won Another

Process:
1. Upload image into photoforge 2
2. Straighten and crop to square format
3. Slightly increase vibrance, exposure, and contrast
4. Play with levels giving the picture a blue/green tint
5. Resize image to 5MP, save to camera roll
6. Import saved image into lenslight to add artificial lighting to enhance/slightly exaggerate natural lighting, render flare, save to camera roll
7. Open saved photo in picfx, add creek filter on 50% opacity, add marshmallow filter on 50%, save to camera roll
8. Open phonto, (on white background) make ribbon using letters and shapes, save to camera roll
9. Open edited photo as ribbon shape in blender, set blending mode to darken with 50% opacity, save to camera roll
10. Open saved photo in phonto and add text with negative kerning on words “love” and “won” (typeface- matchbook) and positive kerning on word “another” (typeface- helvetica neue), save to camera roll

Bio:
I first got into mobile photography and editing shortly after I joined instagram. I saw work from some artists that I was following and I was amazed to find out that they were completely done on an iPhone. With the right combination of creativity and apps, professional quality work is more than possible. I am from Southern California but during the school year I am a student at Massachusetts College of Art and Design studying graphic design. Lately, I’ve been super into logos as branding (simplistic and vintage-like to be exact). In the next few years I am going to be starting a company combining my love for design and snowboarding with my growing passion of helping people find God; those poor both physically/financially and spiritually. Anything is possible with the right mindset! Thanks for taking the time to read this guys. Check out my work and keep an eye out for my company which should hopefully be dropping soon.

AMPt member Frank Mathews @nitti80

Title: Chasing Your Dream

This Image. This opportunity. This moment is of a young man named Traveil chasing his dream to be a successful entertainer. This past saturday I was invited to see him perform on stage in Fayetteville, NC and I was in the front row snapping like crazy. During the show I could see and feel his passion. You could see throughout his performance the fact that he believes its only a matter of time before his dreams come true. What I really love about this photo is it captures him in the process of chasing his dream. In that moment I realized that a dream no matter how big or small is an important part of who we are and you should fight for your dream with passion. This night I was inspired to chase my very own dreams harder. So let me ask you all a queation…..What does it mean to chase your dream? Well I believe the first step is to write it down somewhere. So what is your dream? Thats right I would like know what your dream is. Put your dream in the comment line big or small doesn’t matter and lets chat about it.