Would you like to be able to view and save thermal images using your smartphone, whether for work or just for fun? Thanks to technological advances, it is possible today to do this without buying a very expensive dedicated camera. Read on to learn all the options you have to get thermal imaging on your cell phone. To Continue Reading
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The post 3 Top Cell Phone Photography Apps (Android or iOS) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.
One of the nice things about photography is that you don’t need an expensive camera or exotic lenses to produce good photos. Although such gear ensures the best image quality, to some degree that need has been nullified by the way today’s photos are shared. When viewed on a high-res smartphone or tablet, the technical imperfections of a phone image all but vanish. Cell phone photography is as legitimate as any other form of photography. Or is it?
In recent years, as the Internet has grown in power and influence, cell phone photography has become widely accepted by picture libraries and agencies. A huge market exists for web pictures, and it doesn’t always take DSLRs or even compact cameras to supply it. After inheriting an iPhone a few months back, and acquainting myself with various apps, I began sending phone photos to picture libraries.
When it comes to cellphone photos, libraries are surprisingly open-minded about the use of filters and effects. A conservative approach to editing is not necessary and may even be unhelpful. This article looks at three of the apps I use most for preparing images: MIX, PS Express, and Snapseed. Any of these three allows basic manual adjustments of color and tone. So instead of attempting repetitive in-depth reviews of all three, I aim to show you some of their individual features.
The opening screens of MIX by Camera360, Adobe PS Express and Snapseed by Google. All three are available for iOS or Android phones.
MIX is filter-oriented with 100+ free filters and some in-app purchases. Of course, it also lets you make straight edits to your pictures (e.g. brightness, saturation, contrast, sharpness, spot removal). I’ve always liked presets and filters. If other photographers know exactly what they’re going to do with every photo, I’m not one of them. Sometimes it’s fun to try out different stuff and hit a few buttons.
When you want to apply a color cast to an image, the Cine filters in MIX work well. They have various effects, including warm-up, cooling, and a classic orange & teal combo for movie-style color contrast (try Googling “orange and teal photography” to discover more). Using these filters is a bit like tuning the temp and tint sliders in Lightroom. They affect the white balance of the image.
This orange (warm-up) and teal look is similar to an effect used in modern movies and comes from one of several Cine filters in MIX.
As my photography predates the digital age, filters that imitate last-generation slide films appeal to me. I can’t testify as to their accuracy, but if I want a deep blue sky or just a bit more punch in color and contrast, MIX gives me an easy solution.
These deep-blue skies were achieved with the Fuji Velvia Slide Film filters in MIX and are true to the effect often seen in Velvia transparencies.
Being an old-school slide shooter (or old at any rate), I struggle with the idea of grafting new skies onto photos, but then photography rarely tells the whole truth. MIX offers a range of Holiday Sky filters that might just rescue disappointing photos. To make artificial skies seem realistic, you must take notice of how the light falls in your photo and make sure it doesn’t blatantly conflict with the new background. There’s also a MIX “Magic Sky” filter series for more dramatic effects.
Sky grafting might be anathema for some, but Holiday Sky filters in MIX make it easy to replace a dull sky.
As a long-time user of Photoshop, I tried PS Express hoping for a level of familiarity. I wasn’t disappointed. You can adjust photos using the same editing sliders found in other Adobe products: much of the toolbox seems intact.
If you shoot architectural photos, one of the best things about PS Express is its ability to easily correct the verticals and/or horizontals of a building. This avoids the “falling over” effect you get when pointing a camera at architecture. It helps if you leave space around the building when photographing it, otherwise, the transform tool will slice the edges off it.
The verticals in this photo of Florence were corrected with the Transform tool in PS Express.
PS Express has a decent selection of filters. I’m fond of the ones that apply a vignette, such as Basic/Autumn or B&W/pinhole. These give photos a sense of drama, and like all vignettes focus attention on the middle of the photo. You can give your photos a lot of mood with these filters.
The PS Express B&W Pinhole filter focuses attention on the face of this effigy in Rouen Cathedral.
Adding text to photos can seem a complicated process in some apps and programs, but PS Express makes it easy. You can easily create website graphics, greetings cards or memes and have plenty of control over fonts and opacity. As well, you can send your creations as layered PSD files to Photoshop CC on a computer.
Adding text with different fonts, opacity and colors is easy in PS Express.
Developed by Google, Snapseed is an intuitive app that offers single-click “Looks” (filters by another name) and “Tools” for adjustable edits. It’s capable of great results with as little or as much input as you want. Among the tools, you’ll find anything from regular brightness, contrast or saturation sliders to more adventurous edits like “Double Exposure” or “Grunge”.
For black and white conversions, I find the “Fine Art” filter in Snapseed particularly pleasing. There is always a full range of tones to pack plenty of punch without much loss of shadow or highlight detail. The pictures are also very clean—no mid-tone noise in skies like there is with some B&W edits.
The Snapseed Fine Art filter gives a well-balanced B&W conversion with a pleasing range of tones. I use it as my B&W cell phone default.
The Drama tool can easily produce overcooked results if you’re not careful, but it’s useful for bringing out the detail in clouds and/or lifting an otherwise dull photo taken on an overcast day. You can adjust the filter’s contrast effect as well as saturation to fine-tune the result.
The Drama tool emphasizes mid-tone contrast and bleaches saturation on its default setting, often resulting in more dramatic skies.
Snapseed’s Lens Blur tool lets you emphasize a particular area of a photo by controlling background blur and vignetting. The “Transition” slider lets you control the feathering area between the main subject and background, enabling natural-looking results.
The Snapseed Lens Blur tool emphasizes the face of this wooden sculpture of Christ in Venice.
The apps in this article will not be new to seasoned smartphone photographers, but I hope I’ve inspired others to use their cell phone cameras creatively. Phones have their limitations for some genres of photography, but that’s true of any camera and lens combo. They offer unrivaled portability. And while cell phones aren’t often seen in pro photography, they don’t rule out the chance of publication. Smartphones and their apps let you express yourself in countless ways.
The post 3 Top Cell Phone Photography Apps (Android or iOS) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.
We live in weird times as photographers. Paradoxes abound and when it comes to the idea of cameras and whether or not cellphone photographic performance is on par with dedicated digital camera systems is an issue which sees even learned opinions hopelessly polarized.
“Cellphone cameras are killing photography!” – “It’s such a great time to be a photographer since we have cameras right on our phones.” – “A cell phone is not a camera!” – There are many opinions on this topic!
I have a good friend who photographed his way through Europe with nothing but his cellphone while editing along the way using Lightroom Mobile. His photographs are nothing short of incredible.
At the same time, even I sometimes get tired of all the “cellphone artists” who seem to bypass the fundamental nature of photography with their tiny little gadgets held out in front of them.
So with the debate still raging over whether or not a cellphone can match the performance of a more traditional camera…an idea suddenly came to me. Granted, I’m not the first person to ever think of this but it’s a new idea for me nonetheless and one that I wanted to share with all of you fine people.
I decided to put my own cell phone up against one of my standby full-frame DSLR camera bodies and do some blind comparisons of the images.
I want you to come along for the ride. Can you tell which images were shot with the DSLR and which were done with the cell phone? Could it be that a cell phone will ever be capable of producing images that are close to or dare I say even exceed the results obtained from a “professional” grade DSLR?
For this fun little evaluation we will be looking at the core quality of both RAW and JPEG files from a DSLR and a cellphone. The test camera is a Canon 5D Mk3 and the phone is the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active.
The comparison is for image quality only. Pay attention to the sharpness, the color, and the contrast presented in each one of the images. I’ve numbered each photo so you can make your guesses down below in the comment area if you like!
And yes, before you mention it, lenses play a huge role in final image quality. To me that makes this test even more interesting because the glass of the cell phone camera isn’t interchangeable; meaning the lens you have on your phone is the essentially the only one you can use (unless you go with aftermarket attachments) which makes its fidelity all the more crucial.
As far as image sensor size is concerned there really isn’t much comparison between one inside a full-frame DSLR image and the one that fits inside of your cellphone. This is what interests me. Dimensionally speaking the image sensors from the 5D MK3 and the S8 Active is like comparing grapes and watermelons.
That being said, deciding how that impacts image quality is completely up to the eye of the beholder depending on your definition of “professional quality”.
The camera on the Galaxy S8 Active sports a 12MP sensor which has a physical dimension of 1/2.55 inches or about 12.7mm with individual pixels measuring 1.4 microns. I assume the 12.7mm is the diagonal measurement but I have found no information directly indicating this.
The lens of the S8 Active has a maximum aperture of f/1.7 and fixed (??mm) focal length.
The Canon 5D MK3 has a 22.3MP full frame sensor featuring a diagonal measurement of approximately 1.7 inches (about 43.27mm) with a pixel size of 6.1 microns. I used a (??mm) lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.4.
I know I know…there’s no focal length indicated for either the S8 Active or the one I used with the 5D MK3. This is because some of you astute readers would probably connect the dots for each image and that would ruin the fun!
So, I’m keeping everyone in the dark as far as the focal lengths for both lenses are concerned.
Just like the estimable 5D MK3, the Samsung S8 (like many others) has the capability to record both RAW and JPEG image files when shooting in “Pro” mode.
So the first series of photos will be comparing the typically drab RAW images from both the 5D MK3 and the S8 Active. Each image was shot at ISO 100 with the shutter speed being matched as closely as possible.
Image #1
#2
#3
#4
#5
Moving into the realm of non-RAW (uncooked?) image files, it’s time to take a look at the JPEG photos from both the Canon 5D MK3 and the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active.
Just like the RAW files before, each one of these images was shot with the same ISO setting except this time at ISO 400. The 5D MK3 was set to Adobe Standard Fine JPEG and the S8 Active was set to its “Standard” profile mode as well. Again, shutter speeds were kept as close to uniform as could be achieved.
#6
#7
#8…These two looked so similar that I had to include them both.
#9
#10
Alright, you know you want to do it. Let’s really take a close look at the images from my S8 Active cell phone and the tried and true 5D MK3.
Just to refresh ourselves with the rules of the game here, we are looking at overall image quality. First, let’s have a look at a RAW file of a leaf lying on a bed of grass.
Then I cropped and got extremely up close and personal with said leaf…
11a (left)
11b (right)
And here’s one more for those of us who like to hold a magnifying glass up to each one of our photos. This time let’s take a look at a side-by-side zoom of a JPEG image from both the 5D MK3 and the S8 Active.
Here we have a photo originally shot as an in-camera JPEG.
Now zooming in on those knobs and buttons.
12a (left)
12b (right)
I realize that it’s somewhat of a risky move not telling you which one of the images are which here at the terminus of this article. Alas, that is exactly what I’m going to do.
Have a look at each one of these images which I assure you were, in fact, each shot with both my everyday-carry Galaxy S8 Active cell phone and my trusty 5D MK3. As you look at the photos examine them closely and pick which one you think came from which source.
I also encourage you to evaluate where you stand on the idea of whether or not cellphone photography is a good or a bad thing for the medium as an art. Do you think cameras and cell phones will forever remain separate pieces of technology or do you feel that some day they will be one in the same?
I’d love to hear your ideas on the future of camera tech and your opinions on the photos from the above tests. Please post your thoughts in the comments below. And yes, eventually I will provide an answer key so you have to forgive me.
The post Cell Phone Versus DSLR – Can you tell which is which? appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Night has fallen. All of the beautiful golden light that flooded across the landscape during sunset has slowly slipped away over the horizon – replaced by inky darkness and twinkling stars. But that doesn’t mean that you need to put away your camera until tomorrow! In fact, you most likely have an excellent source of light in your pocket or purse right now – your cell phone flashlight!
A man photographed using a cell phone flashlight as the key light.
Whether you’ve packed your camera bag light or are simply looking for a creative way to make a picture work in extremely dark conditions, your mobile phone flashlight is a surprisingly capable and adaptable lighting tool.
You might be wondering; “Why bother with this at all? My camera has a pop-up flash. If it’s dark outside, my flash can provide all the light I need.”
It’s true that you can use your on-camera flash to light a picture even in near-complete darkness. However, the light that comes from a pop-up flash is direct. This isn’t how we experience light on a daily basis; we experience light coming down on us from the sun or light fixtures in the ceiling.
Directional light is that which comes from an angle, and creates pleasing shadows and depth, whereas on-camera flash erases shadows and textures, resulting in a flat look.
Even using light from one phone flashlight can create dramatic shadows and interesting directional light.
Another problem with on-camera flash is that it often kills the ambient or existing light of a scene. If you want to save the soft glow of city lights in the background of your shot, you’ll often find that your on-camera flash is too overpowering and unnatural looking.
This picture is taken in Automatic Mode, which used the on-camera flash. The light on the subject is flat, the background is dark and all drama or depth in the picture is lost.
Directional light is often what makes or breaks a photo. This isn’t just for photographers using flash. Natural light photographers can spend years learning how to properly position their models in relation to the sun and natural reflectors in order to create pleasing lighting on the subject.
Using a cell phone flashlight allows you to bring the light on your model in from an angle, which can be used to add dimension, enhance textures and create a sense of drama.
The main advantage of using a cell phone flashlight is accessibility. Most people carry their phone wherever they go, so it shouldn’t be hard to quickly get two or even more light sources that you can use for your picture.
Using a cell phone flashlight gives you a mobile lighting kit that is ready for use within five seconds.
Looking to add more light into your scene? Simply add a second cell phone flashlight!
Of course, there are also some drawbacks that you need to be aware of when taking pictures with this technique. First off, most mobile phone flashlights aren’t very powerful. Fortunately, there are three ways to make the light more effective.
The second drawback with using mobile phone flashlights is that the color of the light may not be consistent or carefully balanced like you would find in a typical camera flash. This means that using more than one camera flashlight in a shot could result in slight differences of color.
The last drawback is that a phone flashlight is a small light source and, consequently, produces hard light. If you want an exceptionally soft light that leaves very faint shadows, you would need to use a large softbox or umbrella. But we’re aren’t expecting studio light when we pull out our phone – this is a quick and dirty solution to light.
But even with these drawbacks, using a phone flashlight allows you to create directional light that results in more interesting images. Consider the following two examples:
This picture is taken on Automatic Mode. In the darkness, Auto decided to use the on-camera flash. Once again, all shadows and textures are gone from the subject’s face and the pleasant night-time ambience of the city in the background is lost.
By using a cell phone flashlight just to camera left to light the side of the subject’s face, I was able to add depth and drama for a shadowy, film-noir style image.
A picture lit with a cell phone flashlight will always benefit from some work in the editing room. It’s a good idea to shoot in RAW rather than JPG in order to have as much flexibility as possible with your edits.
The good news is that if you took the time to properly position your lights during the picture, you should have a pretty decent image right out of the camera.
This is the unedited, straight-out-of-camera image. It’s already pretty close to the final product.
The first step is to make some corrections to the color of the lighting. You may need to play with the White Balance, or even selectively reduce the saturation on a specific color in order to get natural skin tones.
For example, some cell phone flashlights might produce an overly green light. Pulling saturation back on the greens in your editing program will help to fix that.
You might also need to tackle some hot spots in the post-processing phase. A hot spot is when the center of the light is significantly brighter than the edges. This can be corrected with by using a brush to “paint” the hot spot a bit darker.
This is the final edit of the photo shown above. Converting to black and white was a way to add mood while also helping remove some color issues that came with using a cell phone as a key light. This image was shot at 1/100, f/1.4, ISO 1000.
Practice, practice, practice. Taking the time to experiment will help you to better understand the benefits and drawbacks of this style of lighting.
Of course, if you need high-quality lighting for a shot, don’t expect your cell phone flashlight to produce the same results as a softbox. But if you’re in a pinch and need to improvise some lighting in a hurry, remember that you’ve got a ready-made light source right in your pocket.
The post How to Use a Cell Phone for Dramatic Night Photography by Frank Myrland appeared first on Digital Photography School.
[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]
The Guardian has launched a virtual reality app for Android users, compatible with low-tech VR devices like Cardboard (which uses your mobile phone); its first story is about solitary confinement, which you can dive into virtually. The preview makes it sound like a horror film, but for prisoners life in solitary can really be a living nightmare.
As The Guardian explains, “6×9 takes you to a virtual cell, telling a story of the psychological damage of extreme isolation. Right now, more than 80,000 people are in solitary confinement in the US. They spend 22-24 hours a day in their cells, with little to no human contact for days or even decades. We invite you into this world.”
Throughout the enhanced story, six prisoners share personal experiences of life in solitary. This is to be the first of many new ‘virtual journalism’ efforts undertaken by the Guardian, and makes for a good prototype: the piece is impactful, relatively easy to simulate in VR (a single room) and highly relevant given growing concerns about prisoner isolation, especially in America.
Users without Cardboard or other virtual reality equipment can alternatively experience the story through 360-degree videos on personal computers or mobile devices. Whether this is a one-off experiment or the beginning of a new kind of audience integration remains to be seen, but so far the reviews of the app are overwhelmingly positive.
Nowhere is there more inventiveness than the gadgets made in prisons. These DIY tools and weapons and upcycled or recycled art show the ingenuity of prisoners.
Click Here to Read More »»
A new virtual reality application from IKEA lets users try out various kitchen configurations in three dimensions. Using an HTC Vive headset, the app lets …
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Using a handheld stylus and tablet set combined with an existing augmented reality headset, this invention allows users to sketch in three dimensions and see …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]
[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]
[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]
Employing a cellular phone coupled with traditional transparent cel animation techniques, this artist inserts strange characters and surreal stories into everyday built environments.
Animator Marty Cooper draws on the individual cels, holding them up for capture, but also displaces objects with which his creations seem to interact.
These creations, in turn, are brought to life to bounce on top of train cars, splash in pothole puddles oremerge from alleyway dumpsters to interact with their surroundings in clever ways.
Technology is taking over nearly every part of our lives, not that we’re complaining. These augmented reality projects add another layer to the everyday world.
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Great architecture deserves to be seen, even if it will never be built. This revolutionary project puts visionary buildings right into the palm of your hand.
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Want to do some serious graffiti art but don’t want to do jail time? This cool iPhone app lets you beautify your world with spray paint in augmented reality.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]
[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]
Six ways to keep your cell phone’s battery running as long as possible.
Is your cell phone battery losing power constantly? Have you ever had to stop using your cell phone in the middle of a call because the battery died? Here are a few tips you can use to conserve your cell phone battery’s power:
* If you know you’re traveling to an area without coverage or with only spotty roaming coverage, consider turning off your cell phone. Your phone can use a lot of power trying to find a suitable network, although some phones may stop polling after a while to try to reduce this battery hoggishness. One other option if you need to use your calendar, notes, play Angry Birds, etc. is to put the phone in “airplane mode” where all communications are stopped yet local apps should still be usable….
Read more at MalekTips.
New Computer and Technology Help and Tips – MalekTips.Com
Check out these visual art images:
Findings by KRVIA Design Cell – Jan 12, 2013
Image by BMW Guggenheim Lab
Mapping Privacy in Public Spaces Project: Findings by KRVIA Design Cell
BMW Guggenheim Lab
January 12, 2013
Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum
Mumbai, India
Where do Mumbaikars find privacy in their city? The KRVIA Design Cell talked about their findings from the Mapping Privacy in Public Space research project, conducted through the Lab’s run. They discussed their methodology and their experience in data collection across the Lab’s six sites, and shared the visual imagery and maps they created from their research from over 200 participants.
Photos: UnCommonSense © 2013 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York
Findings by KRVIA Design Cell – Jan 12, 2013
Image by BMW Guggenheim Lab
Mapping Privacy in Public Spaces Project: Findings by KRVIA Design Cell
BMW Guggenheim Lab
January 12, 2013
Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum
Mumbai, India
Where do Mumbaikars find privacy in their city? The KRVIA Design Cell talked about their findings from the Mapping Privacy in Public Space research project, conducted through the Lab’s run. They discussed their methodology and their experience in data collection across the Lab’s six sites, and shared the visual imagery and maps they created from their research from over 200 participants.
Photos: UnCommonSense © 2013 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York
The film made by Andreas Koch, Laurent Larsonneur (Digital Studio) and Christian Sardet transports us inside a living cell.This is the beginning of the film made in 1995 which is the precursor of molecular movies.. The complete film on DVD is available from Sinauer www.sinauer.com A speeded-up version is included as 2 dozen other documents in the DV “Exploring the living Cell”you can obtain from Garland Press:www.mrcgp.net The stereoscopic 3D version of this film received the 2000 Imagina prize in Monte Carlo and is shown in Science Centers across Europe.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Facebook : www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com WWE Championish Match – Hell in a Cell Match Divas Championish Match – Hell in a Cell Match WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights WWE Hell in a Cell 2012 Highlights
Video Rating: 4 / 5
irokotv.com A famous photographer Babila (Desmond Elliot), meets a married woman(Nadia Buari), at the beach and falls in love with her. He gets her drunk on the night of her anniversary and sleeps with her. He becomes obsessed with her and could not control himself.
Video Rating: 3 / 5
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