This report will touch on thoughts whipping through my brain during our introductions. Actually, from your interests and comments to references on this site, workflow ideas and links to inspire further investigation.
You will get an invitation to subscribe to our Shared Photo Album. This is our place to post, comment and appreciate the exploration and play this semester. This album #1 does not count against your iCloud storage space! #2 We have 6 meetings but the album will last 6 months - or close just before the spring 2021 semester begins. The invitation will come as an email message and will also show as a red button on the Photos app. You will join using your Apple ID credentials - and that might be different than the contact info I have for you. Just do it! Join/Subscribe/WhateverTheTerm.
Next - Take a picture of a leaf. A leaf with a flaw, a spot or a gnawed hole. We want to do a quick demo of TouchRetouch on Day 2. Jump ahead and try using the TouchRetouch app. The flaw should not be on an edge of the leaf, but on the body of the leaf. Actually this gives you the idea that any image with a flaw would work with this activity. A flower, cement driveway, knotty pine panelling ...
As I research for this report, the ads popping up in Safari are bothersome. Do you know about Reading Mode when browsing with Safari? << That was a link to a web article. I try to mark the included links with a green background color.
A new photo will be close to the top of Recents. Maybe you are already a leaf specialist. So explore the Search options in the Photos app. Try it first on your own, then read the July 2020 iMore article How to search for people, places, animals, and things in the Photos app for iPhone and iPad. Learning anything new? One of our own, Niel Nielson, presented Search Techniques in Photos as a demo in class Fall 2019.
I appreciate that Linda printed the handout to track iPhone and iPad Status - important to keep a reference on current number of images etc, available space and then work to clean h-ios-e. A side benefit of cleaning up is discovering wonderful images to print, or edit, or combine-stylize-print. It is not always the new that motivates us. Many of you heard me complain that my devices have too many albums. True, so when you find wonderful images, you'll need to save them to a new album for easy access. Album cleanup needs to be added to my iOS Status handout.
Gary mentioned taking photos of buildings. This is a speciality and requires expensive DSLR lenses to maintain perspective and minimize the keystone effect. Some of our apps let us make minor corrections to our photos because we tilt the iphone camera at an odd pitch (forward/backward/lean). When you photograph a building, do not crop too close - use a wide angle lens and even try a short panorama to give you lots of room to correct then crop. Back in February 2020 I posted a silent video showing how Snapseed Corrects Perspective. of a scene in Sutter's Fort. You will also find the Apple Photos > Edit > Crop can make adjustments to horizontal, vertical and skewed photos. Checkout Charlie Sorrel's November 2019 article How to crop, straighten and unscrew photos on iPad and iPhone at Cult of Mac website. Then go find a building and practice taking and editing OUTSIDE and INSIDE photos.
Night photography is an interest of Mary, Marilyn and Colleen. This is usually in the realm of DSLR or mirrorless cameras and Lightroom and Photoshop type computer applications. (Using Night Mode on an iPhone 11Pro I did capture the Neowise comet!) There is an expensive iOS app called PhotoPills that helps plan night photography, and recently they offered Milky Way Photography Post Processing Masterclass with Nick Page on their YouTube Channel. Your iPhone might help scout locations, give you directions and be a notepad for the starting settings needed. Oh, and it is a flashlight. Remember to keep it fully charged!
Mike mentioned sports as an iPhone photo subject. Yes! In many ways, the automatic shooting features will capture action at fast shutter speeds, the Slo-Mo video feature is fun to explore for the peak action moments, Live mode for the unanticipated scene. Burst mode needs to be practiced for Apple Camera or use another app like Camera+2. Check out Apple's iPhone X - How to shoot Slo-mo and How-To Geek's How to Record and Edit Slow Motion videos on your iPhone. Whoa! iOS 13 lets you stitch Live photos taken within 1.5 seconds of each other. Need to explore this hint.
Cheryl, Roe, and other nature lovers mentioned macro, getting close to your subject. Camera+2 has a unique mode that works Artificial Intelligence wonders to give us macro. A tripod is essential in your photography toolkit. Consider the jointed Joby Gorillapod (check REI & your favorite online service) and add a spring clip to your existing tripod with the Dollar Store Selfie Stick. Remove the end clip and attach to your existing tripod. Macro photography requires stabilization of the iPhone camera and the subject. You want to avoid tapping the shutter and suffering unintentional camera movement. One solution is to use the Timer to take the shot or shots as in Burst mode. There is another trick - use your earbuds as a cable release! The volume buttons will trigger the shutter. Practice! One last idea is expensive - use an Apple Watch with Bluetooth to trigger the shutter. The benefit of the Watch is a preview of the scene and single shot or Timer/Burst.
As the semester goes forward the temperatures will cool and we might find ourselves outdoors during mid-day. As Mary mentioned, she is experimenting with Black and White and enjoying the high contrasts of noon. You can follow her approach and use the filters in the Apple Camera and 9TO5Mac covers How to use camera filters with the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro by Michael Potluck. Lenka is on our list of apps and Tech Crunch covered it in 2014 Lenka Might Be The Black-And-White Photographer's Dream App by Mike Butcher. We barely brushed into the Lightbox features in Camera+2 so read, bookmark and reread iPhone Photography School article by Becki Robins How to Use Camera+ App to Shoot & Edit Amazing iPhone Photos and scroll way down the page to Filters. Now look for them on your iPhone. Ansel is for B&W. You can apply more than one filter to an image. For inspiration, read the Pixpa article Top 10 Tips for Black and White Photography and Portraits by Rohan Arora. My favorite workflow for b&w is ProCamera with the VividHDR in-app purchase. This is a powerful app and fstoppers January 2020 article by Mel Martin ProCamera is Still the iOS Photo App to Beat covers many features (Attention Gary: Automatic Perspective Control if you subscribe annually).
Anyone not able to enroll in our class should review iOS Gadget Hacks article 31 New Features for Camera & Photos in iOS 13 - a masterclass of camera and photos tips. What more can we expect of iOS 14 this fall? Actually, if you are enrolled in this seminar, read this article.
