iphone love: Snapseed photo app and puppy pictures
Warning: this post is part proud puppy papa wanting to show everyone pictures of his new baby girl, and part iphoneography geek sharing. – Todd
Over the last couple years, like thousands of people, both Diane and I have grown to love photographing with our iphones. But between the two of us, she is the one who has really delved into it. I’ve kinda tinkered.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved hunting down useful apps for us to play with. Shooting moments and scenes of our travels. And capturing cool street art we’ll stumble upon in our wanderings.
I love how our smart phones whittle photography down to its pure essentials, lighting, composition, timing, and heart; almost forcing the photographer to release themselves from all the other technical mumbo-jumbo. I’m amazed and inspired by the creativity and talent that finds its way to instagram and other sharing platforms.
But for me, I haven’t had a consistent muse to keep me shooting with my phone on a daily basis. Our travels happen sporadically. I don’t find much of our daily life thrilling enough to warrant a “look at this!” social share. Until now.
Puppies are just so damn cute there is a constant stream of moments we want to share all the time. Plus we have East Coast friends that if demanded daily photos when we get a puppy.
So now that I have been shooting regularly everyday, I’ve also been spending more time iphone editing. A while back Broderick of Savory Exposure had tweeted out that one of his favorite apps (Snapseed) was on sale, so I immediately snatched it up, but then it sat gently used in my phone for the longest time.
Diane on the other hand quickly fell in love with it and it has become one of her most used apps. So now that I’m shooting more, I decided to give Snapseed at bit more attention and I have to say, “I love it!”
It’s now the first spot I run my photos through. The adjustments are quick to cycle through and apply. You can make specific adjustments with the color, sharpness, focus, etc., or there are the preset groups that will give you a quick stylistic look but still allowing you to make adjustments to the preset.
Here’s my usual editing workflow. Open up the photo in Snapseed, use the Tilt-Shift or Center Focus to direct the eye to somewhere in the frame. Sometimes even running it through both of them. After that I’ll either make a specific adjustment, maybe desaturate a bit or sharpen or contrast, or I’ll just open up and cycle through the vintage presets and tweak them a bit.
Above: Tilt-Shift and its options – Below: One of the Vintage Presets and its options.
And that’s about it. Sometimes I may take it into another app which I like some of the preset looks or else occasionally use one of the Instagram presets, but usually Snapseed gets me what I want, unless it is a Black & White look I want, then I have another favorite app for that, but we’ll save that for another time.
And if you need to get your puppy fix on, there will be a regular stream of puppy pics landing on my Instagram feed. 😉 I’m sure Diane will have more than a few as well.
-Todd
I’d love to hear about what your muse is, or you know I’m an app geek, give me your favorite app recommendations. Thanks for putting up with a puppy papa and his pics!
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your work is amazing! And your puppy soo cute 🙂 I love how you show your love for your dogs 🙂 I do it all the time in my web, they are adorables.
she is adorable! I just want to hug her!
oh my gosh, I love Snapseed too. My only issue is that when i tweak the structure or sharpness too much the image totally loses quality and can look pretty bad enlarged. But that’s to be expected I suppose. Otherwise it’s a great app and I love that it can post directly to instagram too! And i just want to snuggle that pup. I also love using pic collage because then you can create a collage of your favorite images and group shots together.
Ah, I’ve had almost the exact same experience with Snapseed! Except I’m afraid I don’t quite fully “get” it yet. I also got the app back when it was on sale, and I’ve tried tinkering with it now and then but haven’t been able to get comfortable with it. So it was really nice to read through your workflow! Always love the photography on this site (and really loved the photo basics series you guys did a while back), so this workflow thing is really helpful to read through as I learn my way with things. Right now I am really liking the VSCOCAM app. Looking forward to hearing your fav app for black & white. 🙂
I have no tips, but that first photo completely grabbed my heart and squeeeeeeeeeeeeezed it for all it was worth!!!
Kisses to the puppy from Susan in the Boonies! No wonder you’re proud, papa!!!
Thanks Susan!
xoxo
T
Look @ those big eyes & cute li’l belly!
Puppy bellies have to be on the list of most underrated cuteness subjects ever. Ahhhh. So cute!
The first pic is the best by far. A perfect shot to show that puppy curiosity. Lighting and comp are real nice for a phone pic. Hard to believe five years ago you would have needed an $800 camera for that shot.
Thanks so much! The technology today is amazing. There really has never been a better time in history to be a photographer.
I”m with Ashley, what is this post about? I only have eyes for Peanut ; ) Well, and Sierra. Oh, and my little muse: http://twitpic.com/akmx4e
xoxo
Your little muse is adorable! We have to get you down here again for puppy kisses and hugs! Miss you!
xoxo
T
I know, I miss you all, too!! Can you imagine my little muse just turned nineteen this summer? She’s still a daily inspiration ; )
xoxo
I am so in love with this puppy! The cutest!
And yes…totally agree…the iPhone camera + aps are pretty amazing.
Like photographic WonderBras for the rest of us!
That is one of the best analogies we’ve heard describing apps. Someone aught to use that as their tagline!
T