An iPhoneography Tutorial with Guest Artist Susan Tuttle
We are thrilled to welcome guest artist Susan Tuttle to Somerset Place today, where she shares a tutorial on editing a portrait taken with her iPhone®. She uses five of her favorite iPhone photography apps to achieve the final result, which is worn, grungy, painterly, and dreamy in style.
Materials (These iPhone apps can be purchased and downloaded at various costs from the Apple iTunes Store):
Camera+
Art of Blur* or BlurFX
Scratch Cam
Noir Photo
Pic Grunger
Instructions (Note: These instructions do not get overly technical in terms of how the tools and functions of each of these photo apps work. Each photography app for the iPhone comes with detailed instructions for use, which are generally very user-friendly.)
1. Camera+: I use the camera available in the app Camera+ to take my iPhone photographs (I especially love the timer feature for taking self-portraits). After you take the photo, it goes into your Camera+ Lightbox (essentially a camera roll), and it is also saved to your device’s built-in camera roll (Photo Library) if you adjust the settings to do so.
- For this project, I selected my untouched photograph from my Lightbox and went into Editing mode, where I cropped the photo into a square. I like to upload completed works to Instagram (a social network for sharing iPhonegraphy) and they only accept a square format.
- After cropping, I choose a filter. In this case I chose the black and white filter “Ansel,” which has Ansel Adams-like toning and is a definite go-to filter of mine. Save work to your Photo Library.
2. Art of Blur (Art of Blur is no longer available at the iTunes app store, but BlurFX may be used instead): Open saved altered photo in this app and do the following:
- Apply a blur to it. You can manipulate blur settings to achieve a subtle or strong motion blur (see figure A of above screenshot).
- If there are any areas of your photo that you do not wish to have blurred, you can bring them back into focus or adjust the sharpness by selecting the Sharpen mode and brushing over these areas. You can adjust the transparency and size of the brush – I like to reduce the transparency so that there is always a soft, blended edge between the blurred part of the image and the sharp part (see figures B and C of screenshot). Tip: the Zoom Tool is very helpful for achieving accuracy and doing fine detail work. Save work.
3. Scratch Cam: This very cool app allows you to alter the color of your photo and apply scratches, textures, and borders.
- I decided not to alter the color of the photo, so I turned the color layer off (see figure A of above screenshot).
- Choose a “Textures and Borders” layer. You can reduce the Opacity of this layer if you wish (see figure B).
- Apply a “Scratches” layer. Again, you can reduce the Opacity of this layer if you wish (see figure C). Save work.
4. Noir Photo: This app allows you to create a dramatic vignette effect, where you can highlight your subject and either darken or lighten the surrounding area to create the vignette.
- I chose to highlight the figure of the woman and lighten the surrounding area, thus taking away the surrounding details to draw the observer’s eye into the subject. You can achieve a variety of results by rolling the various dials. Don’t forget to save.
5. Pic Grunger: I often like to use this app to apply a final touch of grunge to my piece, giving it a more dreamy quality. Open work in this app and do the following:
- Choose an “Effects” filter. I chose “Creased,” as it adds a nice layer of grunge, but did not cover up essential details of the subject (see figure A of screenshot).
- Select a texture. I picked “Newsprint” (see figure B). You can adjust the strength of these layers, as I did in this project (see figure C). Save and you’re all done!
A big “Thank you!” to Susan for sharing this fun iPhoneography tutorial with us. Susan is a photographer and digital artist from Maine. She is author of the books Digital Expressions: Creating Digital Art with Adobe Photoshop Elements (North Light Books, April 2010) and Exhibition 36: Mixed-Media Demonstrations and Explorations (North Light Books, November, 2008). Susan teaches online digital art and photo manipulation classes with Photoshop and is excited to announce that her third book, Photo Craft: Creative Mixed Media and Digital Approaches to Transforming Your Photographs (North Light Books), co-authored with Chrysti Hydeck, will be released this fall.
Susan recently wrote an article on iPhoneography that is featured in Somerset Digital Studio Spring ’12, where she talks about enjoying the challenge of continually stretching the range of her artistic voice. You can view more of Susan’s work at www.susantuttlephotography.com.
Preview the gorgeous spreads from the upcoming Autumn ’12 issue of Somerset Digital Studio.
iPhone® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. Camera + is copyright © by tap tap tap LLC. ScratchCam is copyright © 2011 by Steven Arnold. Noir Photo is copyright © Red Giant Software LLC. Pic Grunger is copyright © by Stephen Spring. *Art of Blur is no longer available at the iTunes app store.
Posted: Thursday, July 26th, 2012 @ 9:30 am
Categories: Digital Art, How-To Project Tutorials.
Tags: iphoneography.
Subscribe to the comments feed if you like.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Thanks for featuring Susan & her amazingly creative way with iPhoneography…this was EXCELLENT!
Excellent article – thank you so much for sharing! I’m going to go experiment!! ;)
Much appreciated article. Susan is the digital queen. I will purchase all apps so I can get started with this tut for my digital art. Please share more digital ideas and tuts :)
WTG Susan! Great tutorial here!!!
~Linda
Awesome..just bought the apps!!!
So glad to hear! Have fun with them :)
Great article! Thanks! It was a 2-fer article. One, it gave us a look into the artist’s process. And two, it gave us a glimpse at what those 5 apps can do. And to the artist, I LOVE how you took a plain, ordinary photo (well at least to outsiders) and gave it a story. Honestly to me, before seeing the original photo, I thought it looked like a young woman was running off a dock in a magical dress, getting ready to jump in the water. Awesome!
Thank you! I love Susan’s magical view :D
Thank you so much for this wonderful article! Love the effects Susan has created with the mix of apps. Her tutorial is wonderful. I know what I’m buying today from the app store!
Very excited to see Susan’s tutorial here, today! Her talents constantly amaze & am thrilled to learn just a tiny bit of her MAGICAL process. Thanks so much!
~ vicki xo
So glad you all liked the tutorial. Thank you for the kind words. Have fun!
XO
Thank YOU, Susan! Such a fun tutorial :)
How do you use the Camera+ to take a self-portrait? Doesn’t that require somehow propping up your iPhone?
Hi Leanne. There is a feature built into your iPhone that allows you to virtually flip the camera around so that you can see yourself taking the picture. It’s the little icon in the right hand corner of your screen with the arrows on both sides of the camera. I have not downloaded the app yet, but if you have it, let me know if it works!
Great tutorial, Susan! These are some of my favorite go-to apps and I love how you used these to create this image. Fantastic!!
Amazing! Thanks so much for sharing!
Fabulous share! Just recently got an iPhone and now I know what apps to look for! Thank you, Susan for your knowledge, and Stampington for putting this tutorial up. Can’t wait to try some of these apps and explore the new to me world of iPhotography!
It is actually a great and useful piece of info. I am satisfied that you just shared this useful info with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.