Rice drying in Cuba - iPad image processing

If anyone can tell me how to maintain the discipline I need to have in order to post regular tutorials here, I'd be eternally grateful! I am so easily distracted! This tutorial will outline how to go from what probably looks like a throw-away image to something that is quite nice and serves as a wonderful memory of my recent trip to Cuba with John Barclay, Tony Sweet and 11 other photographers. We learned that rice is dried on the road in Cuba. If one meets a vehicle coming down the one available lane of the two lane road being used for rice drying, one of the vehicles must drive over the rice in order to allow the other vehicle to pass. Fortunately, this is the "raw" rice before it has been hulled so I'm guessing/hoping the processing after the drying stage (which is done so the rice can be stored 'as is' until time to process it) takes care of getting rid of any dirt and debris added during the drying process!

The first image below is the result of processing the second image below through several steps which will be covered in detail in this tutorial. The original image was shot through the bus window with the iPhone 4s native camera app. Apps used for post processing on the iPad include PerfectPhoto, Touch Retouch, Painteresque, Image Blender, Photo fx Ultra, and A+ Signature.

Finished image of rice drying on the road in Cuba.

Original native iPhone 4s image shot through a bus window.

The first steps were done in PerfectPhoto (tutorial available) and included cropping, sharpening and denoise steps resulting in the image below.

I chose a square crop to eliminate as many of the distracting elements as possible. You will have noticed that the crop I chose didn't eliminate all of the visor at the front of the bus (still visible along the top of the cropped image) and left some other artifacts and distracting elements due to having been shot through the bus window. I next used Touch Retouch to remove those elements I found distracting. Between the brush and the lasso tool, the entire process took me less than five minutes. If you are new to using this marvelous iPhone app, I recommend viewing the in-app tutorials as many times as necessary to get the hang it it. For those familiar with Photoshop content aware tools, Retouch is the iPhone answer to that function and does a fantastic job of retouching images!

When using Touch Retouch, two finger pinch or spread action will allow you to zoom out or zoom in to facilitate retouching. Sometimes, the entire image won't be visible at first in which case you will want to pinch the image to shrink it to fit in the screen so you can see the edges and work on them. A screen shot below shows the visor marked in red (it was selected using the lasso tool to select a bit of the blue sky all around the edge of the visor). When the right "arrow" (showing as a triangle to the right of the hand icon along the bottom edge of the screen shot below) is clicked after selecting an area for retouching, the retouch tool will magically get rid of the visor and replace it with blue sky.

First step in retouching

Additional artifacts were removed with either the brush or the lasso, resulting in the retouched image shown below.

Painteresque is just what it sounds like, a painting app that will apply a style of painterly treatment to an image. I had a specific "look" in mind for my finished image and knew that Painteresque would be a good choice. The screen shot below shows the image after Style Painteresque 2 was applied. As you can see, by selecting Style in Painteresque, you get a menu of style options. Experiment to see what is available. It is even possible to Fine Tune any of the styles but I accepted the default settings for the style. It is a bit "over the top" for the effect I wanted, but I knew that blending it with the retouched image in Image Blender would tone done the effect. So I saved it to the camera roll for continued processing.

The next screen shot shows the result of loading the retouched image into Blender (tutorial available) on the left side and the Painteresque processed image on the right side and blending using Normal blend with 60% of the Painteresque image in the blend.

The last step before signing with A+ Signature (tutorial available) was to take the blended image into Photo fx Ultra and apply a vignette using Lens/Vignette/Black Square at 50% amount and 100% softness as shown in the screen shot below. (The default amount is 100% amount which I find to be overpowering.)

One step not illustrated is the second iteration of using Touch Retouch to get rid of a strange looking spot in the sky that was exaggerated once the Painteresque style had been applied. The finished image is shown again below because I'm too lazy to code the link needed to go back to the top of the page.

Finished image of rice drying on the road in Cuba.

C&O Canal Boat, idle in Georgetown, DC

While wandering around Georgetown last Saturday before having lunch with a friend, I spotted this canal boat parked near 31st St NW. The light caught my eye even though I was quite certain the sunlight would "blow out" the white roof completely. I could see editing the image to take care of that and just maybe end up with something quite nice.

My iPhone tutorial posts will follow a general format of showing the starting and ending image at the start of the post, followed by the "expert" recipe. After the "expert" recipe, I'll show the step by step process. Please realize that these tutorials are really not intended to be a "go out and repeat this exactly" recipe but rather a tutorial to show one (sometimes two) possible processing paths for an image. Those of you unfamiliar with iPhone processing of images may not realize yet the HUGE number of apps available for post processing (both iPhone and iPad). My hope is that these tutorials will start you on a path of exploration to discover for yourselves the many possibilities there are for tuning your images into something that you envision when out exploring the world.

The top image (obtained by merging two exposures (shot with the native iP4 camera in HDR mode) using TrueHDR) is the starting point; the middle image is the image obtained from processing as outlined below through Step 6; the bottom image is the result of applying an effect to the Image from Step 2 in the outline below and blending that with the image processed through Step 5. (Note that the above images may be viewed larger size by clicking on any one of them.)

1. The two HDR exposures were merged with TrueHDR.
2. PerfectPhoto was used to sharpen, and de-noise the image (Image A in future steps).
3. The Ancient Canvas effect was applied using PhotoStudio HD and the image saved (Image B in future steps).
4. Blender was used to blend images A and B at 70% Normal Blend.
5. Pic Grunger was used to apply the "Scuffed" Effect at ~40% (Image C in future steps).
6. Image C was signed using A+ Signature.
7. One could stop at this point but I chose to try one other blend.
8. A Moku Hanga effect (will figure out which one at some point, experiment) was applied using a Preset that I saved some time ago and cannot recall exactly how I got it (danger of late night playing); result saved (Image D).
9. Images C and D were blended using the Luminosity Effect in Blender.
10. The result of the blend above was signed using A+ Signature.

I'm showing this because it amazed me to see the difference in the image after sharpening it and also using the Denoise option in PerfectPhoto; left image before sharpen and denoise were applied, right image after sharpen and denoise.

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Screen Shot of application of Ancient Canvas applied to image; saved image after application of Ancient Canvas.

The top image is the result of blending Image A and Image B using Normal Blend at 70%; masking was used to bring the Ancient Canvas effect onto the blown out white roof and leave the rest of the image relatively untouched; the bottom image is after application of the Scuffed effect (at 40%) to the blended image using Pic Grunger (Image C). (The signed Image C is not shown before continuing with additional post processing steps since it is the middle image in th set of three images at the top of the page.)

The top image is a screen shot of the application of a saved preset in Moku Hanga; the second image is the saved image (Image D) after application of that effect.

The top image is a screen shot of application of the Luminosity blend at 40% to Images C & D in Blender; the bottom image is the saved, blended image. (Again, the signed image is not included here because it is the third of the three images at the top of the page.)

How to blend two "blah" images into something nicer...

While stopping by a friend's garden, I noticed these Red Hot Poker flowers and decided to see what I could do with creating an image using them. Notice that the left image (referred to as Image 1) has nothing interesting on the far right and that the right image (Image 2) has a very boring background. However, I could visualize possibilities for a very nice image by combining elements of the two images into a single image. This tutorial will explain the process that I used to reach the following two possible end results. (As always, experienced iPhone photographers will probably find the detailed steps tedious but those of you new to iPhone photography and post processing might just learn a thing or two. At least that is what I hope!) Linking to Weekly Top Shots.

Steps in brief for the experts among you...

1. Images 1 and 2 were obtained by merging two images (shot with iPhone 4 native camera in HDR mode) in TrueHDR.
2. PerfectPhoto was used on Image 1 to Sharpen, Denoise and save the image.
3. PhotoForge was used to crop Image 2 and slightly rotate it so flower stems aligned with those in Image 1.
4. BlurFX was used to slightly blur Image 2 since it will be in the background in the final images.
5. Blender was used with masking and arranging to position Image 2 behind Image 1 and paint away the right side Image 1 to reveal parts of Image 2 that I wanted in the final blended image; blend at 100% to completely hide Image 1.
6. Retouch was used to remove parts of the image I found distracting.
7. Three painting apps were used on the blended image to achieve 3 different looks for further blending.
• Moku Hanga (later referred to as Moku image)
• Painteresque (later referred to as Painteresque image)
• AutoPainter Benson (later referred to as AutoPainter image)
8. The Painteresque image was blended at 20% Multiply (screen shot) with the Moku image.
9. The Painteresque image was also blended at 50% Normal with the AutoPainter image
10. Both end result images were signed with A+ Signature.

The top image is one option for final processing; the bottom image is a second (and preferred by me) option for the final image. Both processing paths will be explained in the following steps.

Image 2 has the Red Hot Poker flowers growing upright whereas Image 1 (shown as the first image above after the Sharpen and Denoise steps in PerfectPhoto had been performed) has them tilted (that's how they were growing in the garden). Because I wanted to use image 2 in the background of image 1 when I blended the images, I used the PhotoForge (not PhotoForge2) Crop Tool to crop and slightly rotate Image 2 using the 1° incremental arrows until the flower stems were angled similarly to those in Image 1 as shown in the PhotoForge screen shot above.

The cropped and rotated Image 2 (left image) was loaded into BlurFX and a slight bit of Gaussian Blur was applied to achieve the desired degree of 'out of focus' look for blending with Image 1. Hint about using BlurFX: Use the New button to load in an image; then select (if it isn't already selected) the Gaussian Blur effect and use the Threshold slider to tone down the blurriness (right image) until you are happy with the result.

Complete instructions for using Blender to blend and mask these two images to get the top image as the final result are on a separate page in the interest of keeping these instructions somewhat brief! The bottom image is after retouching (Retouch app) out some elements of the blended image that I found distracting.

Now for the fun part. Shown below are the results of using three different painting apps to achieve artistic effects that will be combined (again using Blender) to achieve two different looks for the blended image.

The image above shows a Moku HD (Moku Hanga on the iPad) painting effect applied to the blended image. This app seems to randomize the Style that is applied when you load an image into it. If you find a look you like by experimenting with the Styles and controls, you can save it as a Preset using the Share button and it will show up in Styles the next time you open Moku HD. It is possible to tune each Style by using the Adjust (to adjust brush effects), Paper and Border settings on the Style. I've found I like the Landscape Style with the border removed for MOST of the images I process (including this one) and have saved that as a preset.

The image above shows Painteresque processing of the blended image. Painteresque is very simple. There are no options for changing the effect on your image and no settings options. You either like what it does or you don't. I find it very interesting but somewhat overdone so almost always blend a Painteresque version of an image with another version of the same image to tone it down.

The image above shows application of the AutoPainter Benson effect to the blended image. I have the original AutoPainter app which has four effects. I've experimented A LOT with it and almost always come back to the Benson effect and apply that to my images before blending with another version of the same image.

On the left is a screen shot of Blender showing conditions of blending Painteresque image (loaded on the left in Blender) with the Moku HD image (loaded on the right in Blender); on the right is the saved output from this blend which was signed in A+ Signature to yield the result shown in the top one of the two images shown elsewhere.

On the left is a screen shot of Blender showing conditions of blending the Painteresque image (loaded on the left in Blender) with the AutoPainter Benson image (loaded on the right in Blender); on the right is the saved output from this blend which was signed in A+ Signature to yield the result shown in the bottom one of the two images shown elsewhere.

Great gory detail editing flowers... maybe more than you want!

This tutorial will tell you how to get from the original image (top image in the Diptic collage below) to the final image shown in the bottom half of the collage. Applications used include the native iPhone camera app (iPhone 4), Moku Hanga, Big Lens, Retouch, Impression and Snapseed. If you are experienced with some or all of these apps, you probably don't need the detailed explanation of some of the steps involved in producing the final image. If you are new to iPhone photo processing, you may want to follow my blog because I will be continuing to add tutorials as I find the time and will give detailed information wherever possible.

STEP 1 - Moku Hanga was used to apply the "Strong Color" effect at default settings as shown in the first image below. This was saved (second image below) and further processed (Steps 2-X) in

The image above was next taken into Big Lens and the flowers were selected to protect from blurring. Big Lens allows one to create a blurred bokeh effect by selecting the parts of the image one does NOT want blurred.

STEP 2: Use Big Lens to blur the background (the next six images show steps involved in GREAT detail with the image 2-a below showing a screen shot of Big Lens as it opens.

2-b: Rough selection of flowers; solid red shows selected area.

2-c: Touch the image with your thumb and one finger; sweep outward to blow up the image to a larger size to allow refinement of the selection. Touching the brush icon brings up a slider that allows you to size the brush as desired.

2-d: Don't worry too much if you color 'outside the lines.' Just select the eraser and clean up the outline.

2-e: Image after cleaning up the edge.

2-f: Once you are satisfied with the result of selecting the flowers (or whatever), click the right facing arrow in the upper right corner in image 2-e to get to this screen.

Note that you will no longer see red marking the selection but you will see the effect of blurring the background on the unmasked part of the image. Click the Aperture button at the lower left in image 2-f and use the slider or the Aperture icons to blur the background to the desired degree and save the image (shown below).

The next several steps taken with this image were performed using Snapseed.

STEP 3: Snapseed Selective Adjust is first used to tone down the brightness of the background. Image 3-a below shows the opening screen of Snapseed after loading the image.

3-b: Touch the "Selective Adjust" module on the upper right of the panel next to the image in 3-a; then select the circled + to Add a control point. (this screen shot shows the "Add" already selected)

3-c: Click this image if you are having trouble seeing the letter B in the blue circle in the lower left quadrant where I added it in the greenery, the area that I want to tone down. When you first add a control point, you will see a circle somewhere outside the letter B that is the area Snapseed will perform whatever selective adjustment you wish to perform on it. Sliding your finger up (or down) while holding the letter B will reveal that you may also choose to affect Saturation or Contrast instead of Brightness.

3-d: Manual dexterity was required to get this screen shot! To expand the area that will be affected by an added control point, put your finger and thumb on either side of the control point and use an outward sweeping motion to expand the circle. I managed to capture a screen shot showing the larger circle marked by a thin blue line. This is the area that will be impacted by any adjustments to BRIGHTNESS (as shown by the text below the image). If you haven't captured ALL of the area you wish to affect, you can add another control point. I added a second one in the upper right in the one area that wasn't grabbed by the first control point.

3-e: I was still not happy with the background after dialing back the brightness (-~60%) as previously described and shown below.

3-f: So after reducing the brightness, I then applied a Grunge filter at about 10% strength which left most of the middle of the image clear, clean and sharp but really toned down the distracting background.

3-g: Next I cropped (no image shown) and applied the Drama Bright 1 filter at about 40%.

3h: Next, used Retouch (not part of Snapseed, a separate app) to get rid of distracting bright spots below the flowers; note especially the small white spot below the middle flower.

STEP 4: The retouched image was then signed with Impression, giving me the finished product. It took me a LOT longer to write up this blog post than it did to do the editing described here.