American Cheesesteak Photography

*A guest post by David Hayes.

A piece of America…

Several years ago my wife and I were visiting Traverse City, Michigan just before their annual Cherry Festival. Much to our disappointment we were leaving the day it opened…so on our final day we took the opportunity to quietly stroll through the fair grounds as I took pictures. This image is a result of that walk through. In this month’s article I’d like to share with you how I created my image, Cheesesteak, using Stackables.

Here’s my source image after I did a bit of cropping and touch-ups using the app PS Express and Handy Photo. I like using both of these apps for such things…they’re quick and very efficient!

Opening the image in Stackables, I was given the opportunity to do a quick crop and change my file type using the controls at the top and bottom of the screen. As I didn’t need to do either of these things, I tapped on the Check icon to start the processing.

For my first Layer, I went to the first group of filters. From this group I picked Lacerations. (A) I then tapped on the Blend modes (B) to open this menu.

I settled on Hard Light (A) at 100% (B). With this Layer in place, I then tapped on the “+” icon (C) to add my next Layer.

Moving to the second group of filters (A) for Layer 2, I chose Harbor Light.(B) As with the first layer, I then tapped on the Blend modes (C) to open this menu.

I used Hard Light (A) at 50% (B). I tapped on the “+” icon (C) to add Layer 3!

This time I went to the fifth set of filters (A) for Layer 3 using Color Adjust (B). This gave me access to the controls at the bottom of the screen. (C) Here I adjusted the image’s Contrast to 20%, Sharpness to 80%, and Brightness to 27%. With all this done, it was time to add one more layer. (D)

Staying with the same set of filters (A), I picked Grain (B) with a Blend mode of Screen at 15%. (C) All done! Saved to my Camera Roll!!