"Leaf": An iPhoneography Tutorial

Creating “something from nothing” in Five Quick Steps!

In his new iPhoneography tutorial, David Hayes shows us how to take a picture that is “not bad” but not great either, and turn it into something interesting and unique. These simple step-by-step instructions are ideal if you want to try something new on your iPhone or are new to digital art!

One of the things I’ve learned to do quite religiously is to go through my camera roll libraries and delete any images that I don’t feel make the cut. Otherwise I would soon be overwhelmed with images…and out of memory! I tend to do this sort of thing while waiting for an appointment or watching the evening news on television. My rule is…if I have to think about keeping an image or not…it gets deleted!

Now…after saying this, I always come across a couple of images that look interesting enough to keep… and use as subjects for future studies or try-outs of new apps. “Leaf” is one of those images. Not a great image…but just enough so to play with when I needed to kill some time!

I used Photoshop Express, ShockMyPic, FX Photo Studio, and Snapseed in this tutorial.

This is the image I started with (above)…captured with my iphone4 native camera app with an Olloclip macro lens attached. I did a quick square crop in Photoshop Express and saved this version.

Open ShockMyPic, tap on the screen to open your camera roll library, tap on the image and…

ShockMyPic starts processing right away!

Giving me this version of my original image. This is cool…but I know there’s more I could do. Besides, I was just getting warmed up!!

Saving this, I closed ShockMyPic and opened FX Photo Studio.

Once in FX Photo Studio, I didn’t waste time…I clicked on Categories (A), clicked on Vintage (B), used the slider bars below the image to make the necessary adjustments…and clicked on Apply (C).

I can never only use one FX Photo Studio filter…so repeating the pattern…clicked on Categories (A), Textures/Rough Fabric (B), and Apply (C). Getting a hold of myself, I decided that two was enough…so I clicked on Share (D) to save.

And did so!

Taking a look at what I had so far, I decided it needed a “Rough Fabric” type of edge. Knowing the FX Photo Studio didn’t have such an edge filter, I moved on to another favorite app, Snapseed.

With Snapseed open, I clicked on Organic Frames…

I then chose Frame 4 (A), adjusted Frame Width (B), and clicked on Apply (C) to finish. As this was all I needed to do, I saved this final version to my camera roll! Done!! I think that was five steps…maybe six. In any case, this didn’t take me long to complete and it was fun watching the image evolve from “nothing to something”!

I hope you found this tutorial interesting and helpful! Please do not be shy about leaving comments, feedback, questions, etc. I would appreciate hearing from you!

The Recipe Book Project – September, 2012 edition
September 19, 2012

I would also like to mention the collaborative project that I host each month on my blog, Clearer Reflections. Although the project has been on summer hiatus, I am once again creating “space” on my blog come September 19^th for participants to post their images and the “recipes” on how they created them. This is a great chance to share…and to learn from each other. I invited you to check out the details at The Recipe Book Project …and join in. I will be posting more information about the September edition on my blog as well in the near future. I hope to see your image and recipes!!

Check out David’s previous iPhoneography tutorials:

Exposed: An iPhoneography Tutorial Using “Picture Show”

Once Upon a Time: An iPhoneography Tutorial for Altering Photos

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