Ric’s journey without direction

[ric alexander]

ImageArt - I’m working out that the develop section in affinity or should I say personna? gives Most of what Lightroom does. I’m gonna start watching tutorials now on quick masking etc o get up to speed. I’m aiming to see if I can replicate what I do in snapseed, with affinity, even if it does take a longer route.

Can you tell I’m bored? Just playing with photos that wouldn’t see the light of day and I’m playing with muted colour in images.

affinity photo. Tonemap, curves and levels to paint light

 

[terse]

Well ive made the leap and bought an Ipad Air. I was going to go Pro, but as I wont be using the camera as such, thought id keep it portable. Got a pen too, so some deep diving of images coming up! Any ipad specific apps I should be aware of ?

The only iPad-specific app I have loaded is Affinity Photo, I think, but I mainly use that just for stacking. Otherwise, my main apps all work on phone and pad both: Pixelmator Photo, Snapseed, ACDSee Pro, Lightroom (free version), iColorama, DistressedFX, etc.

 

[zenjenny]

. Got a pen too, so some deep diving of images coming up! Any ipad specific apps I should be aware of ?

You bought the Apple Pencil ? Fairly recent purchase for me (with my iPad Pro) and it’s heaven on a stick. If you do any drawing or painting on your iPad you’ll love it.

 

[zenjenny]

I am I love with my mini. So portable!

Portable yes - I didn’t anticipate how easily I could leave the iPad Air (my constant companion) at home. The Air is getting very hard to charge and quick to run out of charge and I realise I’m unlikely to replace it.

 

[WOTANICUS]

You bought the Apple Pencil ? Fairly recent purchase for me (with my iPad Pro) and it’s heaven on a stick. If you do any drawing or painting on your iPad you’ll love it.

Yep - got a third party stylus, with all the functionality of the Apple Pencil, for a fraction of the cost. Also discovered a gorgeous 'traditional media' art app called Tayasui Sketches https://tayasui.com/sketches/ - combined with the pencil, its reminded me how much fun sketching is.

 

[WOTANICUS]

ImageArt - I’m working out that the develop section in affinity or should I say personna? gives Most of what Lightroom does. I’m gonna start watching tutorials now on quick masking etc o get up to speed. I’m aiming to see if I can replicate what I do in snapseed, with affinity, even if it does take a longer route.

Can you tell I’m bored? Just playing with photos that wouldn’t see the light of day and I’m playing with muted colour in images.

affinity photo. Tonemap, curves and levels to paint light

View attachment 182750

so remind me - what are you using for the tonemapping? Affinity?

 

[Starzee]

Well ive made the leap and bought an Ipad Air. I was going to go Pro, but as I wont be using the camera as such, thought id keep it portable. Got a pen too, so some deep diving of images coming up! Any ipad specific apps I should be aware of ?

I have hundreds………..

 

[Starzee]

Portable yes - I didn’t anticipate how easily I could leave the iPad Air (my constant companion) at home. The Air is getting very hard to charge and quick to run out of charge and I realise I’m unlikely to replace it.

My iPad Pro is acting that way. It’s nearly constantly plugged in. I’ll probably replace that in fall when the new one comes out. ( Yes, I’ve got an Apple problem)

 

[zenjenny]

Yep - got a third party stylus, with all the functionality of the Apple Pencil, for a fraction of the cost. Also discovered a gorgeous 'traditional media' art app called Tayasui Sketches https://tayasui.com/sketches/ - combined with the pencil, its reminded me how much fun sketching is.

Tayasui sketches was my first paint/draw app. It’s lovely, but for me not as intuitive as SketchClub.
Then there’s Procreate of course. In all the years I’ve intended to learn my way around it (both versions) the greatest distance between opening it and hyperventilating is about five minutes.

(I blame you, Starzee - you once airily passed on the link for a ‘really basic’ procreate tutorial, ‘she breaks it down to really simple steps’, you said . . . I was lost inside ten minutes).

 

[zenjenny]

My iPad Pro is acting that way. It’s nearly constantly plugged in. I’ll probably replace that in fall when the new one comes out. ( Yes, I’ve got an Apple problem)

How old is it? How long are they ‘supposed’ to last? I use my iPad every day, sometimes for hours (they’re good days ) Ive learned to expect max three years before the battery starts to falter or the charging port gets flakey. My phones’ batteries and charging mechs on the other hand seem to last forever, much lighter use.
And changing a battery in the phone at home isn’t a major drama, but changing an iPad battery is. Damn shame.

 

[ric alexander]

so remind me - what are you using for the tonemapping? Affinity?

Yes. I’m experimenting a lot with affinity.

 

[Starzee]

Tayasui sketches was my first paint/draw app. It’s lovely, but for me not as intuitive as SketchClub.
Then there’s Procreate of course. In all the years I’ve intended to learn my way around it (both versions) the greatest distance between opening it and hyperventilating is about five minutes.

(I blame you, Starzee - you once airily passed on the link for a ‘really basic’ procreate tutorial, ‘she breaks it down to really simple steps’, you said . . . I was lost inside ten minutes).

Er, sorry about that….. I still can’t figure out SketchClub. And I’d really like to. You get fab results!

 

[ric alexander]

Ok, so ICM technique, meets tonemap, meets my paint style. I think I’ve found something I like here.
same lady as I posted before but different angle.

all done with affinity photo. Would love any feedback off this one.

 

[Starzee]

How old is it? How long are they ‘supposed’ to last? I use my iPad every day, sometimes for hours (they’re good days ) Ive learned to expect max three years before the battery starts to falter or the charging port gets flakey. My phones’ batteries and charging mechs on the other hand seem to last forever, much lighter use.
And changing a battery in the phone at home isn’t a major drama, but changing an iPad battery is. Damn shame.

I’m thinking it’s at least 3 years old.

 

[terse]

The Air is getting very hard to charge and quick to run out of charge and I realise I’m unlikely to replace it.

It's probably the battery, but be sure to clean out the Lightning port, just in case. They can fill up with lint and keep the cord from making full contact. Just need a toothpick and maybe a flashlight and your reading glasses. I haven't yet had to replace the battery on an iPad, but I've checked the instructions at iFixIt, and it looks trickier than a phone, for sure.

 

[terse]

Ok, so ICM technique, meets tonemap, meets my paint style. I think I’ve found something I like here.
same lady as I posted before but different angle.

all done with affinity photo. Would love any feedback off this one.

View attachment 182798

Interesting result. You should definitely fool around with this some more (this technique, I mean).

 

[ric alexander]

Interesting result. You should definitely fool around with this some more (this technique, I mean).

Fast coming to the conclusion that its a lot of work to even try getting close to ICM using apps.
Might be a lot easier and fin doing it in-camera rather than editing. Gonna look up some tutorials on it. Slow shutter cam seems to be the more popular one

 

[WOTANICUS]

Ok, so ICM technique, meets tonemap, meets my paint style. I think I’ve found something I like here.
same lady as I posted before but different angle.

all done with affinity photo. Would love any feedback off this one.

View attachment 182798

I really like it, but the ICM effect detracts slightly from the figure. However, it does have a great 'ghostly' vibe to it

 

[sinnerjohn]

Ok, so ICM technique, meets tonemap, meets my paint style. I think I’ve found something I like here.
same lady as I posted before but different angle.

all done with affinity photo. Would love any feedback off this one.

View attachment 182798

As Bill says, ghostly is a good description. Does it work? Maybe not for me so much but I'm no authority.
What made you want to 'fake' ICM as it were? Slow Shutter Cam or Bluristic will do a good job, depending what you're actually after.

 

[terse]

Fast coming to the conclusion that its a lot of work to even try getting close to ICM using apps.
Might be a lot easier and fin doing it in-camera rather than editing. Gonna look up some tutorials on it. Slow shutter cam seems to be the more popular one

You can get some ICM-like effects in editing apps, but not all. For example, this image of mine was a straight shot with motion blur added in Leonardo (plus some coloring elsewhere).

You can see the motion blur part of it is not complicated and serves to reinforce the already vertical look of the grasses. A go-with-the-flow sort of editing.

 

[ric alexander]

As Bill says, ghostly is a good description. Does it work? Maybe not for me so much but I'm no authority.
What made you want to 'fake' ICM as it were? Slow Shutter Cam or Bluristic will do a good job, depending what you're actually after.

It’s just exploring. I want to see if I can recreate images I’ve seen on instagram for instance, but I see ted has put an example down so it’s obvious im not working on the right direction.

 

[ric alexander]

You can get some ICM-like effects in editing apps, but not all. For example, this image of mine was a straight shot with motion blur added in Leonardo (plus some coloring elsewhere).

You can see the motion blur part of it is not complicated and serves to reinforce the already vertical look of the grasses. A go-with-the-flow sort of editing.

Well that’s a lot closer to what I’ve been seeing online. I’m impressed. Really thinking the direction I’m taking is too extreme and asking too much of an image.

 

[terse]

Slow shutter cam seems to be the more popular one

Slow Shutter Cam (the one from CogiTap -- there's a bunch with almost the same name) has been around a long time, and it works, so many people use it. But a number of the better cam apps have added good slow shutter modes in the past year or two: Pro Camera by Moment, Camera+ 2, and ProCam, for example. If you have one of those, it might be all you need.

 

[sinnerjohn]

Well that’s a lot closer to what I’ve been seeing online. I’m impressed. Really thinking the direction I’m taking is too extreme and asking too much of an image.

If you look on IG #ICM I'd say 80% of images posted are nature related, trees, seascapes, landscapes etc. I might be being presumptuous but I wouldn't have said that was your bag Ric. Are you trying to incorporate icm into street?

 

[terse]

Well that’s a lot closer to what I’ve been seeing online. I’m impressed. Really thinking the direction I’m taking is too extreme and asking too much of an image.

My experience has been (and I'm sure someone can come along and prove me wrong) that when you're adding ICM-like effects in post-processing, you're constrained by what the image offers you. And directional blur effects seem (to me) to work best when the starting image has some noticeable horizontal or vertical lines that the blur can reinforce (like Roxanne Overton's images, which frequently have both).

In-camera ICM, on the other hand, can give you all kinds of crazy/exciting stuff as you wave the camera around. It's a surprise in every shot. It also means, for me, that I throw away 99% of those shots when I review them . The promising ones I then edit to try to reinforce their interesting qualities.

And I think it was ImageArt (maybe?) who mentioned somewhere that you can take a straight image, duplicate it, apply motion blur to one of the copies, and then blend the two to get a very nice effect.