Sean Duggan Blog

Making Photo Books on Your Phone with Simple Prints

One thing that all mobile photographers have in common, or any photographer working with digital cameras (which is, arguably, most photographers these days!) is that we primarily interact with our photos on a screen; a phone or tablet screen, or a computer display. Freeing your images from their digital state and turning them into something tangible you can hold in your hand and appreciate apart from a device screen is a great way to enhance your enjoyment of your photography.

In the current episode of Mobile Photography Weekly, my regular series at LinkedIn Learning / Lynda.com, we take a look at the Simple Prints app (available for iOS and Android) that makes it very easy to create photo books right from your phone. This episode is on view through the end of day Monday May 29th. A new episode of Mobile Photography Weekly is published each Tuesday.

If you're not already a Lynda.com subscriber, here's a link for a 30-Day Free Trial so you can check out th rest of the 45 episodes of Mobile Photography Weekly, some of my other 20 conline courses on Photoshop and digital photography, or some of the literally thousands of excellent courses on a variety of topics.

Simple Prints for iOS    |     Simple Prints for Android

New Mobile Photography Weekly

New this week on Mobile Photography Weekly, my regular series at LinkedIn Learning / Lynda.com, we take a look at an app called Instagrids, which offers a variety of way you can create a custom image grid for your Instagram profile.

There's a new episode each Tuesday and you can always watch the current week's installment without a Lynda.com subscription. But if you want to see the rest f the 40 (and counting) episodes, or check out any of the thousands of excellent courses at Lynda.com, here's a link for a Free 30-Day Trial.

 

Mobile Compositing Workshop in Mill Valley, CA

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area (or plan to be in the vicinity in mid June), I have a hands-on workshop coming up at The Image Flow in Mill Valley on June 17, where I'll be sharing my techniques and workflow for Creating Collage & Composite Images on iPhones & iPads. We'll explore a variety of cool apps (some that are also available on Android) and explore strategies for using selections, masking, layers, and blend modes to create composites right on your mobile devices. Join me for an inspiring and creative day! Creating Collage and Composite Images on iPhones & iPads. 

 

New California Cell Phone Driving Law

Golden Gate Bridge on a Foggy Day (iPhone)
August, 2011
(click in the image for a larger version)

New California Law: No Handheld Cell Phone Use While Driving
Attention California Drivers...(and other drivers who should look into the laws in their states taking effect this weekend):  There is a new cell phone/driving law taking effect in California on Sunday, Jan 1st, 2017. No hand-held use of the phone while driving....PERIOD. In the past, the law was limited to making calls and texting, but now it refers to ANY cell phone use. When I drive, I have a hands-free set-up for answering any incoming calls, and I do not use the phone for texting, checking email, Facebook, etc.... (not using the phone for those latter uses seems a pretty obvious no-brainer).

But I am making this post as a photographer and, as a photographer, I must confess that I have certainly been guilty of taking occasional photos now and then while in the car, such as the image above of the Golden Gate Bridge, taken while there was very little traffic surrounding me (empty lanes opposite me and no cars near me in the southbound lane as I crossed the span), but I only do so when I deem it safe based on the road and traffic conditions at the time (though, of course, depending on your view of that practice, this is, understandably, up for debate). This law is focused on cell phones only and does not address the many other potentially distracting in-car activities, like consuming food, loading music CDs (if you're old school in your music listening practices...as I am w/ some of my music), or attending to children.

Here's a link to an article about the New California Cell Phone Driving Law.

iPhone 7 Plus Portrait Mode

Swimming in the Garden of Dreams (iPhone 7 Plus, Portrait Mode)
December, 2016
(click in the image to see a larger version)

The Portrait mode on the iPhone 7+ is still officially a beta feature and there is certainly room for improvement. But the name of the feature may be a bit misleading, because it is useful for much more than just portraits. In this shot of a tabletop still life, it did a nice job of blurring the branches in the background (seen through a window) to create a dreamy feel to the image. You can see the original color image below. For this final image, Snapseed was used to convert to black and white and apply additional perimeter blurring and other localized processing. Minor retouching was also done in Adobe Photoshop Fix. All edits were made on the iPhone. 

Kicking the Tires on the New Photoshop

This week on TheFIX on This Week in Photo (TWIP) we kick the tires on the new Photoshop CC 2015.5 and take it for a spin to check out the some of the new features of most interest to photographers: Content-Aware Crop, which fills in the empty spaces on the edges that can result when straightening an image, or adding canvas via cropping; the new Select & Mask task space, which represents a significant upgrade to what used to be the Refine Edge and Refine Mask dialogs; and the new Face-Aware panel in the Liquify filter, which recognizes facial features like the eyes, nose, mouth, forehead and chin and allows you to make subtle (or not so subtle) modifications. Part of the "Kicking the Tires" philosophy is to not just show a demo of a new feature on an image where we know it will work, but to try it out on several images, to see where it works well and where it might have problems. Here's a link to the episode.

Snowy April Dogwoods from 11 Years Ago

Snowy Dogwoods  •  April 8, 2005
(click in the image to se a larger version)

Today is Tuesday and this particular Tuesday marks the return of Time Machine Tuesday. On these occasional forays into the past I try to chose an image from either the same date, or around the same time of year from at last one year in the past (and bonus points for myself if I find one from more than 10 years ago!). For this week I did pretty good on that; today's image is from April 8th, 2005...almost eleven years ago to the day.

Early April this year could not be more different! Today, like eleven years ago, the dogwoods in the yard are blooming, but instead of cold and snow, we have a beautiful Spring day with temperatures well above normal. As I write this late in the afternoon, it is currently 75˚, and tomorrow's high is supposed to hit 84˚. Shirt sleeve and shorts weather here in the Sierra foothills. Really and truly! If my work schedule allowed for it, I could even lie out and probably get a start on my summer tan. Of course, weather in the mountains and foothills in the spring can be fickle, and by Friday, the high temperature is forecast to be 25 degrees cooler than tomorrow's high. 

Another thing that is different now is that this dogwood tree, sadly, no longer exists (apart from a low stump on the lawn). It developed some form of blight or other tree sickness and the arborists we consulted said that little could be done. It was cut down and the wood from it eventually warmed us on subsequent winters when we burned it on our wood-burning stove. We've since planted other dogwoods, but I do miss its cheerful rosy blossoms.

This particular image was eventually licensed as the cover for a textbook on the Principles of Organic Chemistry (somewhere I have a copy, but I cannot find it now to include a photo of it). I'm guessing that the organic chemists out there might understand the visual metaphor for why this particular photo would work as the cover photo for such a textbook. Or maybe the book designers just wanted a pretty picture.

In any case, while searching for other photos for another project I am working on, I came upon this image and since the date was perfect for a Time Machine Tuesday entry, I figured it must be a sign and so I went with it.

I hope that your Tuesday has been a good one!