iPhone Photography Workflow

While we’re on the subject of iPhone photography, I thought I’d show you my workflow for editing my pictures.  Like I said in the previous post, once you know the ins and outs of each app – I can have a photo from taking it to uploading it with edits in between in a matter of minutes.  Way faster than the long hours I can spend editing a shoot on Photoshop when I shoot with my D40!

The great thing about using the different apps is that each layer you add saves so if you want to start with a previous version and start over, you don’t lose your original.

Let’s start with camera shy Binx. Photographing an all black cat with a camera phone can be a trick.  Here he was actually sitting next to our side window in our living room.  We have a tower fan sitting in front of it and as it rotated, it made the light jump around on this pillow so Binx was fascinated.  The problem is how overblown the photo gets when I click on Binx to get the camera to focus.  Darn that black fur!  But it is soo soft so I will forgive him.

Next I hope over to PicFX which has you square crop the photo – I’m able to get rid of some of the blown out corner without completely losing Binx and the pillow.  I added a Bokeh effect because well…I like it.  And that’s what I feel a lot of photography is about – I’m the one who is looking at it the most, I better like it!

The next step is Instagram.  I’d been planning on uploaded it as is after PicFX but it still felt a little cold to me so I played around with the Insta filters until I liked one and VOILA!  I could have also used PS Express to work on that corner a little bit, but since the focus was the cat, I left it alone.  Total edit time?  Probably about 3 minutes.  And most of that was spent playing around in PicFX because I just got it and love playing around with all the filters!

Seth and I were downtown today and as we were walking back to the car, Seth commented about how neat the skyline was from this vantage point.  I quickly snapped a picture and kept walking.  Now you might say, Becky – why did you not zoom in to get rid of those unsightly vehicles?  Well, I have learned with zooming you sacrifice picture quality.  I’d rather take the shot and crop in later than zoom in and end up with a poor quality picture.

Next I imported the photo into Camera+.  The Clarity option just gives photos a little extra pop – similar to running the Fresh and Colorful action from Pioneer Woman with Photoshop.  While I liked the original photo as is, this just sharpens it up a little and makes the colors a little more saturated.

Last, I head over to PicFX and throw a filter on it and then upload it with Instagram.  I don’t filter a photo unless I love the picture sans filter (otherwise I feel like I’m trying to force a bad picture to look good – which often fails!).  This picture, I loved as is, but once I cropped it in and saw it with this filter- I loved it a lot! Total editing time? Less than 2 minutes.

So there you have it.  Hopefully if you are new to iPhone photography, this gives you a few ideas on how to get started with all the editing options out there!  If you are an iPhone veteran – what photo apps/editing tricks could you not live without?!