When my human first got her Instagram account, she went crazy with downloading iPhone photo apps and adding all sorts of filters to her photos. These days, she’s calmed down a bit and has gone back to Rule One of digital photo art (note – this is a rule she made up): there has to be a purpose behind the effect. Does this effect do something that adds interest to the image? Is it evoking an emotion from the viewer? Is it enhancing this photo in any way? And if not, then why use it? So she scrolled through her iPhone photos to find one of me that she thought might do well with extra added effects.
Here is the one she picked, completely unretouched, with eye booger and chin acne included:
The first thing my human did with the photo was use the Snapseed app to crop it to a 1:1 ratio (square) and make minor adjustments to contrast and ambiance. Sadly, she could not remove the eye booger — she had to do that in Photoshop after she added the effects. That’s not to say that there aren’t retouching apps that can do that — she just hasn’t looked into it yet. She is very serious about her apps and it takes her a while to pick out the ones she thinks are the best.
After she adjusted the photo in Snapseed, she randomly picked the Sketch Guru app and added a “gouache” filter. Right away, she was pleased with the effect, and even though she tried some others, it was the only one she was happy with for this particular photo:
Next she took the same adjusted photo and opened it up in the Picfx app. The cool thing about this app is that you can easily adjust the effects and layer them on top of each other. Of course, my human didn’t do any of that. She just added an effect called “Paint Peel” and decided it didn’t need anything more! Paint Peel is one of those effects that just stands on its own. It’s really strong and doing too many other things to the image would be overkill:
Now for the last filter. You might remember that the first time I joined this blog hop, it was with a sketch app. My human decided to revisit that effect with this photo, using the first sketch app she ever downloaded. It’s called… wait for it… Sketch! Out of the sketch apps she has used so far, it creates the most realistic looking sketch effects. The only problem is that if you want to use one of their colored backgrounds, like a parchment paper or a lined paper, it doesn’t look realistic. So my human just used a white background and took it into Photoshop, where she created a simple ivory canvas texture and put the image on top of that. Then she changed the blend mode of the layer with the sketch image on it to “Multiply,” and that made all the white parts transparent. She also touched up some of the edges of the sketch to make them look better and, thankfully, removed the eye booger:
One note about using these apps — when you are done and you are uploading the photos from your smart phone or emailing them to yourself, use the largest size possible! That will help you retain the best quality, and if you want to do something more with the photo than just post it on the internet, like print it out or put it on a mug or something, it will look much better!
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ALL of those effects look great!
LOVE the sketch app! Great photos edits Sparkle!
woo hoo…Mom is getting those apps NOW so she can play with my photos while she is on her biz trip to your part of CA…Irvine
Your mommy is so furry talented!
Kisses
Nellie
We like #2 🙂 paint peel
Purrs Georgia and Julie,
Treasure,JJ
and Angels Tiger and Tillie
Those are really cool. Hopefully mom will learn how to use her I-phone better and do some fun things too. Thanks for the inspiration Sparkle!
Marty
Mom Paula is starting to experiment with PhotoShop and has found that when there is an “odd” colored photo of us where she can’t quite get the fur color right, she will change it to black and white and the effects are amazing.
Wow–your Human obviously cares more than mine about making the Kitty look good. Honestly, I’m lucky if the picture is (mostly) in focus and my eye boogers are ‘shopped out. Mostly, she uses Photoshop for vacuuming. Sigh. I wish YOUR Human would take MY pictures. A Boy can dream, eh?
I likes the gouache and the sketch the bestest..you haves beautiful eyes Miss Sparkle.. 😉
Wow, what cool effects, Sparkle. That picture looks so different with each effect.
Those are so cool.
sparkle those are pawtastic! Thanks for the tips and the tips about uploading the largest size possible. That’s not something I usually do, but I will, now that you said that!
Such beautiful variations, I especially like the gouache effect, which highlights your magnificent green eyes. Happy Caturday!
Loved these esp. the gouache effect and very gracious of you to appear au naturel.
Wow, love that pic with the “gouache” filter, absolutely beautiful!
Way cool effects! You look very Renaissance Master in the paint peel one!
Looks cool! My humans was a bit the same, first she went bananas with the filters and stuff, now she’s been too lazy to use any 😀
Those are great effects. I like the gouache filter the best.
I have Snapseed! I love the first photo because of your eyes – how beautiful! And the final product is very artsy…
I LOVE all those effects. TW doesn’t have a mobile phone anymore, believe it or not. It was repossessed. We love the paint peel effect and the one above it looks like a painting.
Oh, that last one really is a great sketch effect!
How cool! We love the close-ups of your pretty face, Sparkle! 😀
So cool, Sparkle! You have given The Staff some ideas – which is all I need. However the eye booger removal tool should be standard, I feel!
Those are all great Sparkle! My paws never do too goid with photo apps.
The Paint Peel kill us ! Does your mom usually take the photos only with her iPhone or does she have another camera ? We ask because your blog pictures are always gorgeous, and mum’s pictures (only with iPhone) are not so often gorgeous you see… Purrs
We really liked the how your eyes looked in the second picture best.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
We like the sketch photo the best. The Paint one makes you look cracked Sparkle. And we know you aren’t cracked. Take care.
Wow, those are cool!
these are great Sparkle,xx Speedy
My mum recently got an iPhone and she went a bit mad downloading those apps too. But she tells me she prefers working on her laptop.
Thanks for this informative post and great pics!
My mom-person is a little crazy about playing with different photo apps.
The paint peel effect is really COOL !
Happy CATurday
XOXO