Summer’s Fabulous Cat Life

Cat Model, Therapy Cat, and Cat Lifestyle Expert

  • Home
  • Diary
  • Kitty Wisdom
  • Catinees
  • Store
    • Cat Beds
    • Cat Stuff for Humans
      • Cat Calendars
      • Cat Gifts
      • Cat Jewelry for Humans
      • Cat Stationery
      • Cat T-Shirts
    • Cat Trees, Towers and Furniture
    • Designer Cat Collars
    • Interactive Cat Toys
    • Litterbox Furniture, Cabinets and Covers
    • Scratching Posts and Cat Scratchers
    • Special Items for Special Kittys
  • Advice
  • Book Reviews
  • About
  • Contact Summer
    • -Advertise Here!
  • Privacy Policy
  • Fan Club
You are here: Home / Kitty Wisdom / Caturday Art: Fun With iPhone Apps

Caturday Art: Fun With iPhone Apps

March 1, 2014 By: Sparkle Cat32 Comments

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:

Ha! I bet SHE'D love it if I posted an unretouched photo of her!

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:

Yes, she remembered to take out the eye booger

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:

If she took some time with this in Photoshop, she could make it look even more realistic

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:

Expect to see some sketch items in my Zazzle shop soon!

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!

Visit Athena for more Caturday Art!

* * *

Subscribe to my blog posts here!

2022 Somali Cat Starring Summer Samba Calendar
2022 Somali Cat Calendar Starring Summer Samba
See all of Summer’s merch at her her Zazzle Designercat Shop
Share33
Tweet
Pin13
Buffer
Pocket
Email
46 Shares

Comments

  1. Tiffany & The Cattle Aussies says

    April 9, 2014 at 10:51 am

    ALL of those effects look great!

    Reply
  2. Amelia Hughes says

    March 3, 2014 at 4:52 pm

    LOVE the sketch app! Great photos edits Sparkle!

    Reply
  3. Savannah's Paw Tracks says

    March 3, 2014 at 12:46 pm

    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

    Reply
  4. Penelope says

    March 2, 2014 at 1:29 pm

    Your mommy is so furry talented!
    Kisses
    Nellie

    Reply
  5. Georgia and Julie says

    March 2, 2014 at 7:50 am

    We like #2 🙂 paint peel
    Purrs Georgia and Julie,
    Treasure,JJ
    and Angels Tiger and Tillie

    Reply
  6. Marty the Manx says

    March 2, 2014 at 7:05 am

    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

    Reply
  7. Sweet Purrfections says

    March 1, 2014 at 10:26 pm

    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.

    Reply
  8. Spitty the Kitty says

    March 1, 2014 at 7:51 pm

    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?

    Reply
  9. Baby Tali says

    March 1, 2014 at 7:22 pm

    I likes the gouache and the sketch the bestest..you haves beautiful eyes Miss Sparkle.. 😉

    Reply
  10. The Island Cats says

    March 1, 2014 at 4:14 pm

    Wow, what cool effects, Sparkle. That picture looks so different with each effect.

    Reply
  11. Sue Brandes says

    March 1, 2014 at 3:02 pm

    Those are so cool.

    Reply
  12. Caren Gittleman says

    March 1, 2014 at 2:54 pm

    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!

    Reply
  13. Pawesome Cats says

    March 1, 2014 at 2:18 pm

    Such beautiful variations, I especially like the gouache effect, which highlights your magnificent green eyes. Happy Caturday!

    Reply
  14. Layla Morgan Wilde (Cat Wisdom 101) says

    March 1, 2014 at 12:55 pm

    Loved these esp. the gouache effect and very gracious of you to appear au naturel.

    Reply
  15. Clooney says

    March 1, 2014 at 12:49 pm

    Wow, love that pic with the “gouache” filter, absolutely beautiful!

    Reply
  16. Maxwell, Faraday & Allie says

    March 1, 2014 at 11:53 am

    Way cool effects! You look very Renaissance Master in the paint peel one!

    Reply
  17. Carlos the Cat says

    March 1, 2014 at 11:10 am

    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 😀

    Reply
  18. Flynn says

    March 1, 2014 at 10:19 am

    Those are great effects. I like the gouache filter the best.

    Reply
  19. Grace says

    March 1, 2014 at 8:51 am

    I have Snapseed! I love the first photo because of your eyes – how beautiful! And the final product is very artsy…

    Reply
  20. Cathy Keisha says

    March 1, 2014 at 7:25 am

    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.

    Reply
  21. Sometimes, Cats Herd You says

    March 1, 2014 at 7:20 am

    Oh, that last one really is a great sketch effect!

    Reply
  22. prancer pie says

    March 1, 2014 at 6:44 am

    How cool! We love the close-ups of your pretty face, Sparkle! 😀

    Reply
  23. Austin Towers says

    March 1, 2014 at 6:28 am

    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!

    Reply
  24. Brian Frum says

    March 1, 2014 at 6:05 am

    Those are all great Sparkle! My paws never do too goid with photo apps.

    Reply
  25. The Swiss Cats says

    March 1, 2014 at 5:36 am

    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

    Reply
  26. Hannah and Lucy says

    March 1, 2014 at 4:46 am

    We really liked the how your eyes looked in the second picture best.
    Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx

    Reply
  27. Marg says

    March 1, 2014 at 4:38 am

    We like the sketch photo the best. The Paint one makes you look cracked Sparkle. And we know you aren’t cracked. Take care.

    Reply
  28. The Kitties of Purring Pines says

    March 1, 2014 at 3:29 am

    Wow, those are cool!

    Reply
  29. speedyrabbit says

    March 1, 2014 at 3:06 am

    these are great Sparkle,xx Speedy

    Reply
  30. Athena says

    March 1, 2014 at 3:01 am

    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!

    Reply
  31. Kjelle Bus aka Charlie Rascal says

    March 1, 2014 at 1:08 am

    My mom-person is a little crazy about playing with different photo apps.
    The paint peel effect is really COOL !

    Happy CATurday :mrgreen:
    XOXO

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Caturday Art: The Doorway Edition | Sparkle the Designer Cat says:
    March 8, 2014 at 12:11 am

    […] really liked all the effects of my Caturday Art last week, but the only problem is that most phone apps — and phone photos — are […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow Me Here!

  • Bloglovin
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Our Sponsor

Get Summer’s Newsletter!

Stay up to date and get subscriber-only exclusives!

Sign Up For Summer’s Weekly Newsletter!

My Zazzle Store!

Buy from Sparkle's Zazzle Store
T-Shirts, cards, mugs and more!

Summer on Video

Tweets by @sparklecat
Powered by Dealspotr
Read my blog on Kindle
Winner Best Cat Blog Dogtime Petties 2014 Winner Best Cat Blog Dogtime Petties 2010 I won Best Blog Post!
BlogPaws 2016 Nose-to-Nose Awards Finalist badge

Copyright © 2022 ·