Fearless Friday – Smartphone Photography Apps

Just for something a little different, in celebration of my new smart phone (it’s so nice to have a non cracked screen and buttons that all work again), I have been playing with my lovely 20.7 mega pixel camera, one of the features that drew me to this phone. Then I decided I need some updated photo apps……you know, the more grown up type ones, not just filters and adding silly hats or making people old, fat, babies etc. Actually add ons that I can use with my photography. It was Sue Judd and her Sketches of Sicily which got me started on this road, I so loved her images, they inspired me to take another look at my quickie snaps, I have a better idea with photography now, lighting, composition, framing etc. I know it’s the artist and not the camera (well in some circumstances), people take amazing shots with their smartphone cameras, so I thought I will too.

It’s funny for so long all I did was take happy snaps on my smart phone (cracked screen and all), but then I got a DSLR to get better pictures and more depth. Now my new phone’s camera is so awesome and I am going back to taking more pics on my phone……well for a little while. It is so much easier than lugging around all the camera gear! However do not fear I still love my Nikon and it will not be forgotten! But now I can use both.

OK so I’m on an Android Device, so I got a few to try out;  SketchGuru, PhotoArt, Color Touch and Background Defocus, as well as a great Editor I have been using to make collages for Instagram etc. . All are freebies from Playstore (so yes that means ads).

So Sketch guru was fairly easy to work out, I need to take more pics of architecture and stuff, but so far it’s pretty cool, although it does tend to crop some of the image (but that might be me?).

Then there is Background Defocus, which allows you to take defocused background within pictures, essentially it is just a Orton’s Effect type of thing (takes one in focus and then one out of focus and blends them together, you get to pick ‘where’ your focal point is when you take the photo). Don’t get me wrong its still pretty effective. The chair in the background is blurred, and the cup is not………simple but effective. Have to play around with this one a bit more. You can also adjust how much is blurred and how blurry it is.

The other two are a little limited after Lightroom and Photoshop (Color Touch and PhotoArt), however in a pinch they can do some fairly neat stuff.

The last one is for creating photo collages………so if you are one for putting multiple images etc on a Instagram Post? This is a great App,  I had this on my old phone, I still really like it and I still use it.
You can add text and stickers and arrange the images in so many ways, you can add more than 3 photos, however they do end up square for Instagram. Well that’s about it.

I will post some more pics with the Sketch App in the future, of that I am pretty sure. So until next time…………..

Happy Snapping

– Julz

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