Photography

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VSCO Hasn’t Released a Film X Preset Since January

Andrew Orr ·

The story I’m linking to is a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at the effort VSCO puts into emulating analog film. The company releases these special presets as part of its VSCO X membership, which costs US$20/year.

Its Film X filters recreate the look of long-gone analog films like Ektar 100, Portra 400, and Kodak Tri-X (a favorite of the late street photographer Garry Winogrand). It’s a long process that involves not just coding, but locating old film stock and reverse engineering the pictures captured on it.

It’s interesting to read, but I’d also like to take this opportunity to say that I’m a VSCO X member and VSCO hasn’t released a Film X preset since January. We were promised one new preset every month. Time to cancel?

Cool Stuff Found

New Leica Ad Celebrates Photojournalism

Andrew Orr ·

Leica is a well-known camera brand, and today it released a five minute ad that celebrates photojournalism. Called ‘The Hunt’ it shows all of the stress, fear, drive, and life-threatening situations photojournalists face as they tell their stories. It was created by Brazilian agency F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi. We see scenes of an oppressive regime in China, an African warlord, conflict in the Middle East, and more. Although the photographers in the ad aren’t real, they do represent conditions that can happen in the real world.

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News+: Fixes and Enhancements With Affinity Photo

Andrew Orr ·

I’ve been using Affinity Photo for several months now, and I’m still getting used to using it. In the latest issue (May 2019) of MacFormat magazine, they share photo fixes and enhancements with Affinity Photo.

As well as using Affinity Photo to fix common problems, you can produce more creative results using selection and compositing tools such as layers and masks.

Unfortunately, this magazine is in PDF form instead of using Apple News Format. So you’ll have to swipe to page 28 (As opposed to me being able to share the singular article).

This is part of Andrew’s News+ series, where he shares a magazine every Friday to help people discover good content in Apple News+.

Camera+ 2 Gets a 2.0 Update With a New Design
Cool Stuff Found

Camera+ 2 Gets a 2.0 Update With a New Design

Andrew Orr ·

Camera+ 2 has been recently updated to 2.0. The main focus is the camera itself. In the new design, the app is divided into three categories: Presets, Shutter modes, and Settings. Presets give you instant access to specific shooting modes, like Action Mode, Slow Shutter, and Macro. Shutter modes define how you want to shoot, with a timer, stabilizer, and Smile. Settings give you preferences like showing the grid and horizon level. Besides the new updates, Camera+ 2 offers RAW capture and editing, manual controls, depth capture and editing, and integration with your photo library. You can read more about it on the company’s blog. App Store: US$2.99

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How to Take a Good, Impromptu Portrait

Andrew Orr ·

Have you ever been somewhere and had someone walk up to you and ask you to take their photo? Aimée Lutkin has some tips to help take a good, impromptu portrait.

You can get better photos with a little direction and a few adjustments. If you have a terrible photographer in your life, forward this post to them. If it don’t, you might be (probably are) the culprit. Here’s how to improve your flattering photography game.

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Manage Faces in Apple’s Photos App

Andrew Orr ·

David Murphy has a nice tip out on how to organize photos by Faces on iOS. It’s a great way to manage photos of people.

On the three platforms you’re most likely to use to store your smartphone pictures—Apple Photos, Amazon Photos, and Google Photos—machine learning can categorize your photos by the faces in them, rather than rudimentary details like when or where they were taken.

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Pixelmator Photo iPad App Available for Preorder

Andrew Orr ·

The team behind Pixelmator, an alternative to Photoshop, is coming out with an iPad app called Pixelmator Photo. You can preorder it today for US$3.99, and it will launch on April 9 for US$4.99.

With powerful, nondestructive color adjustments like Levels, Curves, Hue & Saturation, Selective Color, and Black & White, it lets you edit the colors of your photos in any way you want. And the Repair and Crop tools let you perfect all the details.

I have to say, I’m kind of disappointed with this. I use Pixelmator Pro every day, and I was hoping it would be ported to iOS. But Pixelmator Photo is just another photo editor, and the graphic design features won’t be available.

Darkroom 4.1 Adds Photos Extension, Editing in Files
Cool Stuff Found

Darkroom 4.1 Adds Photos Extension, Editing in Files

Andrew Orr ·

Darkroom 4.1 adds more ways for users to edit images, including a new photos extension and the ability to open photos directly in Files. What’s new: Photos Extension: Edit your photos with Darkroom right within the Photos app; Import to Darkroom: As an alternative to the Photos Extension, hand over your photos from apps using the new Share Extension; Copy to Darkroom: Easily copy your photos from external storage services like Dropbox or the Files apps to the camera roll and edit in Darkroom; Drag and drop to Import: Photos now can be dragged and dropped, on iPad only, to Darkroom to be copied and edited; Imported Smart Album: One convenient place to track all the photos you imported and/or copied to Darkroom; Open: Right from the album picker you can tap on the “Open” to access any photos accessible through the Files app, and 3d-party services that integrate with it. App Store: Free (Offers In-App Purchases)

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Fauxtography, or Manipulating an Image to Tell a Story

Andrew Orr ·

Nice piece on photography and fauxtography by The Verge. It talks about certain automated actions in photography but I think it speaks to photo manipulation in general. Long before smartphones and Photoshop were invented, some photographers still manipulated their images in the dark room. These were under the category of fine art photography, and it helped a photographer use the picture to tell the story in their head.

For the longest time, we’ve had a seemingly clear dividing line between shots straight out of the camera (colloquially referred to as SOOC) and examples of fauxtography where the shooter has indulged in applying some after effects like filters, vignettes, recoloration, or masking and inserting objects in the frame. Phones are now stampeding over that line.

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iPhone XS Max DxOMark Score Ranks it Fourth

Andrew Orr ·

The iPhone XS Max DxOMark score causes the iPhone to rank fourth in the list. With a score of 82 it barely edges out the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus.

Achieving a DxOMark front camera score of 82, the Apple iPhone XS Max puts in a solid performance for both still and moving images during our tests, and is a nice improvement over its predecessor, the iPhone X. For still photos, the device boasts some great strengths for selfie shooters, including excellent HDR, bokeh shots, and detail at close range, which are among the best results we’ve observed for front cameras.

Raised issues include noise, white balance, and skin rendering.

Podcast

TMO Background Mode Interview with TMO Contributor Andrew Orr

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Andrew is a Contributing Editor at The Mac Observer assigned to the morning news desk. He is also a science and nature lover, with a special interest in botany, as well as an amateur nature photographer.

I asked Andrew about growing up in Michigan and his early interest in writing. He also started using computers when he was young and recalled how had to eradicate a virus from an Windows XP PC at age 13. Later he studied computer security at Bay de Noc Community College, and he attributes his technical writing success to the combination of his writing skill, interest in science, and experience with computers. Andrew told me how he was discovered by The Mac Observer and the tools he uses to collect and report the news each morning.