picture

Dec 18 2012

Create your own Photo Albums with PicStory on the iPad

Since the creation of the photograph people have enjoyed storing their collections in photo albums, and as technology has moved photos into the digital age photo albums have followed suit onto our devices & PicStory on the iPad is a great example.
Albums can be created from photos stored on your device or from cloud services such as Dropbox and Picasa, this makes the creation of albums very flexible and you don’t have to store all your pictures on your device.

All your individual albums are presented from the PicStory home page in a very attractive manner and the app interface can be skinned from a selection of themes.

20121218-222652.jpg

20121218-223706.jpg

Several on-Line services are supported

Selecting an album will open a preview and option column allowing you to quickly select a picture for viewing or uploading to your cloud services. After you have opened an album you can create a slideshow to view your pictures to a soundtrack. You can also choose to share your pictures with your social media and cloud services.

Keeping track of your pictures is always difficult but to help PicStory allows you to add tags onto your albums allowing you to categorise your pictures in an organised manner, it’s one of the value added touches that makes PicStory stand out.

PicStory is a fantastic app and if you take a lot of photos and looking for a nice way to present and organise them then this is a great app for you.

 

20121218-223720.jpg

By • Image, Software • • Tags: , , ,

Sep 20 2012

How to take Panoramic Photos on the iPhone with iOS6

Apple have recently released iOS6 and one of the significant improvement in functionality is the ability to take Panoramic Photographs without the need for any additional Apps, a feature which has been a main stay on other phones for a while.

Its not immediately obvious where the feature is but it has been implemented very well and the results are impressive, opening up a new form of photography to the millions of iPhone owning consumers.

20120920-195804.jpg

Impressive Panoramas are now possible on the iphone

To take a Panoramic Photo on iOS6:
1) Open the Camera App
2) Press the Options Button
3) Choose Panorama
This will put the Camera into Panorama Mode.

20120920-201708.jpg

Press the Panorama Button

4) To start capturing the Panorama hold the iPhone in a portrait orientation and press the capture button.
5) Follow the onscreen guide to capture the photo.

20120920-202356.jpg

Follow the on screen Guide

6) Press the capture button to end the process and save the photo.

By • How to Articles, Image • • Tags: , , ,

Jul 8 2011

An Example of a TimeLapse Video created on the iPhone

I’ve previously discussed the Brilliant Instalapse App and how it creates TimeLapse Videos on the iPhone.

Here’s a further example of the high quality of video that the app can produce. Is the following clip you can see the night fall and sun rise over flamborough head.

By • Image, Software • 0 • Tags: , ,

How to Take Better Pictures on the iPhone

Jun 27 2011

How to Take Better Pictures on the iPhone

The iPhone provides a good solid camera facility, by camera phonestanard, and although it’s great to have a good camera in your phone at all times,  the quality of photograph is always going to be inferior compared to high-end dedicated digital cameras. There are however a few tricks that you can  try to really bring out the best from your iPhones Camera.

First lets look at the Built in Camera App that comes as standard with the iPhone.

The Built it iPhone Camera App is pretty basic but it can produce really good results, firstly you don’t have to rely on the software’s auto focus, which tends to focus on foreground objects, you can touch the screen to focus on a specific point or object, this allows you to capture detail on distant objects.  You can also take HDR photos with the iPhone.

What is HDR on the iPhone?

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range imaging and is a technique which adds more detail to photographs, especially in low or high lighted areas of the picture. On the iPhone the technique is implemented by 3 photographs being taken at the same time, one picture is under exposed, on picture is over exposed and one picture is as normal. The 3 photographs are then merged together to show the most detail possible.

In  the 2 pictures below the HDR image appears to be brighter than the non HDR image, and more detail can be seen in the clouds and brick work.

Non HDR Image (Click to enlarge)

HDR Photo (Click to Enlarge)

HDR imaging works well for some but not all shots, fast action shots generally don’t work well with HDR, also be aware that you can’t use the flash on the iPhone whilst taking HDR images. To turn HDR imaging on when using the iPhones Camera App you can select it on the top centre of the ViewFinder screen whilst taking a photo.

You can capture very impressive photographs with the iPhone’s default Camera App, but it does lack a number of key features and many iPhone users install the Camera+ app instead.

Camera+ is available for purchase in the Apple App Store and adds a great deal of functionality when taking a photo, for example you can set a different exposure point to focus point. On the default Camera App the Exposure point is set to the focus point but when taking  a photo with Camera+ you can press the screen to set a focus point and then drag with a second finger to set the exposure point, this allows you to take more control over the photo, as seen in the 2 shots below. Although both shots are taken in almost an identical position, I’ve set 2 different exposure points allowing for 2 different photographs.

Camera+ Picture

Camera+ Picture with different exposure point

In addition to manual exposure points Camera+ includes a virtual light box mode and full picture editing suite, tools which were originally missing from the original default Camera App. As well as imaging editing its possible to apply filters, alter colours and apply image frames.

The following image was originally captured with the default iPhone app and then edited with Camera+ where a clarity filter was added to make the main focus of the image brighter

Original Image (Click to Enlarge)

With clarity Filter Added (Click to Enlarge)

The iPhone is a very convienient and powerful photography tool which can capture fantastic images.

By • Featured Articles, How to Articles, Image, Software • 0 • Tags: , , ,

How to send Multiple Pictures in the Same Message on the iPhone

May 31 2011

How to send Multiple Pictures in the Same Message on the iPhone

The iPhone makes it very easy to share Photographs and Pictures with your friends, family and contacts, but what most people might not realise is that it’s easy to send multiple pictures within a single message.

How to send Multiple Pictures in the Same Message on the iPhone:
1) Open the Photos App on the iPhone.
2) Open the Album that contains the pictures that you want to send, eg Camera Roll.
3) Press the arrow icon in the top right hand corner of the screen.


4) You can now select multiple pictures, when you select a picture a red tick will appear on the picture.
5) When you have selected all the images that you want to share, click on the share button on the bottom left hand corner of the screen.


6) You will now be given the choice of sending the images in either a MMS message or as an Email message.

This also allows you to delete, copy and print multiple images.

By • Image • 2 • Tags: , , , ,

May 17 2011

How to Create Multiple Picture Albums on the iPhone

As Standard the iPhone comes with one Photo Album configured called Camera Roll, which is used to store the pictures you take using the iPhone’s camera, but it is possible to create more Picture Albums on your iPhone that synchronise with folders on your PC.

To configure more Picture Albums on your iPhone:

1) Firstly you need to make sure that iTunes is configured to synchronise Photo’s.

2) Connect your iPhone to your PC using the USB Connection and launch iTunes.

3) When your iPhone appears in iTunes under Devices click on it to display the Synchronisation options

4) Click on the Photo’s Tab to display the Photo options Window


Click on the tick box to enable the synchronisation of photos, and select the folders of the pictures you want to synchronise using the pull down list.
This could be your entire ‘My Pictures’ folder, another existing folder or you could create a new folder specifically to store photos that you want sync between the devices.

Apply the changes and re-sync your iPhone with iTunes and your added folders will become new Albums on your iTunes.

By • Featured Articles, Help, How to Articles, Image, Software • 0 • Tags: , ,

May 7 2011

How to take 360 degree panoramic pictures on the iPhone using Photosynth

I’ve Previously written about creating Panoramic Photo’s on the iPhone using an app called You Gotta See This which specialised in creating quick panoramic images of your location for you to share.

Here’s an alternative solution which also produces Panoramic Pictures but uses a completely different approach, the App is Photosynth by Microsoft and it’s completely free.
Whereas You Gotta See This produces virtual collages by overlaying images to produce the Panoramic Images, Photosynth using impressive photo stitching algorithms to produce seamless smooth images.
The image below shows the Panoramic Picture as a single high quality image.

As well as saving the resulting photo in your camera roll, Photosynth also allows you to interact with the picture by scrolling 360 degrees through the picture.

Producing the Panoramic Pictures in Photosynth is very easy, when taking pictures an onscreen guide helps you line up the initial photo and produces a frame around the image, then simply use the frame to line up the next shot, the app beeps when the photo is lined up, then all you have to do is hold the iPhone still whilst the next photo is taken, you then move onto the next frame.
Photosynth works in all axis allowing you to produce complete, highly detailed 360 degree images of your surrounding, with the added interactive element the results are excellent.

The Photosynth Interface

Photosynth allows you to share either the single image or the interactive Panoramic scene with your Facebook friends, or to publish the results to either Bing maps or Microsofts free Photosynth.net service. You can also interactive with the Panoramic pictures directly on your iPhone.
You can download Photosynth free of charge from the Apple App Store

The end results produced by Photosynth are incredible, the following example was created by myself in just a couple of mins.

By • Featured Articles, How to Articles, Image • 0 • Tags: , ,

May 5 2011

How to View your iPhone Photos on your PC

The iPhone has a great camera to take photographs but how do you transfer your iPhone Photographs from your phone to your PC.

Here are my 4 top ways of Photo Transfer.

1) USB Cable

The Simplest way to view or copy your iPhone Photos on your PC is by connecting your iPhone to your PC by using the USB cable that came with your iPhone. When your computer is on and logged in:

  • Connect the iPhone to your PC using the cable
  • Unlock the iPhone so that it’s home screen is visible.
  • After a few Seconds the Windows AutoPlay Menu should appear.
  • Click on ‘Open Device to View files’

  • Your iPhones picture folders will now be displayed in a Windows Explorer Window.
  • If this doesn’t happen then check your AutoPlay settings in the Hardware and Sound section of the Control Panel. The Picture Setting should be set to ‘Ask Every time’.

  • You Should also be able to use the My Computer tool to view the contents of your iPhone. Your iPhone should be listed underneath your computers Hard Drives.

Using the USB cable works very well if you have a large amount of Photos to transfer.

2) WiFi

if you don’t want to have use a cable to connect your iPhone to your PC and have a WiFi network available then it’s possible to view your iPhone photos in a web browser using a free App called WiFi Photo.

When you launch the WiFi Photo app it provides you with an Address to type into the Internet Browser on your PC, this will display a web page generated specifically for your iPhone, and provides a link to your iPhone Photo’s and Videos. WiFi Photo works very well and provides a free and convenient alternative to using a USB Cable

More information on WiFi Photo can be found in This Article.

3) Dropbox

DropBox is a popular Internet Based Secure Storage facility which allows you to transfer files between any device running the DropBox software.
There is a DropBox client available for the iPhone which allows you to upload your iPhone pictures to your DropBox account, so that you can access them on your PC.
As well as connecting over WiFi DropBox also works over a mobile 3G connection, this allows you to securely back up your important photos when away from your home eg you can upload your important holiday photographs as soon as you have taken them.
You can read more information on Drop Box in This Article

4) Email

    If you need to share Pictures with a PC other then your own or with a friend then you can also email your iPhone Photos to any email address. This would allow you to transfer individual pictures to a computer that doesn’t have iTunes installed.
    To email a picture:

    • Open your Photos App
    • Find the picture you want to transfer
    • Select the transfer icon in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.
    • This will display the transfer menu.
    • Select the Email Photo option and the picture will be opened in the iPhones email Application.

    Emailing Photo’s is more time consuming than other options but it provides a guaranteed method of transferring photographs, without the need for a cable for additional Apps.

    By • Featured Articles, Help, How to Articles, Image • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

    May 1 2011

    How to Record Time Lapse Videos on the iPhone

    Time Lapse videos are a series of images taken over periods of time linked together in a film and played in normal time, it’s a technique which can be used to record slow events and speed them up to viewable speeds eg Flowers opening or changing weather systems can be viewed over a few seconds rather then the days it took to record.

    The end results can be spectacular and useful, and if you have an iPhone with a camera it’s possible to record time lapse videos of your own with the use of an App called Instalapse.

    Instalapse provides a quick way of producing Time Lapse Videos with a simple interface that is easy to use allowing you to set the shooting interval and number of shots to be taken. When you set the timing settings the App tells you how long the video will take to record and how long the video will take to play back.

     


    After you have set the recording times the app will give you chance to set up the scene and will then start taking pictures. When all the pictures have been taken Instalapse will then render and save the completed video.

     

    Instalapse provides good and quick results, is very reasonably priced and can be found in the App Store.

    The following video is a Time Lapse video of my Reef Aquarium and has been recorded with Instalapse.

     

    By • Featured Articles, Help, How to Articles, Image, Software • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

    Jan 13 2011

    Share Panoramic Pictures of your Location with You Gotta See This

    Your may often want to share your location or an event with your friends or family and ‘You Gotta See This’ provides the perfect method.You Gotta See This is an iPhone App which creates Panoramic style photos using the  iPhones camera and gyroscope.

    Click to Enlarge

    The App is cheap (currently 59p) and easy to use, to capture an image simply press the camera button on the app and sweep the iPhone out in front of you at the image that you want to capture. The software takes frequent and overlapping photos and pastes them together into a single image and the App uses the iPhones hardware to work in all directions so that points of interests at different heights can be included.

    ‘You Gotta See This’ doesn’t use photo stitching to create the final image, instead it overlays matching parts of images creating a virtual collage of the images, like overlaying printed images of top of each other.

    Click to Enlarge

    The results may not be as neat and tidy as photo stitched images but can be full of character and visually impressive.  The app provides a number of different styles for presenting your images, and you can either save the images to your Camera Roll or share them using Email, Facebook or Twitter.

    Click to Enlarge

    To install You Gotta See this, simply search for it in the App store.

    By • Image, Software • 0 • Tags: , ,

    1 2