Friday Foto (Edit): Getting From Here to There

I’ve been getting much more into photo-blogging this summer, and in the process, I’ve become more comfortable with photo-editing techniques and technology. Participating in the #photoaday meme has certainly encouraged me to play around with pictures, and every now and then, I like to share how I create a particular post. All of my editing is done on mobile devices; in order to replicate my techniques precisely, you’ll need the Apple iPhoto app for iOS, but I’m sure there are suitable apps for other platforms as well.

The #photoaday prompt for Sunday, August 26 was “Dream.” While there are a number of ways to approach this, I thought I’d search my photo library for a landscape that looked like it could be dreamlike. I chose this one, taken at the Grand Canyon in June of 2008, and opened it in iPhoto to edit it.

original photo: Grand Canyon National Park, June 2008

My first step in preparing a shot for #photoaday is cropping it square, so it will optimally display in Instagram. I cropped this one below the horizon level and narrowed it, focusing in on the foreground.

I increased the contrast with the Exposure edit tool, and tweaked the colors using the “Blue Skies” and “Greenery” sliders in the Color tool.

Next, I opened the Brushes tool. I used “Soften” on the background and the shrubbery in the foreground, and “Sharpen” on the rock formation. My final change was applying a “Saturated Film” effect, with Vignette, from the Vintage selection bar in Effects.

I didn’t have any other iPhoto adjustments I wanted to make, so at that point I saved the edit picture to the Camera Roll and re-opened it in Phonto, where I added tagging text. When I finished that, I was ready to post to Instagram.

edited photo: #photoaday August 26, 2012--"Dream"

Some of my photo posts don’t get nearly this much alteration, but I thought the “dream” prompt lent itself to a bit more creativity.

If you’ve been thinking about joining #photoaday, take a look at the September prompts and see what inspires you!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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Picturing August, part 2: #photoadayaug

Picturing August, part 2: #photoadayaug

A few of my favorite #photoaday posts from the second half of August–you can see all of them here, if you’d like to. – Posted using BlogPress from my iPad Subscribe to Blog via Email Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address Subscribe Join 2,318 other subscribers

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