I ♥ my iPhone 4s.
Yes.
Yes. I do.
I really REALLY love it.
I should name it, I love it so much.
Now accepting suggestions.
While this dude (obviously) isn't Steve Jobs... he's the 2nd most important Steve in the whole Apple universe. The other Godfather.
Steve Wozniak
Inventor extraordinaire displays his iPhone 4s.
Now. Back to business.
Why I ♥ my iPhone
- First off: it's compatible with my beloved iMac and all my lovely contacts, memos, calendars, etc. etc. integrate seamlessly.
- Don't forget iTunes. No longer have to haul my iPod around to juke out. Seriously was too afraid to burden my poor little blackerberry with all that info- it might have exploded.
- Thirdly (and probably most importantly)... images. If pictures are worth a thousand words then I'm a poet wealthy in the most verbose sense of the term: loquacious. Too bad that doesn't translate to dollars, as then I'd be as wealthy as... say... Steve W.
- But back to those images.... not only can I access them, I can shoot quality pics and edit them from the same device! Oh, HAPPY DAY!! I'm no longer fretting over not having hauled my nice-big Canon lens out (and risked the sprinklers) to the garden to take a picture of a daisy.
- Then... I can upload them and share them with all 500+ friends and still not had to return to the house and get distracted by the domestic chores staring me in the face.
Yes.... this iUser is a happy camper and totally in love.
True Story: The first one I shot was my Mother. First PHOTO, duh! Then I proceeded to take several with Dad and (of course) one or the other was wonky. So... took phone home, uploaded to computer, edited in PS-CS3 to correct glare, white balance, add father-unit in, uploaded to FB, downloaded to phone, texted to siblings- happiness. Too many steps. But... I was learning.
Since then I use my camera (er... I mean phone) for the mundane, the day-to-day and most often for recreational purposes.
Exhibit 4: notice the photo of the trailer hitch. My first time to ever hitch (and pull) the trailer by myself. Rather than disturb Husband with troubling himself to arise and actually check my work- I sent him a picture for approval. He approved, I drove away and it was all... without... a bitch. One or the other of us would have done so had he had to get out of bed to verify this!Exhibits 5,6, 8: Photos of the critters. I take these every day and send to Hubster to brighten his day.
Then... I discovered....
Can you say "Mo' Bettah"??
I'm not sure why I like it better than Twitter- but, I do. Maybe because I'm such a visual-thinker.
Nonetheless. That discovery has led to Photoshop Express, Photo Effects Studio (PSE), FilterMania2, WowFX and a whole plethora of other image editing apps.
My absolute go-to favorite image APPS are:
Snapseed What can I say? Truly remarkable results and $4.99 is so worth it. NikSoftware has my vote for best understanding of what users want in an app that doesn't require a degree and/or a computer to turn snapshots into art. Yes. By far this app is the first one I open to tweak even the best of my shots because there is only so much you can really do with focusing and light adjustments in the natural setting and oh-so-much-MORE you can do within Snapseed.
My opinion: Five star
Selective Adjustments for brightness, saturation & contrast on multiple points.
Automatic and/or User-controlled image adjustment tuning.
The Straighten feature comes with a grid!!
Vintage, Drama and Grunge filters are plentiful and adjustable.
Tilt-shift and Frames.
Phonto- Because of my tendency to use all my skills used in advertising and want to pepper my images with text and/or symbols this is THE BEST way to do it and the price is right... this app is FREE!! There are 200 fonts preinstalled with this app and you can add your own favorites within iTunes to download on your phone. So far I've resisted that temptation and just stuck with the preloads.
The color-picker doesn't win any raves from me but after experimenting with the tints and shades adjusters and opacity I can usually find just the right tone. This app also includes the ability to make separate stroke color and lo and behold.... SHADING! Oh. yes... I like these features.
Now- here is the fun part. You can make more than just one layer of text with this app. Yup. You read that correctly. And.. using different fonts! And colors! The ONLY complaint I have is that I can't replicate EXACTLY (sometimes) the same color choices I made on the first layer of text which is really annoying- but, I'm learning to squint my eyes and come within pretty darn close.
Because of the versatility of this product I would give it a 5 star but because of that one complaint-
My opinion: 4.75 stars
Playing with Instagram leads to other users playing with their iPhones.
Friend, Jules, has been participating in a fun Photo-a-Day challenge given by FatMumSlim. I joined- of course... don't expect me to EVER get each and every day's challenge done. But- the one for 9.11 the word was "Hero". So.. using only the apps I had already downloaded, I created:
IMAGE #9 - SEMPER FI
The original image is of son from a friend's wedding and the initial image of his face has such poor lighting that I had to adjust the shadows on his face with Snapseed. The smoke/cloud/dust layers are multiple layers and opacity from WOWFX-Free, the helicopters are from FilterMania 2 and (sadly aren't his beloved Sea Knights- but, remember.. I'm using only what I have already loaded!) and finally the text is layered on in Phonto. Then uploaded into Instagram. Total apps used for one image: five. Six if you count the image storage for saving each altered version and then opening in a different app.
Yes... I LOVE my iPhone 4s. I can hardly WAIT to see what all the iPhone v5 has to offer. But.. since mine is new- I won't be finding out personally for a while. But for those of you considering a purchase... 4s has enough to make you happy photographer and it'll be cheaper, too!
