Fix-It Friday

This week’s Fix-It Friday.

The original:

The edit:

Fix-It Friday

This week’s Fix-It Friday..

The original:

My edit:

Photography on the iPhone

The iPhone 3G has a basic built-in 2.0 MP camera. If you upgrade to the 3GS, you get a 3.2 MP camera, with autofocus, auto white balance, and auto macro. I would love to upgrade, but it’s not all that feasible at the moment. (Hey, AT&T, why don’t you offer some incentives for current iPhone users to upgrade to the 3GS??)

As you can see, the camera has limitations. Over the past few months, I’ve acquired a nice collection of photography apps to enhance my photos to make them look somewhat better. The main problem is most of the photos come out looking rather flat. Sure, I could move them to the computer and edit in Photoshop, but that’s a pain when I want to take a shot and immediately stick it on Facebook or Twitter. So here are some things I use:

Camera Genius
This is a photo-taking app. It allows you to zoom, set a timer, put guides on your screen, and more. It’s handy. I mostly use it when I want to take photos of myself.

Pano
Another photo-taking app. It allows you to take multiple shots and stitches them together in a panorama for you.

TiltShift Generator
This app applies a tilt-shift effect to your photos. I love it because it allows you to super fine-tune all the details. And not only can you add blur, but you can also play with saturation, contrast, and vignetting.

Best Camera
This app provides many different filters to apply to your photos. There are your basic warm, contrast, lighten, darken, vignette, desaturate filters, as well as some more custom ones, such as Jewel and Paris B&W. Kind of like actions for your phone photos. The downside? There’s no way to adjust anything. You just apply it and go. So, for example, if the Jewel filter saturates your photo a little too much, there’s no way to fine-tune it. Unless, you combine it with other apps.

Photoshop.com Mobile
The newcomer on the block. Adobe’s app allows you to crop and play with exposure, saturation, and tint. There are also filters here too. You can make your photo look like a sketch, add soft focus, borders, and a few different color options. I eventually hope they add more features, as most of this stuff I could accomplish in other apps.

Crop for Free
I used this before I downloaded the Photoshop app. I’ll probably delete it soon. It’s very simple. You can crop your photos. The downside? There’s no way to maintain aspect ratio that I could figure out (same goes for the cropping feature in Adobe’s app).

Flickr
A must-have for any Flickr user. Allows you to upload photos to Flickr (surprise!) and you can even choose to geotag with your current location. Neato.

And now, the photos!

Here is a photo of Vera that I snapped one day (using the timer, since she was sitting next to me).

I cropped myself out slightly (using Crop for Free).

Then I warmed it in Best Camera.

Then with TiltShift Generator, I added some blur, upped the saturation and contrast, and added a vignette.

Another example: A photo I took of my soda-can-castle-in-progress at work.

Added blur with TiltShift.

Then used the Jewel and Vignette filters in Best Camera.

Here’s a couple panoramas I made using Pano:

This photo wasn’t taken on my phone (it was taken with my SLR), but I used TiltShift Generator on it:

Here’s one of Photoshop Mobile’s filters:

Canon also has put out a dSLR Camera Remote app that I desperately want. It’s $20 and I just haven’t decided if I’d have much use for it right now. But it sounds neat!

Fix-It Friday

And now for this week’s Fix-It Friday!

The original:

My edit:

What makes me happy? (part 2)

So, remember a little over a month ago, when I posted results from my last happiness survey? The results of my second one are in! Let’s compare.

My previous Weekday chart was pretty even (except for Friday). I was generally hovering around 65. In this one, you can see my week peaks on Saturdays (slightly below 80) and gets progressively worse (around 60). What can I say? I’ve had some fun Saturdays lately and the work week has sucked.

The Location chart. GMX (Geek Media Expo) was last weekend. Apparently I was having a blast. But I seem to be having a blast as long as I’m not at work or at home. My restaurant experience improved dramatically between the two survey periods, seeing as I scored around 50 for “At A Restaurant” last time and close to 80 this time.

The Want To/Have To chart didn’t really change, so I’m not including it this time. Also, I was never Outside when answering surveys, so that chart is rather boring.

My Alone? chart gave basically the same result, although I was overall happier during these two weeks.

I didn’t include this one last time, but the Number of People Interacting With chart shows that I’m happiest in smaller groups.

And, finally, the What are you doing? chart. Didn’t go canoeing this time, but I am super happy when watching movies and taking pictures. And just like last time, I still hate doing housework and paying bills.

This week’s (er, and last week’s) links.

Yeah, it slipped my mind last week. So you get a double dose!

Most of these can be separated into categories…

PICTURES OF STUFF
Don’t Judge My Hair (via @dougboutwell)
http://dontjudgemyhair.com/
One of those great humor websites that makes fun of people. Rock on.

7 Wet, Wild & Weird Deep Sea Animal Wonders (via @petapixel)
http://webecoist.com/2009/09/15/7-wet-wild-weird-wonders-of-the-deep-sea/
Emphasis on weird.

Jaw-Dropping Urban Photography (via @petapixel)
http://theroxor.com/2009/09/06/jaw-dropping-urban-photography/
Must. Keep. Practicing.

Tim Burton’s Awesome Fashion Photo Shoot (via @GeekTyrant)
http://geektyrant.com/2009/09/tim-burtons-awesome-fashion-photo-shoot/
I still really want to get into fashion photography.

THINGS I LIKE THAT ARE BEING MADE INTO MOVIES
Diablo Cody to Tackle “Sweet Valley High”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/23/diablo-cody-sweet-valley-high
Please say it will be better than the TV series.

“Friends” Movie Rumors Start to Simmer
http://hollywoodcrush.mtv.com/2009/09/28/friends-movie-rumors-start-to-simmer-but-dont-go-singing-smelly-cat-just-yet/
Oh please please please.

OTHER STUFF
The Truth Behind the $60 Video Game (via @GeekTyrant)
http://geektyrant.com/2009/09/the-truth-behind-the-60-video-game/
To sum this one up: They are $60 because people pay $60 for them.

Mind of Man: Real Men Buy Flowers
http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-mind-of-man-real-men-buy-flowers/
Not that I’m hinting or anything. *cough*