It's weird how "tilt shift" gives that impression, isn't it? All it does is blur part of the picture, kind of. I love the effect in some cases, though.
Really cool photo. (And pretty, pretty shoes!) I thought at first they were some sort of ornament/earrings type of thing. I guess it's the blurring that makes it so difficult to judge the size of them?
I don't understand tilt-shift technically, but it's all the rage in British television right now (it's featured prominently in Sherlock and Misfits). This little app replicates the effect with simple selective blurring, but there's a little more to it than that in the real version. I think. It's noted for giving a miniature effect, but for the life of me I can't figure out why.
Thank you for the tip! Sometimes I swear the only way to find Android apps is by word of mouth. The marketplace search engine isn't bad, but there are so many apps! I'm trying the demo version of Vignette right now. Cool!
Just wanted to come back around and thank you again for the Vignette recommendation. After playing with the demo version for a day or two, I bought the full version. It's amazing, particularly for the price, and opens up all kinds of visual thinking.
The trick will be learning how to use it--there's a lot there! Can you say anything about how you use it?
I have a really bad habit of leaving it set to polaroid frame, random vintage effect, because having random/random means I don't know how it's going to frame, which bugs my inner control freak ;p That or go out with the intention of taking a 1001 vignette photos of basically whatever ;p
It's my go-to for low light and fast movement, because the faux-vintage effect seems to me to make a feature of the level of noise/blur I'm going to get anyway (I have some great shots of my 2y/o nephew eating ice-cream that look like something from the 70s which made his parents happy, for example)
Oh - and in regular life, I leave it on 'fast shoot' mode, so I can take a ton of photos with randomised effects, and then check back later for how they turned out, when my phone's churned through the processing. My Wildfire is a little slow, especially on the higher-res photos.
What a lovely collection! I like your approach, using the random vintage effect with a set form of framing.
My one wish for the app would be for it to write its settings somehow into the picture's metadata. That would make it much, much easier for me to learn to use it (you know, look at a set of pictures afterwards and say, "Hey! That's a nice effect! What was it?" Similarly, looking at your pictures, for instance, on Flickr, it would be helpful to see what effect you used to produce them.)
As it is, so far I've discovered that the Ilford black and white and the Platinotype settings are very much to my taste for a lot of kinds of pictures. The rest, I'm still trying to get a feel for.
So much fun for so little money. Amazing, isn't it?
you're right - that kind of metadata would be so nifty! I haven't really mastered how to use a lot of the effect *intentionally* as opposed to setting up for pleasant serendipity - I think it may actually be my favourite Android app - so much fun to be had :D
(you've inspired me to start messing about with the lens modes today, including tiltshift :D )
oooh! (adds app) I've been using Photo360, which has a tilt-shift feature.
Like so:
I believe (and this is a slightly fuzzy memory) that the reason tilt-shift reduces the apparent size of the object in focus is that we are used to looking at things with a greater depth-of-field. By artificially blurring parts of the picture, we make them look like they are out of the depth of field, and we process whatever in the center as Really Tiny. I bet Wikipedia explains it better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography Well, no, not really.
Anyway, it's a neat way to give cameraphone pictures some depth-of-field blurring, since they are normally set to have everything in focus, all the time, and that is not always the best way to take pictures.
Thank you! That makes perfect sense. And your tulip picture is making me smile.
You're so right: that flat, all-in-focus effect is generally useful for illustrative purposes, but really limiting to the expressiveness of an image.
Someone else here recommended Vignette for Android after I posted my flip-flops picture, and it's fantastic! Its tilt-shift is more sophisticated, and it has dozens and dozens of other art-photo options that are really intriguing. Suddenly my phone is seeming like my principal camera.
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The trick will be learning how to use it--there's a lot there! Can you say anything about how you use it?
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I have a really bad habit of leaving it set to polaroid frame, random vintage effect, because having random/random means I don't know how it's going to frame, which bugs my inner control freak ;p That or go out with the intention of taking a 1001 vignette photos of basically whatever ;p
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/89596055@N00/sets/72157624441537093/)
It's my go-to for low light and fast movement, because the faux-vintage effect seems to me to make a feature of the level of noise/blur I'm going to get anyway (I have some great shots of my 2y/o nephew eating ice-cream that look like something from the 70s which made his parents happy, for example)
Oh - and in regular life, I leave it on 'fast shoot' mode, so I can take a ton of photos with randomised effects, and then check back later for how they turned out, when my phone's churned through the processing. My Wildfire is a little slow, especially on the higher-res photos.
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My one wish for the app would be for it to write its settings somehow into the picture's metadata. That would make it much, much easier for me to learn to use it (you know, look at a set of pictures afterwards and say, "Hey! That's a nice effect! What was it?" Similarly, looking at your pictures, for instance, on Flickr, it would be helpful to see what effect you used to produce them.)
As it is, so far I've discovered that the Ilford black and white and the Platinotype settings are very much to my taste for a lot of kinds of pictures. The rest, I'm still trying to get a feel for.
So much fun for so little money. Amazing, isn't it?
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(you've inspired me to start messing about with the lens modes today, including tiltshift :D )
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Like so:
I believe (and this is a slightly fuzzy memory) that the reason tilt-shift reduces the apparent size of the object in focus is that we are used to looking at things with a greater depth-of-field. By artificially blurring parts of the picture, we make them look like they are out of the depth of field, and we process whatever in the center as Really Tiny. I bet Wikipedia explains it better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography
Well, no, not really.
Anyway, it's a neat way to give cameraphone pictures some depth-of-field blurring, since they are normally set to have everything in focus, all the time, and that is not always the best way to take pictures.
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You're so right: that flat, all-in-focus effect is generally useful for illustrative purposes, but really limiting to the expressiveness of an image.
Someone else here recommended Vignette for Android after I posted my flip-flops picture, and it's fantastic! Its tilt-shift is more sophisticated, and it has dozens and dozens of other art-photo options that are really intriguing. Suddenly my phone is seeming like my principal camera.