My iPhone has become my main camera.
It’s not because the quality of the camera is so amazing, thought it’s certainly not bad. It’s because of the applications available to edit photos and create effects on the fly. I’m particularly fond of the analog camera simulation apps like Hipstamatic, PictureShow, Lo-Mob, Plastic Bullet and Infinicam. But I love AutoStitch, You Gotta See This! and Pro HDR as well. Each one, individually, has it’s place in my photo arsenal. And I post photos to my main photo blog, In The Viewfinder, almost exclusively using edited iPhone photos.
But one of my favorite things to do is use the apps in combination. And I may be doing it in ways the creators never envisioned, so I thought I’d share one of my favorite ways to combine apps. The photo to the right is a photo of a sunflower straight from the iPhone without having been processed through any app.
Infinicam + Pro HDR
For this example, I used two photos manipulated using Infinicam. I then combined those images in two different orders in Pro HDR. I have used this technique with exports from Plastic Bullet and PictureShow as the starting point as well. Here’s a finished example from two different Plastic Bullet exports combined using Pro HDR – Rush Hour.
Pro HDR is my favorite HDR app for the iPhone, and I use it a great deal in the way it was intended to be used. However, using the “Library HDR” option from the main menu of the app, you can force it to process any two photos of the same size. Your results will change based on which photo you choose as the “darker” image and which photo you choose as the “lighter” image. Example:
The results can change dramatically when you simply choose the alternate photo to begin the process.
There is no way to predict what the end result will be, but that’s the beauty of this process. I love the surprise of a beautifully random and unexpected combination. You may prefer the first result above. I preferred the second and published that photo to my photo blog. All of the original files can be seen at full size in this Flickr photo set - Using Pro HDR To Create Interesting Effects.
Give this simple technique a shot on some of your photos and be sure to come back and put a link to your results in the comments. I’d love to see them.
His first presentation was entitled, “How To Speak Geek – Hiring And Managing A Developer.” In that presentation he broke down the common communication problem areas the average business person faces when dealing with a developer, and how to fix them. His second presentation was aimed directly at the developers in the audience. “Real-Time Plugin Development” gave Steve the opportunity to get into the nuts and bolts of building a WordPress Plugin. He wrote the plugin, which focused on a more intelligent use of a post’s gallery of images, while at the Wordcamp, then demonstrated the building for the audience. 
This didn’t take as long as I thought it would.
It will help to know a little HTML, but it’s actually quite simple. The image on the right is a screen capture of a quick first attempt on my part. I edited the existing “Fun” template to include an icon in place of the flowers at the top and company logo and address information to replace the flowers at the bottom. In this case, the only editing of the actual HTML document was to change the default color on the font in the email. The rest was done by simply editing the jpg files.