iPad Photo Processing With PicsPlay Pro

Yesterday the iPad app "PicsPlay Pro" was reduced to 69p for a short while so I grabbed a copy. At the time of writing it is still at this reduced price. So far among the many iPad photo apps I have tried out this is far above the others in quality, reliability, ease of use and versatility. On starting you can take a new photo or load one already in the iPad. Once loaded there are choices of cropping, effects, general exposure control, adding text, borders, vignetting, colour splash and many others. Choosing the effects section brings up this screen:



Choosing an effect from the left brings up many thumbnails of different ways to apply that effect. This is instant and the thumbnails can be scrolled through and tried at full screen size. No problem if you change your mind as the app has many levels of undo.

I have chosen Art - Sketch. With most, probably all, effects there is a slider which lets you choose any state between the original photo and the full effect. Here I have adjusted the effect to allow some of the original colour to mix with the b/w sketch:

 

You are not limited to using one effect, many can be used one after the other to build up the result which pleases you. At any and every stage the result can be applied and saved to the iPad Camera Roll, sent to other apps which have the facility to import a photo, emailed, sent to Twitter, Facebook or Flickr. If you use Dropbox then that comes up as one of the 'other apps'.

This started off as a b/w Moon in a black sky:



There are far too many different effects in PicsPlay Pro to cover here such as the HDR type effects and the way some can be applied to part of a photo. For me this app was well worth 69p of my pension and would still be a great aquisition at its previous £1.49 It looks as though it could be going up to £2.49 soon.

When I want to get photos in or out of the iPad I use a PC program called iFunBox which allows access to all parts of the iPad much more easily than battling with iTunes.

Guess What

A photo I took in the snow a few days ago.
Can you guess what made this impression?




No prizes, just for fun.
Answer next Monday.

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch - Results

Nothing out of the ordinary while I did my hour stint on Saturday morning counting the maximum number of each type of bird which visited my garden.




Some of the regulars were missing from the count as they didn't arrive during that hour.

Satellite picture of snowy UK

A fascinating and spectacular photo showing the snow cover over the UK today.
It is a large file / picture and can be found on the NASA site. I guess the cloud over Ireland and the Atlantic is the heavy rain heading our way tonight. For those on slow connections a smaller picture can be found on this NASA page.

My thanks to Storm Chase UK who put the link on Twitter.

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch UK

Just a gentle reminder that the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch takes place this weekend - 26th-27th January 2013. It just takes one hour of your time to count the maximum number of each type of bird which visits your garden during whichever hour you choose. Full details can be found on the RSPB site.

The People vs Winter

One of my daily stopping points on the net is 'The Poke' website which is where I saw this video this morning:  My favourite parts are; reporter v snow plough, the amorous bull and the music soundtrack:

Winter Wonderland - Humph!

Days and days of snow are probably great for children, nice to look at through a window and interesting for the occasional photograph but it gets a bit wearing walking three times a day on compacted snow and ice. A good job that I finally got Round Tuit at last and bought a snow shovel before this weather started. I hadn't realised how much easier it would make keeping my paths clear. At one stage our four inches of snow had started to melt but a night with a further two inches soon made up for that.

It looks as though this cold spell will begin to lift around the end of the week, as long as the forecasters aren't telling porkies.

A view or three from this morning:







How much longer do I have to stand here freezing my paws?