iPhone to print matching: is it possible??

I never thought I'd see the day when I could take a photo on my phone, view & enhance it on the phone, uploaded it to an online photo host, share links with my friends, order prints, and receive color accurate images in the mail. Yet today I'm seeing that day. I've been having fun using my iPhone 4 to capture little snippets of life and then processing them with my new favorite iPhone app, PictureShow, which has basic adjustments, great effects, cool borders, and even nice texture overlays. It really comes closest to what I love to do to my images with Photoshop on my computer. I then upload the images to a photo sharing site with one of my online album iPhone companion apps.

I've tried a lot of the iPhone photo sharing apps, and I like several of them. I love SmugMug and they have several apps that connect to my SmugMug account. I also like iPicasso for connecting to my Picassa albums. But the Phanfare app is really different because it not only lets me upload images to my Phanfare site, but keeps them organized and cached on the iPhone as well (meaning you don't have to be online to see the images on the iPhone). You can take photos with the app or copy them from your iPhone albums. You can also post images directly to your Facebook albums via the app. And, most importantly, I can easily order accurate prints from Phanfare OR print directly from the app to my HP inkjet! There are a couple features I'd like to see improved, like the ability to add multiple photos at one time from the iPhone photo library (currently you have to add one at a time). And, I'd like to see the print order defaults that I setup on the website reflected when I order from the phone. Other than that, it's pretty amazing all the features you get in a free app.

So, I received my first print order in the mail this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see that the prints matched my iPhone 4 screen almost exactly. Wow, that is just weird. If you've been around digital imaging and printing for a while, then you know this is no small wonder. It would seem the iPhone 4 screen is incredibly color accurate and Phanfare's printing is well color managed. I really never expected it to be this easy. I wasn't expecting anything really close in color, I just wanted to see the detail and quality of the iPhone images - which was also very impressive in the 4x6 sized prints. Now, my entire thought process behind iPhone imaging has changed. I will be taking my photos and editing more seriously knowing that they can actually be made in to quality prints. Next up, larger image print tests and an Asukabook photo book all from iPhone images.

Here's a snapshot of the images I loaded in to my Phanfare album. You can see the full-sized images by clicking the collage below to go to my Phanfare site. 

iPhone's new built-in HDR, gimmick or groovy?

What are the best uses for the newly added camera HDR feature for iPhones? Apple just released a free update to their OS4 software that adds in-camera HDR to the latest devices. HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is a process of combining multiple exposures to achieve a single, highly detailed image. There has been third-party software available via the app store to do HDR, but never has it been quite this easy. There is simply an additional button on your camera screen to turn HDR on or off. By default, when you take an HDR image, the phone saves both an original, non-HDR version and the composite HDR version automatically. You can quickly review both images after taking them to see which you prefer. 

Here's my take on it. It's great. If you know what HDR is actually for...capturing details in extreme highlight and shadow areas of high contrast scenes - details that would normally be lost in a normal, single exposure, then you'll immediately see the benefit and quality difference the new HDR tool provides. HDR is not for every image. A well lit scene, with relatively low contrast, will not pose any challenge for a single exposure. Using HDR may make it appear flatter in contrast (when in reality, under histogram inspection, you'll see a very full white-to-black contrast range). 

Where HDR is great (and where it's intended to be used) is in extreme contrast scenes where your important detail is going to be either blown out in the highlights or obscured and noisy in the shadows. As you'll see in my quick examples and experiment, even if you used desktop software to try to rescue your normal exposure - essentially opening up the shadows and bringing down highlights, in an attempt to match the HDR image, the results will not even be close. The adjusted image cannot touch an HDR image for highlight detail and overall color accuracy and saturation in challenged areas.

I took a walk at lunch today. It is a beautiful, bright sunny day, perfect for HDR play. Let's take a look!

Notice the shadow side of the barn and the brightly lit grass. Click the image to see it larger.Wow! Look at the detail and color in the beams of light. Click the image to see it larger.Look at the sunlit grass in the back. Much more detail is preserved.Lots of preserved detail in the HDR version here. Click the image to see it larger.One of the limits of HDR is when you have moving subjects. Since the camera takes 3 shots sequentially, the subject has to be relatively still or ghosting will appear, as shown.More shadow information and detailsOnce detail is gone, it's gone. No amount of adjustment in software later can recover the lost information, detail, and color.This last pair of images illustrates how even if you took the time to download your images, work them in iPhoto, Lightroom, or Photoshop, you would not be able to "fix" the original image to achieve the level of detail and color accuracy that an HDR image provides. On the other hand, by doing some minor adjustments to global contrast on your HDR image, you'll be rewarded with snappy images that preserve tons of detail from bright highlights to deep shadow.

For creating highly detailed images in camera, with minimal fuss, the new HDR feature is a welcome new tool. Oh, and it's free :-)

Old world Seattle

As we ferried our way towards Seattle today, I took this with my iPhone and processed it with TiltShiftGen and Lo-Mob on the iPhone. It's really interesting to me how the vintage look makes me want to study the photo a bit more. It's as if the psychological effect of thinking it's vintage makes me want to look longer and gives it more appeal.

Do it All iPhone app I heart...

I have every space on my iPhone filled with apps. Apple sends me personal thank you cards, signed by Steve himself, for single-handedly funding the App store. Well, not really. But, I do love to try new apps and finding that perfect little gem is my personal conquest.

I've been using a great app called UltraList Plus. I like it because it is incredibly versatile and can be used for a variety of business and personal productivity needs. It's seems on the surface to be a list maker/manager. But it's really MUCH more than that. You can keep track of multiple personal lists, Shopping lists, Gift giving lists, todos, etc. But it also is a great expense tracker, photo tracker, and location record keeper. Here's some of the things I use it for:

1) I keep a bloody mary blog from travels around the world and whenever I indulge, I add it to UltraList. I can add my geographic location, complete with google maps link, a photo or photos, notes, my ratings, helpful search tags, and more. Then I instantly email the note from the app to my blog and it's online!

2) I keep a note of all the cool restaurants and places I visit when I travel. I like to share this info with others and also be able to review the info when I'm back in town looking for places to go. Just like with the Bloody Mary, I mark the spot on the map (right inside of UltraList), save the map link, add photos, ratings, category, etc. I can instantly share it via email or keep it in the list for future reference.

The cool thing is that whenever you pull up a list of places, the app can (as an option) use your current gps location and show you your items in order of their distance from you! Great if you are in the middle of a city and want to know where your nearest favorite restaurant is.

3) Track your business and personal expenses and easily email a .txt or .csv file, with pictures attached, for easy import into your bookkeeping software. My bookkeeper loves me much more now!

4) Keep todo lists and gift giving ideas for upcoming occassions.

5) Be able to keep photos in a list where I can add titles, descriptions, geo tag info (map links to where they were taken), and more. You can search any list easily too, so if you have tons of photos you can search for something by the name. You can't do that with the iPhone Photo album app! You can also see on a map all the pins for the locations where your photos were taken.

6) Take photos of locations I want to return to and photograph again. The built in mapping makes it easy to record the exact location and multiple photos and details. Great for photo location scouting!

There are many more uses for UltraList and it keeps getting better. The developer is very helpful and receptive to suggestions. It's one of my Home Screen apps!

iPhone panorama photos from Italy

On our Italy trip, I purchased a new iPhone 3Gs. I love it! The camera is much better - with a new autofocus system and the video is down right acceptable! It's faster overall too. Lot's of little tweaks. One of my favorite apps for any iPhone is Pano. With it you take as many photos as you want and it automatically stitches them together. It's really easy and a ton of fun! It works best on farther away subjects where the edges of the scene are less prone to distort when you pan from shot to shot. As you know, when subjects are closer, the distortion with a semi-wide lens becomes very apparent. Even so, when I played with it in very close quarters (like in the sunflower field) the seams were noticeable, but still it created a great image that gives a better feel for what being in that environment felt like. This is why I like the panos.

On this trip, I tried to look at things a bit different than on past trips. I typically would use my 70-200mm lens quite a bit. I do love that lens. I brought it with me, as usual, but I rarely used it. Most images I took were with my 12-24mm or the 50mm f1.4. Oh, and the iPhone :-) I also used my Lensbaby and my video cameras. I wanted to force myself to look at things a little different. This was our 5th trip to Italy and it's still just as beautiful as ever.

I'll post images from my regular camera later today or tomorrow, but here's the iPhone panos. Click the image below to see the gallery of others.

Click the image to see the gallery of other iPhone panos