Hi Folks:
Originally wrote this as an e-mail to a friend but thought we should post this as well. Our friend has mentioned that she has been in a bit of a creative slump with her photography recently, so when I came across this article, I thought of her: Explore Photoshop Mix and Fix with Visual Artist Amr Elshamy.
I do pretty much all of my cell phone processing using Snapseed, but I also have Photoshop Express, Ps Fix, Ps Mix, Prisma and some other apps installed. They’re all free. Prisma does offer an annual subscription plan but if you’re not interested you can ignore that. Prisma is pretty much a one-trick pony, but the one thing you can do is to swipe left/right to vary the amount of effect from the filter you’ve chosen. For any given image most of the filters will look terrible, but there are usually one or two that look good.
This is an image made with my phone, processed in Snapseed:
I ran it through Prisma and back through Snapseed to create this:
Here’s an image of a bigleaf maple from Cathedral Grove in Port Alberni after having been pushed around a bit in Prisma:
Here’s another image from Cathedral Grove:
I saved several Prisma variations, and then stacked them either together or with the original in Snapseed:
This may not be your type of work but it doesn’t matter. The purpose of none of this, of course, is to create great art. The purpose is to enjoy some creative play with your photography, even if no one else ever sees them. Always remember rule #5 (have fun).
Oh, I do have to say I really love the leaf and the other pictures. Really nice. I don’t always use filters, but sometimes I find they provide some nice results.
Thanks! Other than for black and white work, I haven’t used glass filters in years. A polarizing filter can come in handy, but they don’t (yet) make them for cell phones… 🙂