These days my habit is to bop around several photo editing programs to get my images ready for the web. What I use depends a lot on the photos intended purpose, the original quality of the raw image and the role it's to play in the conversation or story.
Let's start with this image of Mt Rainier driving down Highway 167 to Puyallup the other morning. Nice image but kinda blah...
One of my photo go to apps is iPiccy.com. Like many free apps online, it doesn't do everything, but it does do some things very well and that's why I use it...
It has a function called Rainbow and as I learn it I find it to be one of my most important tools!
I'm totally exaggerating the effect below to make the point... As you can see, there's a rainbow splash of blue, green, yellow, and red...
If you compare the image below with the first image on top there's a dramatic difference. All I did was crop the original then applied a little of the rainbow...
What I did with the photo below was to align the rainbows angle by using the slider to rotate it so it was with the foothills before the mountain and the freeway. From top down I enhanced the blue sky a little, hit the mountain and clouds with a splash of very light blue, almost white. Then I added a little more green to the grass and yellows to catch the highlights. This wasn't about faking something, I just wanted a little more drama. I set the fade to about 85% so I used very little color saturation.
After you upload your select the rainbow tab...
Now the app is ready and note the color band from blue on the left to red on the right. You can click on the little squares below the color band and adjust the color. You can slide the little squares left and right to change the rainbow band sizes and you can also click anywhere on the color band to creat yet another band of color.
Note as you follow down the column there's a slider labeled Angle. Using this slide you can rotate the rainbow from vertical to horizontal, like spining the rainbow around a circle. You can also select how much of the effect you use by sliding the Fade. You'll get the idea with just a little experimentation.
What I love about this tool is you can zero in on different areas of your photo. This one was taken downtown Seattle at 3rd and Cherry. It was late at night and the street lights were casting a yellow light on the building. But I didn't have any street detail so I turned up the yellow (towards bronze) just a little to warm it up.
Looking down 3rd Ave at the Smith Tower on a spring afternoon I set the rainbow vertical and just ever so slightly enhanced the raw photo that naturally went from blues on the left to more yellows on the right to capture the highlights and what I was really seeing with my eyes.
I love this one... I just set the rainbow to the colors already there and it created a little more depth. I love the little more blue I see in the building windows top left and the warmer creamier yellow on the building below. Again this was using just a tiny bit of it to help with the details.
This one is a little more dramatic. I set the rainbow vertical going for the blues on the left and the yellow on the right with a little green on the lower left to create mood and depth. This is South Lake Union just adjacent north to downtown Seattle. There is so much new construction going on here in this part of town. I wanted to capture some of the surreal you feel driving through here and exaggerate the depth of field and add a little more drama to the construction cranes.
It's really worth it to take a little time to experiment. I also like the Fix Image tool, Orton Effect, Lomo, and several of the Vintage filter tools. As a blogger, like all of us, I'm always totally pressed for time. I love tools that help me get right to it and very close then allow me to take over from there and make my own adjustments.
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