Billie

Camera: Canon EOS40D with 17-85mm EF USM kit lens.

RAW file developed in Adobe Camera RAW.
Photo processed on iPad2 with the following apps:

PhotoStudio HD - for a pencil drawing version.
FilterStorm Pro - to add the original photo to the pencil drawing, masking off the horse to keep the pencil effect only on the background. I used FilterStorm Pro for the masking albeit PhotoStudio HD offers the masking tool as well but the precision and zooming for mask painting is way better in FilterStorm Pro than it is in PhotoStudio HD.
Blender - to blend the FilterStorm version with the original photo because I wanted some color in the background.
Camera+ - for the inner Vintage frame.
SP PhotoTada - for the outher frame called Statesman. All other sliders set to "None".
A+Signature - for the copyright watermark as well as for Billie's name.

This is my daughter's Anna-Katharina's beloved Haflinger mare Billie, now 18 years old. She's a wonderful horse with a very gentle character and still as crazy as a filly. Born in Tyrol on February the 9th, 1993, Billie was bought as a young filly by the breeder family Gremling-Dauphin where she got trained in dressage and where my daughter started to learn horse-riding at the age of 6 (Billie was 5 then). At the beginning Anka had her little problems with some of  the training horses. The reason for it certainly was to be found in her still very young age, but as soon as Billie got assigned to her the problems vanished. Billie and Anka made a great team, becoming friends for life. So Billie was assigned to my daughter most of the times she went riding. But in 2002 Billie was about to be sold cause some dude woman wanted to buy her for her daughter... Anka was desperate and sad, fearing to loose her beloved friend forever, so I had to do something. I called the breeder and investigated about that woman and luckily for me the woman was still undecided whether to buy Billie or not so I took the occasion to make the deal right on the spot. I had to give up my dream of flying though, cause the money I spend for Billie was initially meant to pay my PPL A with. But a flying license can always be made - a friend like Billie however, cannot be found a second time in life. She's a member of our family since then, and we all love her dearly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How to: Smart-Sharpen Photos on the iPhone

Camera: Canon EOS40D

Lens: Canon 17-85mm EF USM Kit lens

Apps used:

Photoforge2 - to create a high pass layer.

Blender - to blend the high pass layer with the normal layer, slider at 100%, blending mode "Overlay". This method neatly sharpens the whole picture without adding noise. Look at the details on the jeans of the blacksmith! Zoom in and you can even see it's structure.

PhotoForge2 again - after sharpening the photo by blending the high pass layer with the normal layer I reimported the sharpened layer into PhotoForge to apply a Lomo filter as well as to add a white frame.

A+Signature - to add my copyright watermark

Some apps include the option to sharpen a picture but no matter what app I tried I realized that even the best apps end up with a lot of noise after sharpening, no matter if you are using PS Express, FilterStorm3, Iris or whatever. For that reason I applied sharpening filters only modestly. But I always wished to have the possibility to use the same procedure for smart-sharpening that I use in PhotoShop CS5 where I create a copy of my original layer, then apply a high pass filter to that layer, go to the layer's blending options and choose "Overlay" from the menu - et voilà the picture is crystal clear and sharp. On the slider one can adjust the amount of sharpening. Sometimes 100% is a bit too much so you need to adjust a lower setting.

Ok, that's for PS on the big screen. Now I finally found a way to do the same thing on the iPhone, which will also work on the iPad. Currently PhotoForge2 seems to be the only app that comes with a high pass filter (as far as I know, but I may be wrong indeed since I don't know all the apps). I apply that filter to my original picture and save it as a new picture (=layer). Don't worry if your screen turns all gay after applying the filter cause you need to move the slider to the right to see an effect. I used a value of about 200. You don't need to adjust it to exactly 200.00 which is quite impossible. Just use any value close to 200.

After saving that picture I opened Blender where I added the original picture plus the high pass picture for blending. Settings: Blending mode "Overlay", Slider to 100%, original picture on the left, high pass picture on the right. Please see the screenshots below. Do you see the difference? The first picture is unsharpened, the second picture is sharpened:

I applied the same editing procedures to a set of six photos I made one day in June of 2009 as the blacksmith was at the stables to give my daughter's horse Billie a manicure. I asked him for his permission to make photos while he works and he agreed. Billie is a very gentle horse. She truly enjoys to have her hooves cared for - well, but that's part of the female character, isn't it ;o)?

 

The apps that I used on this set are all top notch apps on the long list of photo editing apps, not just because of the possibilities they provide to create beautiful pictures but also because all of them don't ruin the original photo resolution on saving. I processed all of the above photos in original resolution of 3888x2592px. The iPhone needed some time for processing but this wasn't much more than it needs to process original iPhone pictures. I tested this on a Hipstamatic photo that I also sharpened. See below: 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~