30 Jan 2017
VSCO has been one of the most popular mobile apps for editing and filtering images.
If you are a photographer, you probably know that there is also a VSCOFilm - a set of Lightroom presets
for quick and dirty image filtering.
The algorithms VSCO used are pretty complicated, which means it’s kind of hard to imitate. But if you simply type “VSCO online” into Google,
a website named VSCO-like Filters Online would show up.
Yep. This is my work.
I made it not because I am an expert of making filters or image research (which I’m definitely not), but because
no one else made a thing that allows people to apply VSCO image filters without installing anything. To be more specific, I couldn’t find anything if I google ‘VSCO online’ or ‘VSCO filters online’
before I made it myself!
Don’t get me wrong. This is definitely not something. You may wonder how I managed to make VSCO-like filters
onto the web. It’s actually easier than you’d think - as long as you have the Lightroom presets.
In Lightroom (I actually used Adobe Camera Raw), once you’ve satisfied with the filtering or enhancing work, just click save settings….
You’ll be saving an XMP file, which could be opened in a text editor and would look like this:
Scroll down a little bit, you’ll find the RGB Curve Points for the FUJI Astia 100F preset.
Now that we’ve got the key optical values of the filter, we’re going to implement it in Javascript
with the help of a canvas manipulation library called CamanJS.
Add a little bit saturation value to colorize a little…
Add a little bit noise (grain) to make it more like a film photo…
Finally, set the RGB curves, which really is the essentail part of the filter…
Done!
Before
After (FUJI Astia 100F )
It’s not perfect, and I doubt it’ll ever be…But at least it works!
12 Jan 2017
I’m far from a master of Adobe Illustrator (or Sketch), let alone a logo designer. But
if I just copy or buy a logo from somewhere else for the studio I own (even virtually), that’ll be totally lame.
For designing a logo, it’s common to find interesting patterns from outside resources, such as
photos, which could be a great source of inspiration. The other day I ran into this photo by Laura Tidwell, a Flickr friend of mine:
Despite faving it immediately because of the smooth gradient color and stunning reflection, I also found that the far-side little
brother might be a good symbol for the logo because he seemed so relaxed yet dynamic. After doing some image tracing
in Illustrator, I did, eventually, get a quite impressive output.
From a low fidelity photo to 16 color, 6 color and 3 color image in just a few clicks, it
already looks so smooth! Finally it should come with a b&w version, of course, since I just want this to be
a two-color result.
After reducing the threshold value which determines how much of the image results in white and how much results in black when tracing as black and white,
I came up with the image above (right). Then I used the Eraser tool to remove the unnecessary reflection and the Pen tool to
make the vector even smoother, followed by drawing a circle to hold the shape - done! Now I just need to fill in some neutral
colors as well as add some text, which I did:
If you like, you can further animate your logo like I did in After Effects, which really works well with Illustrator.
This way, I’ve created a completely original logo for myself!
09 Jan 2017
Well…Sort of.
A couple of weeks ago I applied here to
become an individual contributor for Getty Images. Today, when I almost forgot that - an unexpected
notification arrived:
Congratulations! The editing team here have been through your submissions and think you might be very promising as a future iStocker! We would like to offer you an invitation to share your talents and apply to become an iStock by Getty Images contributor.
“What? What? Seriously?!”
iStock is a microstock affiliate of Getty Images. For many amateurs, it’s most likely
the first step to become a real Getty Images contributor.
To be honest, I didn’t really expect to get an approval, not even from iStock. After all, I just
bought an ‘amateurish’ APS-C camera - my Sony a6000 - less than a year ago. And I have
only uploaded less than 160 public photos on Flickr, which, by all means, are my total presentable
photos.
You can probably see why I feel so encouraged now. The recognition from a prestigious stock provider
does give me a lot of confidence - another professional player out there!
Besides the congratulation, the notification email also contains three embedded images of the pictures
that I uploaded previously, each along with a code - seems like these three have
passed the editor’s review. I have listed them below:
A good subject might really help you win in the application process.
After submitting the photos, it takes a couple of weeks to get approved and show on the website.
The watermarked photo would look like this:
Feels…legit.
Update*: It seems that iStock is full of both photographers and ‘wanna-be’ photographers now. After
doing some research, I realized that I was just over excited. Though the market has no sign of gloom and doom,
the chance to get yourself some notice on iStock is little. Downloads, which means profit from royalties, will very likely be negligible too.
