Mobile Photography/Art Pic of the Day (613) via Instagram

Here's day six hundred and thirteen of our mobile photography/art Pic of the Day section via Instagram. Each day we will be selecting one image a day for our Pic of the Day section on Instagram with this hashtag – #theappwhisperer.

To ensure your image receives our attention, please upload it to Instagram with this hashtag – #theappwhisperer

Today, we congratulate @imagomimago – Mimi Svanberg with this breathtaking image entitled 'Reflecting Spells'.

Please view more of her images here.

[Please visit our Artist Directory and find out how we can add you too!]

While you're here…

….we have a small favour to ask. More people than ever are reading TheAppWhisperer.com and we could not be more excited about that. We bring you ad-free journalism every day, so you don't have to close windows and be distracted with advertisements. We specialise in mobile photography and mobile art and we value all of our readers, writers, contributors and viewers but we do have costs and we do need to ask for your help. We at TheAppWhisperer spend many hours each day, each week and each month to bring you this high quality level of journalism. We do it because we are passionate about it and because we want others to be as passionate too.

If everyone who reads our website, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be so much more secure. Please help us by offering a contribution or supporting us with a monthly donation of your choosing. Please will you help us?

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Source: Mobile Photography/Art Pic of the Day (613) via Instagram

Vic Gundotra, former Google SVP, praises the iPhone camera

Everyone is entitled to their opinions and everyone has the right to change them at any time. But some opinions, when publicly expressed, can be so damning if they come from certain people. That seems to be the case when Vic Gundotra, who held the position of Senior Veep for Social at Google until 2014, posted on Facebook his new profound admiration for the DSLR-like output, not of a Google Pixel phone or even an Android phone, but of the iPhone 7.

Granted, being a company executive in the past doesn't mean you're forced to always sing high praises of your former employer til kingdom come. Even Apple co-founder Steve "Woz" Wozniak continues to be critical of the company when he thinks Apple deserves it. If credit should be given where it's due, so should criticism and blame be.

In this case, credit is being given to the iPhone 7's photography chops. Specifically, the iPhone 7 Plus and its fancy new Portrait Mode function. In a nutshell, this camera mode utilizes the iPhone 7 Plus' dual cameras to make the foreground subjects pop out by blurring the background. Sort of like Bokeh, but utilizing software and algorithms to achieve the effect rather than relying simply on lenses.

In a post on Facebook, Gundotra describes how he managed to take two stunning photos of his kids using just his iPhone, without using the flash even. The ex-Googler decided to leave the real camera at home and still managed to capture brilliant photos. The end of the DSLR has already arrived. His words.

While iPhones have traditionally held the places of honor as far as mobile photography goes, some might argue that hasn't been the case in a long while. DxOMark doesn't even place any iPhone in the top 4 scores, much less the top 10 phones. Google's own Pixel once held the top spot, to be surprisingly displaced by the HTC U11. This song of praise from Gundotra probably isn't going to sit well with the Android faithful at all.

What's your take on this new "endorsement" of the iPhone 7 Plus camera? Does it match your own experience? Has Apple reclaimed its throne or did it never leave it at all? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

SOURCE: Vic Gundotra

Source: Vic Gundotra, former Google SVP, praises the iPhone camera

Get legit tools and lessons for screenwriting, coding, and more [Week’s Best Deals]

We're right in the middle of the dog days of summer. But the hottest place you'll find is at the Cult of Mac Store. We've been busy stacking up a bunch of new deals that are ideal for digital creatives. We've got a set of lessons in coding for the all new iOS 11, and Adobe's suite of graphic design apps. There's also the industry standard app for screenwriters, and a rugged phone tripod for mobile photography and video. Discounts range from 40 percent to 95 percent off, read on for more details:

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These days, graphic design ability is useful to more jobs than ever. This massively discounted lesson bundle offers training and certification in Adobe's most used tools for graphic designers: Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. With more than 40 hours of lesson content, it covers key concepts and tools for each application, working through everything from the basics up to advanced techniques. And with CPD certification, it's a solid addition to any resume.

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Get a lifetime subscription to the Graphic Design Certification School for $39. That's a massive 96 percent off.This tough, compact, and flexible mobile tripod is a great way to get the shots you want.Photo: Cult of Mac Deals ARMOR-X Mini Flexible Phone Tripod – 42% off

Taking solid photos or videos means having a solid tripod. They don't come more solid than ARMOR-X. And thanks to a collapsible design and universal compatibility, you won't find one that's more convenient either. This mini tripod is easy to set up pretty much anywhere, with flexible legs that allow for mounting on anything from streetlamps to trees to railings and beyond. Built-in leveling, rubber grip feet and a Bluetooth remote shutter mean you can get the shot you're after.

Buy now: Get an ARMOR-X Mini Flexible Phone Tripod for $19.99, that's 42 percent off the usual price.

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iOS 11 is coming along with a bunch of new features, so developers better get studying. Whether you're a seasoned coder, or are just starting, these 249 lectures will help sharpen your skills. Popular online instructors Rob Percival and Nick Walter will teach you about the latest features and updates. That includes Swift 4, MusicKit, the new Depth Photo API, and a bunch of other features mobile developers need to know. Plus, you'll get $100 of AWS credit and $200 of unlimited web hosting for a year.

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Source: Get legit tools and lessons for screenwriting, coding, and more [Week's Best Deals]

Mobile Photography & Art – ‘My Top Five Apps’ by Jerry Jobe from Georgia, United States

We are revitalising our Top Five Apps section to our Photo App Lounge column. This a section within TheAppWhisperer where we ask highly accomplished mobile photographers and artists to list their top five apps and to explain why they have selected them.

Kicking us off today is Jerry Jobe our incredible tutorial writer and passionate artist from Georgia, USA, enjoy! (foreword by Joanne Carter).

To read others from this series, please go here.

All photos ©Jerry Jobe

"I've covered over 150 apps since I started writing tutorials back in November of 2012. I might have another 150 that I haven't written about. So how am I supposed to pick just five of them?

The fact that there are so many apps to choose from is a good thing. That doesn't mean that they are all good apps. As the number of available apps grows, however, the number of really good apps grows also. Even if only one out of ten apps are worthwhile, that still means I have thirty apps worthy of consideration for "top five'.

I do have several apps that I use on a regular basis. These apps form my core, the ones that are versatile enough that I can perform many tasks easily. If an app is too specialised, it might be a favorite, but I can't call it a top five app. In no particular order."

Snapseed

Snapseed was an invaluable app when I first covered it over four years ago, and it has only improved. The ability to mask changes and step back through history has made it a go-to app, especially for final tweaks.

I wanted to show a particular feature, and why it is so valuable to me: Vignette. I find a good vignette can help focus the viewer's eyes on the subject, but I hate a heavy-handed vignette. Most apps merely darken the edges of an image, as in the picture on the right. But Snapseed does two great things with the vignette. It allows you to move the center of the vignette over the subject, and the vignette is applied in more of an Overlay blend mode rather than Multiply. Multiply darkens all underlying pixels indiscriminately, while Overlay darkens the lightest pixels less than the darkest. I prefer the Snapseed version, as shown on the left.

Free/download

iColorama

Surprise! Not really, to anyone who has been baying attention to the number of tutorials I've written on this queen of mobile photography and art apps. It has a steep learning curve, but its treasure-trove of features and masking capabilities (including reusable masks) make this the one app that nearly all of my images go through. It is also my blending app of choice for combining apped images back with the original to bring back detail.

Also, when I am creating an appstract, I often begin and end in iColorama. This appstract is called "Journeys End in Lovers Meeting".

$2.99/download

Stackables

I hate noise in photos, but a little bit of texture can't hurt. Stackables is my texture app of choice, because it combines ease of use like Distressed FX, with a ton of modifiable textures, like Mextures. Add in the ability to do tilt-shift effects and masking, and you have a finishing app worthy of a top-five inclusion.

$1.99/download

Brushstroke

There are many specialised "painting" apps out there, where the app does all the painting. I like to use them, since my brushing ability, like my sketching ability, is next to non-existent. Brushstroke offers the most varied and "realistic" painting that I have seen, at full resolution. Of course, if the result is too strong, you can always use them as part of a blend, as I did in "Putting Green".

$3.99/download

Leonardo

Sooner or later, when working with images, you are going to want to layer images. You might want to create a collage, or be able to change eye color in a non-destructive manner (oh, I wanted blue instead of green). That's why I wanted to include my favorite layering app.

$4.99/download

Affinity Photo

Affinity is a brand-new app, with tons of promise. The final image at the end of the article, "Renaissance Lighting", uses Affinity. But it is only available for iPad Pro users, so I can't count it among my official top five at the moment.

Prior to June, when Affinity appeared, I did my layering in Leonardo. My example here is "Flashback to Hawaii", where I layered a caricature made in Moment Cam onto my own "painted" image I captured on a visit last year. The masking, crucial in collage work, uses the code found in Superimpose, a terrific app on its own. Leonardo adds a ton of features to the basics of masking, making it a definite top five pick.

$19.99/download

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….we have a small favour to ask. More people than ever are reading TheAppWhisperer.com and we could not be more excited about that. We bring you ad-free journalism every day, so you don't have to close windows and be distracted with advertisements. We specialise in mobile photography and mobile art and we value all of our readers, writers, contributors and viewers but we do have costs and we do need to ask for your help. We at TheAppWhisperer spend many hours each day, each week and each month to bring you this high quality level of journalism. We do it because we are passionate about it and because we want others to be as passionate too.

If everyone who reads our website, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be so much more secure. Please help us by offering a contribution or supporting us with a monthly donation of your choosing. Please will you help us?

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Source: Mobile Photography & Art – 'My Top Five Apps' by Jerry Jobe from Georgia, United States

Mobile Photography/Art Pic of the Day (611) via Instagram

Here's day six hundred and eleven of our mobile photography/art Pic of the Day section via Instagram. Each day we will be selecting one image a day for our Pic of the Day section on Instagram with this hashtag – #theappwhisperer.

To ensure your image receives our attention, please upload it to Instagram with this hashtag – #theappwhisperer

Today, we congratulate @wstairs – Wayman Stairs, with this breathtaking image.

Please view more of his images here.

[Please visit our Artist Directory and find out how we can add you too!]

While you're here…

….we have a small favour to ask. More people than ever are reading TheAppWhisperer.com and we could not be more excited about that. We bring you ad-free journalism every day, so you don't have to close windows and be distracted with advertisements. We specialise in mobile photography and mobile art and we value all of our readers, writers, contributors and viewers but we do have costs and we do need to ask for your help. We at TheAppWhisperer spend many hours each day, each week and each month to bring you this high quality level of journalism. We do it because we are passionate about it and because we want others to be as passionate too.

If everyone who reads our website, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be so much more secure. Please help us by offering a contribution or supporting us with a monthly donation of your choosing. Please will you help us?

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Source: Mobile Photography/Art Pic of the Day (611) via Instagram

Mobile Photography – Portrait of an Artist – Twenty Fifth Video Showcase

We are delighted to present our 25th Portrait of an Artist Video Showcase. Huge thanks to our astonishing Editor for this group, Ile Mont, she has curated an phenomenal show, her discerning eye knows no bounds. Enjoy! (foreword by Joanne Carter).

"Welcome to our twenty fifth Portrait of an Artist Showcase! This Showcase complements our Portrait of an Artist Column edited by myself. Every few weeks I review and curate work that has been submitted to our dedicated Flickr group. In addition, Joanne Carter creates a showcase video which features a sampling of submitted work, we will also highlight a few images that have caught our attention… offering some thoughtful commentary about technique, composition and subject matter.

If you are not a member of our Facebook group… we highly recommend that you join us! This is our space for sharing newsworthy information and conducting discussions (what, when, where, why and how) regarding mobile portraiture and portraiture in general.

Please join our Facebook group for information sharing/discussions (link here)

Please upload your portraiture images to our Flickr Group for fortnightly showcase submissions (link here)

Many congratulations to the following artists for being featured this time, including:

Ade Santora, Greg Lakatos, Sara Kuhn, Giancarlo Beltrame, Vanessa Vox, Manuela Basaldella, Alex Paton, Louise Whiting, Jane Schultz, Katie Teixeira, Eliza Badoiu, Juta Jazz, Kate Zari Roberts, Marguerite Khoury, Nick Kenrick, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, JH MCBandy, Isabel Afonso, Angie Lambert, Aylin Argun, Giulia Baita, Lorenka Campos, Sukru Mehmet Omur and Damian De Souza.

Letters II ©Ade Santora

In the beginning it seemed to me like a photograph of a sculpture. Observing it in detail I was very surprised how the human face took shape in a very energetic mood. I also found very interesting the contrast of the elements combined to edit this image. A portrait worked out with letters! A witty abstraction in perfect balance. What a bold, refreshing and creative way of Ade Santora to represent  such an important part of what makes us humans too: expression through the word.

Her ©Greg Lakatos

It was the use of the negative space and the peaceful mood in this portrait that made it so attractive to me, even beyond the disquieting lack of the eyes. I find it a very interesting conceptual and minimalist proposal for a mysterious, yet undeniable beautiful portrait by Greg Lakatos, that keeps you obsessively longing to complete the image while wondering how would the eyes and expression of the subject will look like over the empty space.

Portrait of an Artist Video Showcase While you're here…

….we have a small favour to ask. More people than ever are reading TheAppWhisperer.com and we could not be more excited about that. We bring you ad-free journalism every day, so you don't have to close windows and be distracted with advertisements. We specialise in mobile photography and mobile art and we value all of our readers, writers, contributors and viewers but we do have costs and we do need to ask for your help. We at TheAppWhisperer spend many hours each day, each week and each month to bring you this high quality level of journalism. We do it because we are passionate about it and because we want others to be as passionate too.

If everyone who reads our website, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be so much more secure. Please help us by offering a contribution or supporting us with a monthly donation of your choosing. Please will you help us?

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Source: Mobile Photography – Portrait of an Artist – Twenty Fifth Video Showcase

Mobile Photography/Art Pic of the Day (609) via Instagram

Here's day six hundred and nine of our mobile photography/art Pic of the Day section via Instagram. Each day we will be selecting one image a day for our Pic of the Day section on Instagram with this hashtag – #theappwhisperer.

To ensure your image receives our attention, please upload it to Instagram with this hashtag – #theappwhisperer

Today, we congratulate @74danyy, with this breathtaking image "The dark version of a relaxing moment".

Please view more of her images here.

[Please visit our Artist Directory and find out how we can add you too!]

While you're here…

….we have a small favour to ask. More people than ever are reading TheAppWhisperer.com and we could not be more excited about that. We bring you ad-free journalism every day, so you don't have to close windows and be distracted with advertisements. We specialise in mobile photography and mobile art and we value all of our readers, writers, contributors and viewers but we do have costs and we do need to ask for your help. We at TheAppWhisperer spend many hours each day, each week and each month to bring you this high quality level of journalism. We do it because we are passionate about it and because we want others to be as passionate too.

If everyone who reads our website, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be so much more secure. Please help us by offering a contribution or supporting us with a monthly donation of your choosing. Please will you help us?

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Source: Mobile Photography/Art Pic of the Day (609) via Instagram