Laura Kane » iPhone

iPhone 4S Launch Pricing

Laura — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:19:35 +0000

This is mainly for my own use but as others seem to be finding it useful I’ll publish it here. (Full spreadsheet can be found at Google Docs)

A very Scottish scene

Laura — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:59:10 +0000

Taking a wee wander through the Glasgow Airport complex this lunchtime, a strong whiff from the wild thistle alerted me to this hitherto unnoticed, very twee, Scottish scene. I pass it every day but have somehow failed to notice it before; perhaps the National Theatre of Scotland play I saw last night, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, has raised my ‘Scottish’ awareness? (Do see the play at the Edinburgh Fringe by the way, it’s really very good.)

Hopefully not long until the next iPhone hardware refresh — I’m getting very sick of the 3G’s very poor performance in low light, though admittedly most of the things that are wrong with this picture are more to do with the hastiness of this snap than the phone… Thank goodness for Instagram!

Heilan’ Coo

Laura — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 12:45:08 +0000

Ten coos in a field, which one’s on holiday? The one wi’ the wee calf.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I tell that joke every time I’m in Pollok Park, alongside the one and only piece of Highland cow trivia I know: a collection of Highland cattle is called a fold, not a herd. Crazy.

iPhone photo editing

Laura — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:24:40 +0000

So, I think everyone can agree that the biggest weakness of every incarnation of the iPhone (until the iPhone 4 came along) has been its camera. Incapable of macro photography, susceptible to motion blur, near impossible to use except when outside on a very sunny day — a rarity in Glasgow — and generally very weak even in those conditions.

Despite this, I still use it often to take pictures of little things I see when out and about. Much as I would like to take my proper DSLR with me everywhere I go, the risk of permanent shoulder damage leaves me reaching for my iPhone most often and wondering what I can do to disguise its shortcomings.

One solution is to Photoshop your pictures to death. (Apologies to Adobe for the inappropriate ‘verbing’ of your trademark, but it’s a bit less of a mouthful than “use Adobe Photoshop™ to manipulate your image”.) A little bit of messing around with saturation, curves and the channel mixer should hide some of the worst of the iPhone camera’s sins, though will likely be left with something a little unnatural looking.

By way of example, here is a picture of a sunflower stand I took at east London’s Columbia Road flower market. Just in case it isn’t obvious, the picture on the left is as taken by the iPhone and the one on the right is after some quick Photoshopping.

Not the best example, I grant you, but it shows what can be done with about a minute in Photoshop. A much more vibrant image, and while still quite grainy, is somewhat more pleasant to look at than the original.

The other, slightly less time consuming (in terms of having to transfer files) but rather restricted option is to use the free Adobe Photoshop Express app on the iPhone itself. Alongside basic functions like cropping, contrast, saturation etc., it has a number of preset effects and borders. The effects are pretty horrible in truth, but having the ability to do a little basic editing before uploading a picture to, say, Twitter while you’re on the move is pretty handy. Here’s an example of a photo swiftly edited using Photoshop Express on my phone:

I had to add a thin black border so you can see the white border on the right one, but other than that these are both as they were on the phone. A little contrast shift, cropping, some sharpening and desaturation has made the picture slightly more interesting (if a little cheesy, and I realise it isn’t really a very interesting picture to start with but it was an easy example.)

Finally, the most dangerous of three techniques: the Hipstamatic app. The Hipstamatic 100 was a cheap plastic point & shoot camera developed in the 1980’s by two art school dropouts, but never reached mass production due to their untimely deaths at the hands of a drunk driver. The iPhone app has brought back the vintage look of the camera’s shots, and to a far wider audience than the camera itself ever had. It certainly does produce some interesting results and does a pretty good job of hiding the iPhone camera’s flaws:

Again the black border is purely there so that the borders created by the app are visible. With a (virtual) choice of lenses, film and flashes, it does make what would be fairly dull pictures a bit more interesting, but the potential for overuse is high. Use very sparingly for greater effect.

So there are my three ways to hide the shortcomings of my phone camera. I’m a self-confessed Apple worshipper, but I do accept that having to do this to make photos look reasonable is a real pain. I should really get myself an HTC Desire iPhone 4 ;)

iPhone photo a… photo 33

Laura — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:47:03 +0000

I was in London for work this week and was staying in Hammersmith. With an evening to spare, I managed to catch up with one of my most favourite friends and my brother at The Old Firestation. Built in 1913, the station retains many of its original features despite its conversion into a bar, including this tower. At least I think it’s part of the station — it may well be a water tower or something completely unrelated. It was the subject of some discussion during our time there anyway. Any ideas?

iPhone photo a… photo 32

Laura — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:06:13 +0000

I gave into temptation. There was no question of it really, but I spent the day before launch day humming and hawing, asking on Twitter and Facebook: should I buy an iPad?

It eventually boiled down to the fact that I bought an iPhone on launch day, and I shouldn’t break the habit of a lifetime. That’s a good enough reason, isn’t it? So it was on launch day, at 10:30am (having had to abandon the queue at 8:30am to get to work on time and seconding an associate to get me one) I had it in my hands, and I loved it immediately.

My name is Laura, and I am addicted to Apple products. And books. And sitting in the garden reading said books on said Apple products.

(Disclaimer: I actually don’t have anything against Windows — I use it at work and I’m using it on my laptop right now. I just prefer OSX and related operating systems, when available.)

iPhone photo a… photo 31

Laura — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:36:33 +0000

I had a birthday post last year so I might as well do it again. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…

Ahem, anyway. I went to The Sisters restaurant in the west end with my family for a meal to celebrate said birthday. The food was excellent, and because I had rather awkwardly ordered a cheese platter for dessert (I have the least sweet tooth in the west of Scotland), they made up this plate of fruit and swirly sauces on its own. How lovely is that? If you’re after a really good meal in Glasgow, you could do far worse than here.

iPhone photo a… photo 30

Laura — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:00:40 +0000

The subway in Glasgow is the third-oldest underground metro system in the world, after the London Underground and the Budapest Metro. Running in a circle around the city, there are usually a few interesting people to be found within its carriages, but it shares an unspoken rule with its London cousin — do not look at anyone on the subway, ever. Catching someone’s eye by accident becomes an incredibly awkward moment, and once you’ve done it, it cannot be undone.

A recommendation from a born and bred Glaswegian: just look at the floor, there are some quite interesting feet out there.

iPhone photo a… whenever?

Laura — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:38:10 +0000

So that didn’t really work out, did it?

The plain truth is that I just don’t see much worth taking a photo of on my day-to-day adventures, and pictures of my cat are really pretty boring.

In saying that, I do like this picture of him in his newly adopted bag/home.

So, the new plan is that the iPhone photoblog will continue, but only if I see something worth posting. The chances of failing at this are pretty slim, and the pictures of cats will be minimal. Win win.

iPhone photo a day — day 29

Laura — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:04:05 +0000

The end of an era: the Republic Bier Halle West closed last night. It was nice pub, near my house and had a great pub quiz hosted by a good pal on a Sunday night.

We had a good send off including a guy running up and down Great Western Road naked to win Rangers tickets and the whole place having a shot in place of anyone winning the £50 prize.

Plenty of good times in here. I’m sad to see it go.

The last round:

It’s a twofur! Closed doors and stacked chairs:

Bye bye Bier Halle West, we hardly knew ye.