Star Wars iPhone Edits

One of the things I've increasingly found myself doing in the past year or so has been the incessant editing of images on a very small screen, typically an iPhone 4 (or more recently, an iPhone 5). Photography-based apps are some of the most regularly downloaded bits of software from the iTunes store if the iTunes charts are anything to go by.

Indeed, there is a burgeoning mass of professional and amateur enthusiasts taking to the small screen with much gusto - just witness the success of people like Richard Gray (aka @rugfoot on Twitter) who teaches courses in iPhoneography at Kensington and Chelsea College. The iPhoneography website has (unrelated to Gray) has also been around since 2008, offering application reviews as well as a supportive network of creative individuals via their Flickr group.

Needless to say the rise of Instagram and other apps (eg Aviary, Instaeffects, Wood Camera, Vintique, etc) that offer quick and easy-to-apply filters, either for free or for very little cost, has produced an upswell in experimentation and creativity wherein even the most average of images can be transformed into something approaching professional quality. 

That's not to say that every user of such apps are suddenly professional photographers - far from it - but the techniques that used to be the preserve of a few are now being aped by algorithms and employed by the many, often with mixed results. Suffice to say there has been an explosion in the amount of images being circulated across various networks, as people increasingly photoblog their food or create digital pinboards of things they've stumbled across on a daily basis.

The thing that really interests me is the ways in which individuals can experiment with various applications in order to achieve some interesting results, often with some helpful feedback from others who witness said experiments. The limitations of mobile phone cameras (limited focal control, digital zoom, etc) makes for some interesting workflows as users find ways to breather new life into old images, even if that is simple bit of colour correction with Snapseed or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, total image destruction with Decim8.

With that in mind, I've been playing around with a few different applications as part of an experimental  Star Wars album so I thought I'd share some of those images here as they've been getting some fairly positive feedback from the people that have seen them. My intention with these images was twofold: 

1) experiment with a number of different applications in order to see what they could do

2) in doing so could I make the overly familiar somewhat unfamiliar yet still recognisable on a very small screen (<4 inches)

All the images below were edited on an iPhone. The applications used in the creation of these remixed images include iPhoto, Photoshop Express (with paid upgrade), PXL, Etchings, Decim8, Snapseed, Wood Camera, Vintique, and Instagram

You can find me on Instagram at http://instagram.com/robjewitt 

Any comments, questions or feedback is welcome

New iPhone Wallpaper

I was a little bored today so I knocked up a quick iPhone wallpaper that may be of interest to some of you.  The resolution is 640 x 960 especially for the iPhone 4, but it works fine on the 3GS too.  Click on the image below to get the wallpaper from my Flickr account in various sizes.

You can get the full .psd file here (2.5 mb)

Make your own iPhone ringtones for free using iTunes

It's Christmas so here's a little gift for you. This is a step-by-step tutorial showing you how to make your own iPhone ringtones for free, meaning you don;t have to pay over the odds prices for expensive ringtone in the iTunes store. All you need is iTunes and your music library.

The tutorial was written on a Mac and the screengrabs refer to a machine running OS 10.6.2 but it's a very similar process for Windows users. You can view the images over on Flickr here. You should also be able to see full size images there if you need them. I start with the presumption tht most people will have their music library setup as .MP3 files. If your music library is mainly .AAC files then this tutorial is not for you. The same method can be employed but there is an extra level of complexity involved which involves converting files to any other format

And so, on we go...

Step 1

Open iTunes


Step 2

First thing we need to do is setup iTunes. Go to Preferences. On Windows, select Edit. On Mac select iTunes or hold "cmd+,"


Step 3

A pop-up should have opened on the "General" tab. Navigate down to the "import Settings"


Step 4

We need to make sure that files will be imported and encoded as .AAC files (Apple's preferred format for the iTunes store). Make sure the "Import Using" field reads "AAC Encoder" - the "Setting" field can be a number of different settings but the "iTunes Plus" setting is a decent enough quality setting for a ringtone. Select OK and go back to iTunes main dashboard


Step 5

Find a song in your library that you want to turn into a ringtone. Right click the track and select "Get Info" (Mac keyboard shortcut: "cmd+I")


Step 6

A popup should open


Step 7

Select the "Options" tab and pay attention to the "Start Time" and "Stop Time" fields


Step 8

Ringtones can be up to 30 seconds in length. In the "Start Time" and "Stop Time" fields enter the time frame from your song of choice and ensure the boxes to the left are ticked. I've just selected the first 30 seconds of your chosen song but you can pick the middle or the end - whatever you like. Select "OK"


Step 9

Back at the main iTunes interface, right-click on your track and select "Create AAC Version". iTunes will now create a 30 second (or whatever time frame you selected) version of the track in the .AAC file format


Step 10

After a few seconds you should see two versions of your track in the iTunes library - one for each file format. The new file will be smaller in file size and shorter in length

Step 11

Right-click on the new .AAC file and select "Show in Finder". There should be a similar command in the menu for Windows machines.


Step 12

There should new be two copies of the file on your machine, with the one you want being highlighted. They should be distinguishable by their file extension. We are looking for the .m4a file


Step 13

Select the file name as we are going to edit the extension. Mac users can just press "Enter"


Step 14

Change the .m4a file type to .m4r


Step 15

You may get a popup at this point, asking if you want to change the file type - which you do!


Step 16

Now, import the new file into iTunes by either dragging or double clicking. The file should now appear and the file kind will read as "Ringtone". Drag the file onto you iPhone or select it as a file to be synched when your iPhone is connected


Step 17

That should be it! You might want to do a little bit of house-keeping by going back to the original .MP3 and going into it's "Options" tab and deselect the "Start Time" and "Stop Time". If you donlt do this, you iTunes libraary will only ever play the selected file as an abridged version!


Hope that was easy to follow. Go and have fun

Merry Christmas!