CameraBag 2 review

Last week Nevercenter asked if I'd like a review copy of their photo editing desktop app CameraBag 2. I had a look at the intro video on You Tube and thought it looked interesting so said why not and they gave me a copy. Initially I wasn't entirely sure why they approached me but I suspect that they are aiming for the "in love with Instagram (or Hipstamatic) and want to do it on my computer" set - and I admit I've looked for Photoshop filters that would allow me to replicate some of the filters I like on Camera + or Magic Hour. And woah does CameraBag have filters! Filters up the wazoo.  I could put in some screen shots of it in action, but actually the 5 minute 'How To' video is probably the best way to get an idea of how it works and it will save me a lot of explaining!



So, what do I think? I think it's fun and useful but there are some important things that are missing. First the good stuff!

Filters, filters, filters and more filters! I'm sure if you're a Photoshop whiz you can do these things easily enough, but I'm not and I can't - not even a vignette, so I'm pretty excited about these.

This is some of them:


And there's even more of them here:


All up I counted 102 individual filters, and then within each of those there is a huge variety of settings. It's a little overwhelming! Luckily there is the quick look option which lets you see them all at a glance.

There are also the usual exposure settings of brightness/contrast/saturation etc. etc.



Plus some frames (something I've never been able to figure out in Photoshop!)



So all of that's good and great and I'm really enjoying it. But what can't it do? (and I do stand to be corrected on this if anyone knows differently) Well it can't sharpen, and that's a major failing in my books. I use unsharp mask a lot, even on photos that are pretty sharp to begin with. Other online photo editing programs do a good sharpen - Snapseed on my iPhone does a super-good job, so its lack in CameraBag is a bit puzzling. It's the difference between this:

and this:

The other thing that I like to use a lot is a clone stamp or similar to get rid of pesky lamp posts or wires or trees. There are iPhone apps that can do this (eg.Filterstorm) - but not CameraBag. So instead of getting all lovely cloud courtesy of the seriously cool 'content aware' fill function in Photoshop (cloning could do it too, it's just much more labour-intensive):

You get this

Boo - trees and powerlines!

In the course of trying to figure out where sharpening was, I discovered another issue - the lack of a decent help function. The website offers a few video tutorials and some FAQs and that's about it. There is no comprehensive help guide, or any way of searching on a topic if what you want to know isn't contained in the FAQs. This suggests they aren't really expecting anyone to want to use this program seriously, or to experience anything outside the completely ordinary and expected. As a Photoshop and iPhone photo app junkie user it wasn't really an issue for me, and the controls are pretty intuitive, but still.

Overall I'm really enjoying the app and even if I had spent money on it I think I'd be pretty happy and looking forward to using it; but it's not perfect. I suspect what I'll be doing is some basic editing in Photoshop, particularly sharpening, and then taking it over to CameraBag. I've got my iPhoto set up to edit using Photoshop anyways, so it should work fairly smoothly. At the moment CameraBag 2 is US$24 and you can get a month's free trial for either Mac or PC, which seems to me like a bit of a no-brainer - you can evaluate it yourself. And if you find a way to sharpen I'd love to know!

I Heart You

Yes you! And all the lovely people who read this blog - I can hear you breathing out there you know ;) And I need your help with this post! A few weeks ago I came across this very cute tutorial for making a heart on a pillowcase with little dots of fabric paint and somehow, some way, I managed not to Pin it, or bookmark it or anything - just stowed it away in my memory and got the supplies. Of course, when I went to do it I couldn't find the webpage and just had to wing it based on my memory. So if you have seen this heart before and know where the tutorial is could you let me know so I can credit it properly?  Yay! The tutorial has been found and it's over at V and Co., thanks to Lyndsey and Jocelyn. It's a bit like Chinese whispers looking at my effort and the original - the things I'd remembered and forgotten.

The heart turned out very cute despite all that, my memory must be better than I realised (aside from the fact it was done on a tote bag in the original!).



It wasn't quite as easy as I'd thought, my technique with the end of the pencil was a bit lacking at the bottom and lots of the circles had no paint in the middle. Then I figured out that if you lightly dab dab dab it in the paint for each dot you get a much nicer circle. I also think I could have gone for less of the darker pink, but I was aiming for three colour changes as in the tutorial and was too timid with adding the white so my gradations weren't as obvious. I like the more subtle ombre effect of mine too though! One thing I did do is waste a lot of paint because I was adding white to the existing pink at each change and it takes a HECK of a lot of white to make an increasing amount of pink lighter! In the end I started scooping out a small amount of the pink and lightening that. I still went through most of a bottle of white paint before I figured that little trick out. And yes, I have a PhD, though in my defence it's in archaeology, not painting :P

This was the first time I'd used freezer paper and I'm a total convert! It was so easy to iron on and the edge, though not perfect, is pretty clean and sharp. I definitely need to try more stencilling with it.

Instagram

I haven't been doing anything interesting lately, though I do try and fake it on Instagram. I love making my life look all arty and cool.

I've yet to try printing any photos off in a serious way - anyone have a good experience with a printing company? I printed a few off on my printer but I think I'd have to glue the photo paper to cardboard to stop them curling in the humidity. I created these mosaics over at instagrid.me, and they link up to printstagr.am who have some cute options, but I haven't investigated the international shipping. One never knows with US companies - sometimes they're fine, other times they seem to regard the existence of the rest of the world as offensive in some way and the shipping is so exorbitant you'd expect the item to show up carried by Daniel Craig in an Aston Marton. I think I've just convinced myself that it would be a good thing if Printstagram was in the latter camp... ;)

A finished quilt

No, that's not the fun thing I promised for yesterday - it had to take a raincheck for a couple more days.

I do think that finishing a quilt is fun though, partly because it means I can get on to something else! I see from the photo from when the top was finished that it's been sitting around since JUNE last year. Yeesh. Anyways, it's done-diddly-done!

The Spotlight basting spray washed out fairly well, although I think there might be a bit left - it's hard to tell to be honest. It certainly feels less stiff! So a reasonable substitute for the mythical 505 spray for those of us downunder. The back was put together from three sections of the linen, hence the two long lines between the two smaller bits.

I love the back.  The front...I don't know. I'm not a bright quilt kind of girl, so while I love the linen, and the design (Batch of Brownies by Elizabeth Hartman) and I'm pleased with myself and all that I'm not in love with it. It sort of reminds me of this little little ditty by Tom Brown:

I do not love thee, Dr Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not love thee, Dr Fell.

Everyone seems horrified that I don't love it, but it must happen right? Tell me your story!

Part of the reason the fun stuff has taken a raincheck is that this little guy has made an appearance in our lives -

He was dumped at a park and has been attacked by a dog. Hazel and her friend Jessica found him and captured him and made us grownups look after him. So here we are with a shared bunny named Sniff. He's been checked over by the vet and at the moment he's at Janet's in a borrowed hutch while we decide if we want to be bunny mummies or not. We don't have a decent back yard for him to live in sadly, so not sure if it'll be us looking after him longterm or not. He sure is a sweetie though!

The handwriting meme

I saw this over at Meet Me At Mike's and of course it was super-cool so I had to join in!

The questions I'm answering are these:
1. What is your name
2. Blog URL
3. Write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
4. Favorite quote
5. Favorite song (at the moment)
6. Favorite band/singers (at the moment)
7. Say anything you want
8. Tag 3-5 bloggers

I'd love to see your handwriting if you would like to do it - it's something we all miss in this digital age I think! My handwriting has become a lot messier than it used to be, partly through dis-use but also because it's only me reading these days! At some point I switched from cursive (all my Uni notes were written in it) to some sort of hybrid printing/cursive thing - prinsive? I read somewhere that some schools are discontinuing teaching cursive but I think that would be a massive shame to be honest - how are kids going to develop a decent signature for one?

Stay tuned for something interesting on Tuesday - the first day back at school for Hazel and the first day of freedom loneliness for me. Ahem.

Pinecone pincushion

I was in an opshop yesterday and my eye fell on this curious thing



Looking closer I realised it was a pincushion so I picked it up, only to discover this on the bottom



It's made on a pinecone! The faded tag on it suggested it would make my work basket smell nice, so I suppose originally it would have had a lovely pine-scent as well. Of course I had to buy it for the princely sum of $1. When I got home I googled 'pinecone pincushion' and found some instructions for making them, as well as some other examples. I really like how the one on BubzRugz has some of the ummm... bract scales showing (I googled that too!).

Mine sits very nicely on its base, although in some ways it's a shame because I think I almost like the exposed cone contrasted with the fabric the most!

Comments hiccup

I've just realised that unbeknownst to me, my commenting system Disqus had stopped working on my blog, or was only doing a half-assed job, and I wasn't being notified of comments! It was sending me a notification of the first comment per post and then nothing else, and I hadn't been checking the blog - I've just discovered a whole pile of lovely comments left in the last 2-3 weeks! I've replied as best I can but I don't know if Disqus sends out replies to people if I do it via the website - I usually reply by email and send one directly to the commenter so I know they get it. Hopefully it's fixed, although really I have no idea what was wrong or what I did to fix it but it looks ok now.

So if you left a comment and didn't get a reply please check back on the post! I can't seem to send replies by email retrospectively.

So annoyed.