Contrary to their desktop computer counterparts, which try and cram as many features as possible into an application suite, iPad apps generally have a very limited set of functions and tools. There is no one size fits all solution for editing images on the iPad and so it really comes down to deciding what post-processing you commonly do and what are the best apps to accomplish that. Quite often this involves a few saves to the photo library as you move your image back and forth between multiple iPad image editing apps. As an example, Im going to go through the beginning-to-end post-processing workflow of a portrait I took of my kids a couple weekends ago after they returned from a karate class. The creative part of my mind was thinking things like Rocky, fighter & manager, The Wrestler and that was the theme on which I would base the final image.

Heres what I started with.

Im sure you can already see the first problem. Yes, thats a electric socket in the wall. Considering that the rest of the wall is detailess white, cloning it out should work here. For any detail work I use Photogene with the Go-Pro package (my Photogene review). It has all the detail mask and retouch tools such as cloning, a heal brush, dodging, burning, and so on.

Step 1: Open the image in Photogene and use the clone and heal tools to make the outlet disappear.

Step 2: Crop the image into a square to get rid of all the negative space, also in Photogene.

Step 3: Export the image to the photo library to make it available to other apps.

Were done with Photogene, although we will come back to it a little bit later. Now I want to do less minutia-centric tasks on the image and do more global things, specifically applying a filter. Just as with post-processing on the desktop, no other company has better filters than Nik Software. Niks app for iOS is called Snapseed and, while it does have a few selective-editing tools, it excels at plug-in style image editing.

Step 4: Open the saved image in Snapseed.

Now to find a filter that will give me a final look suitabe to the creative vision I had when I took the original photo.

Step 5: Apply Drama filter.

Step 6: Save the Snapseed image to the photo library.

Now on to the final touches and export. For both I use Photogene because with the Go-Pro package there are some very powerful batch tools to abuse, such as pasting IPTC data, watermarking, exporting, and so on.

Step 7: Open the image back up in Photogene and fill out the IPTC data.

Step 8: Export the image to wherever you need it. Photogene supports exporting images up to 22MP to many different places, including Dropbox, Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, email … even good old fashioned FTP. I typically use Dropbox so that the image will automatically propagate out to all the other computers and mobile devices I use. I also have a secure FTP server running on my webhost and a folder in the account root just in case Dropbox is having issues.

Heres the final image.

Whats your iPad image post-processing workflow? What apps do you use to do what tasks? Leave your suggestions and comments below.

Now this weeks street pictures of Taipei.

And Ill end on my favorite from the past seven days, which I call Writers Block.

Until next time.

So heres pictures of Wulai, late at night, in 15 minutes.

Constructive thoughts welcomed.

What this means is really, really long exposure times…too long to capture flitting lightning bugs. Take this photo, for example. The shutter was open for a full 8 minutes at f/8 in the pitch blackness of 8PM. If you squint, you can kinda…sorta…make out a couple of firefly trails. To put it in context, there were dozens of lightning bugs in front of the camera.

If given the opportunity, Id try something shallower and faster, like 60 seconds at f/2.8…but then focusing becomes an issue.

Failed photographic flings aside, the trip to this firefly farm in Wulai was a wonderful one. It started with a short presentation on the science and biology of lightning bugs and a listing of the rules (which I outlined above and which caused many a camera-toting tourist to groan audibly).

This was followed by the distribution of glow-jewelry so that in the murky blackness of the night parents could keep track of their children and vice-versa.

And then we were led down a dirt path away from the welcoming lights of the visitor center, past an artificial lake, and to a forest-surrounded field filled with dancing lights.

This farm is located about 15 minutes from the Wulai waterfall but in the opposite direction. They are open daily from 4-8:30PM, although the night my family went we left closer to 9. Firefly season starts in late spring and goes through much of the summer.

So I couldnt get any pictures of lightning bugs, but Ill include a couple firefly sketches Ive done.

On to this weeks featured street pictures of Taiwan.

More next time.