Momathon Blog

18 Days of Instagram Filters: Day 11 with Brannan Filter

 

The Brannan filter on Instagram has a soft "vintage meets modern" effect. It brings out the grays and greens in a photo. Don't use Brannan if you want bright colors to pop. Instead, try it with photos of your dog or a landscape/cityscape. Fun to use on your next vacation.

I stumbled on a very cool use for the low-key Brannan filter—this filter is great for bringing out the beauty in dogs or cats with dark fur. Often the adorable faces of black labs are lost in a photo. Try the Brannan filter with or without the LUX feature. See my photo of the sweet lab mix, Lebowski.  

{ Your Instagram photos can help shelter dogs: If you like to take photos, grab your iPhone and stop by your local animal shelter. Snap some cute pics with Instagram. Then post them on Facebook and Twitter. }

Images by me, Chris Olson, using an iPhone 4 + Instagram with Brannan Filter (#Brannan)

You can find other posts in this Instagram series here:

Day 1: No Filter

Day 2: Amaro Filter

Day 3: Rise Filter

Day 4: Hudson Filter

Day 5: X-Pro II Filter

Day 6: Sierra Filter

Day 7: Lo-Fi Filter

Day 8: Earlybird Filter

Day 9: Sutro Filter

Day 10: Toaster Filter

 

18 Days of Instagram Filters: Day 7 with Lo-Fi Filter

If you like a dreamy quality to your photos, try the Lo-Fi (Lomo-fi) filter on the Instagram app. With a hint of a blurry effect and saturated colors (especially greens and yellows), this app is great for enhancing floral shots, landscapes and even food styling. For more examples of my Instagram photos with Lo-Fi filters click here.

Images above by me, Chris Olson, using an iPhone 4 + Instagram with Lo-Fi Filter.

You can find other posts in this Instagram series here:

Day 1: No Filter

Day 2: Amaro Filter

Day 3: Rise Filter

Day 4: Hudson Filter

Day 5: X-Pro II Filter

Day 6: Sierra Filter

18 Days of Instagram Filters: Day 4 with Hudson Filter

Day 4: Hudson Filter

The Hudson filter has a subtle vignett-y appeal with cool, blue tones. For a long time I only used the Hudson filter with outdoor shots. I especially liked the way a blue sky became more vibrant. Today I tried to put the filter to the test of enhancing images of dogs, specifically adoptable shelter dogs. I was really surprised how well the filter worked with pets as the subject.

I played around with the Instagram tilt and shift feature to highlight the faces of the two dogs on the lower right and left portion of the grid above. To use this feature, just tap the tear drop icon at the top of the Instagram camera interface, next select either the line or the spot effect, then tap or drag/rotate the image to preview how this feature adjusts the in-focus area.

If you like to take photos, grab your iPhone and stop by your local animal shelter. Snap some cute pics with Instagram. Then post them on Facebook and Twitter.

The four adorable dogs featured above are rescued dogs—Dixie, Amber, Sable (recently adopted) and Rocko. For more information on these dogs, go to this dog rescue link.

Images above by me, Chris Olson, using an iPhone 4 + Instagram with Hudson Filter.

 

You can find other posts in this Instagram series here:

You can find other posts in this Instagram series here:

Day 1: No Filter

Day 2: Amaro Filter

Day 3: Rise Filter

Day 4: Hudson Filter

Day 5: X-Pro II Filter

Day 6: Sierra Filter

Day 7: Lo-Fi Filter

Day 8: Earlybird Filter

Day 9: Sutro Filter

Day 10: Toaster Filter

Day 11: Brannan Filter

Day 12: Inkwell Filter

Day 13: Walden Filter

 

Move over Instagram, make room for the Camera Awesome app

I've experimented with loads of photo apps to turn your iPhone or smartphone a better camera. The new Camera Awesome free app from SmugMug joins my list of personal faves for camera versatility and high performance, a list that includes the Instagram, Adobe Photoshop Express, and Camera+ apps. All of the apps listed here are free except the Camera+ app that costs $1.99. However, I will warn you the app is so much fun it is very tempting buy extra bonus features for the Camera Awesome— each set of nine additional (totally awesome) effects is 99 cents. The Hancock effect adds a layer of script and you can see it above.

The photo included in the post today was taken and/or processed with Camera Awesome. I tried to pick a very ordinary subject—a string of lights—and see if the app could "Awesomize" it. And, yes, that is the term the app makers use. Since I am a Photoshop geek, I wasn't sure if this iPhone app would be as versatile and tweakable as a I wanted. Turns out it was a great deal of fun to use. The so-called boring string of lights (I stood on a chair to take this shot) turned out kind of magical with the Hancock filter. I have to add one thing that I really love about this app, you can upload any photo in the app to post process. Here are my thoughts on the new app:

Camera Awesome 

• Camera app works with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S (an Android app is in development)
• Full-featured and full-powered camera app
• Free app comes with 36 free effects: presets, filters, textures, and frames
• Option to upgrade and buy more presets, a total of 297 presets available
• Image stabilization, burst mode, camera timer, and more
• Fast burst option for active shotss—camera can capture photos in quick sequences
• Works in video mode 
• All your photos can be shared on social media through the easy built-in sharing feature
• Option to use SmugMug photo archiving at full resolution 

Four Ways to Save on Your Vacation Airfare

As fuel prices rise, it is nice to know how you can cut your travel costs when you purchase your vacation flights. According to travel experts—FareCompare.com and others—the cheapest days to fly and best time to buy airline tickets are base on a few simple rules.

Another travel tip is to shop for only ONE passenger's airline ticket at a time to get lowest rates. Why? The airline reservations systems lump your tickets together and highest individual price in your group will determine the cost. 

More ways to save:

You can find more ways to save in my post about using airfare alerts. If you use technology to notify you when prices drop and comparison shop, try using travel sites like these:

• FareCompare
• Expedia.com
• Priceline.com
• KAYAK.com
• Orbitz.com
• Hotwire.com
• ShermansTravel.com

Image above created by me, Chris Olson with yellow flower image by D Sharon Pruitt.

6 reasons burglars love Facebook and Twitter updates

 

It's human nature to enjoy telling our friends about our trips, but telling our friends on Facebook or follows on Twitter when we leave home is also great news to burglars. Here's why:

1. Writing updates about your travel plans that includes the dates you leave and return is just like putting a huge sign up in your front yard announcing: "No one is home now--please rob this house.
2. You might think you know your friends on Facebook or follows on Twitter, but a British insurance firm studied the issue and determined that very few social media users in the study made the effort to screen the individuals they have on their list of friends. 13% of Facebook users and 92% of Twitter users in the study accepted friend requests or follows without checking up on the source.
3. Each time you post picture a picture that shows your house interior or features possessions--cars, computers, cameras, TVs, jewelry, and even pets--you allow those unscrupulous friends or follows check out what they might want to steal.
4. Photo location features tell everyone the exact location of your house or location of other places you visit. Smartphones love creating geotags in photos. Unless you turn OFF this feature when you take and post a photo on social media, the photo geotags store location-based data in the form of latitude and longitude for anyone to see. The tricky part is the fact you might not notice the location is listed, but smart burglars do! Adam Savage, host of the popular science program "MythBusters," posted a picture on Twitter of his automobile parked in front of his house and said he was leaving for work. By giving this Twitter update, he let his fans know much more than that he drove a Toyota Land Cruiser.
5. Location services such as Foursquare tell anyone who is one of your friends or follows when you are not home. And if you are not home, burglars know they are free to rob your house. 
6. Photo geotags can give away your address, but there is one more way your address is available to burglars: Whenever your friends visit you and "check in" with their smart phone to update their status--they are giving away your exact address.

Staying connected is the appeal of social media. Staying safe means waiting to share your travel plans until you get home! 

For more information on smart use of social media, check out Momathon's tips on Facebook, Twitter, and social media

Photo above: Millicent bystander.

Tumblr and me

I joined Tumblr--the site that makes it simple to share practically anything. You can post photos, text, quotes, links, audio, and more. Tumblr is an addictive mix of blogging and tweeting. Your post of a photo or whatever might go viral thanks to the Reblog button on your post that allows a meme to spread rapidly across the blogosphere.

Setting up my Mom-a-thon page on Tumblr and selecting a page theme was so much fun I didn't want to choose just one. I'm sure I will be fiddling with the appearance for weeks. 

Set up a Tumblr account for yourself and have fun!

 

Tech review: Clicker.com finds your favorite tv shows online

 

If you are like me you probably don't have time to watch "real" television, that is, shows during their scheduled time slots. That's why I watch my favorite episodes of Modern Family and many other shows online. Thousands of tv episodes including Modern Family are available online but I don't like the hassle of searching through all the possible sources--and there are over 1200 sources! I let Clicker.com, a free web site, do the searching for me. Clicker.com currently has 24 episodes of Modern Family online. During the regular season I know I can watch certain episodes of the series online on ABC for free. However, according to Clicker, now the episodes are not available on ABC.com and I must purchase episodes on iTunes or Amazon.

I don't have ShowTime on my cable plan, but I really want to watch The
Big C with Laura Linney. According to Clicker.com, I can watch the series pilot on Showtime via Showtime On Demand for a fee or watch it for free on Crackle.com via Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Clicker.com is user friendly--only a few simple steps and you are watching your show online. When Clicker.com finds a show you searched for, the site either includes the video on their site or directs you to another hosting site like ABC, CBS, NBC, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, or iTunes. Based on your search, the site also suggests other shows you might enjoy--a feature similar to the suggested books feature on Amazon.com. You can also subscribe to a Playlist feature that will alert you when new shows in your interest area become available.