MATTHEW MOSES

Saturday

Feb232013

Step by Step Edit Guide for a Galaxy Selfie!

Saturday, February 23, 2013 at 4:32 PM

Taken with: Stock Camera

Apps Used to Edit: Snapseed, VSCO CAM, Afterglow, Safari, PhotoForge2, Distressed FX

Editing Process:

1. Take a photo. In this case my mom was the photographer.

2. I then took the photo into Snapseed (Every photo I take and post goes into Snapseed before any other app. Its a must have!) From there I selected "Tune Image" < Brightness +15 < Ambiance +15 < Contrast -15 < Saturation +10. Then I saved the photo to the Photo Library.

3. Imported the photo into VSCO CAM and selected option 5. Saved to Photo Library.

4. Imported the photo into Afterglow and selected the Coal Black and White filter. Saved to Photo Library.

5. From here I went to Safari and Googled "High Def Galaxy Pictures" I wanted a really cool Milky Way or Star Galaxy picture to overlay. I found this one and was pretty stoked.

6. Next I went to PhotoForge2. I imported the Black and White photo and cropped it to the 1x1 square format we have all come to love. Next I went to the Layers section. Added a new layer of the Galaxy picture. I zoomed in and rotated it until I likes the position. I hit the check mark in the top left corner to save that process. Next I tapped on the galaxy picture and went to the Layer Blending option at the bottom. I changed the Blend Mode to Screen and changed the opacity to 0.80 then hit the check mark. You should now have a nice blending of the 2 photos. You can go back and mess around with the opacity or the angles to find the right fit. Saved to Photo Library.

7. I thought I would give DistressedFX another go after hating the app when I first got it. But they recently came out with an update that added alot more control. I selected to Wilde filter on the first row of filters. Brought up the color a tad using the selective sliders. Saved to Photo Library.

And there you go! A lovely star galaxy photo! It took me about 2 straight hours of editing, but I had no real end result in mind. I'm sure there are much easier ways to get this effect but I love the way it came out and I learned alot more about some iPhone editing apps and that's always good!