Tag Archives: Tutorial

Diana Photo App tutorial

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The primary design tool in my digital collage tool box is the Diana photo app. Pretty sure it’s free. It allows you to select two photos and then double exposes them with a variety of filters.

[My other heavy hitters are PicFrame — for making mosaics — and Hipstamatic — a photo app that applies a filter and a frame as you shoot. Many of the photos that I double expose through Dianaphoto were shot in Hipstamatic.]

This post will give you the basic skills to use the Diana Photo app. It is a ton of fun, addictive even. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

First, select two pictures by tapping the camera icons in the squares at bottom. The app automatically applies one of its filters. I’ll show you how to select a different filter in a minute.

  • Tip. If you’re like me and have 1,000’s of photos on your phone, you might want to create an album before starting. That can spare you a lot of scrolling.

If you find yourself intrigued by one of the two selected photos and want to keep it in place while changing out the other, lock it in place by depressing your finger slightly on the picture itself.

A lock icon will show up

Locking a picture allows you to audition how it will look with different pictures or filters or both. To unlock, simply hold your finger down on the locked image.

Next, select a filter. There are a couple of dozen. The variability of effect includes not just color and intensity, but also which parts of the photos are visible. Note that there is also a “no filter” option.

To select another filter, you can swipe left on the double exposure (without the filter grid visible) and whatever filter comes next in the app will be applied. In the alternative, you can hold your finger down on the double exposure and the black filter grid-menu will appear. Then tap to select. This latter method is efficient if you know your favorite filters. There are quite a number of filters that I never use.

To save the double exposure, simply tap the three connected circles ICON at the upper left. That will produce a menu for you to select where to put the pic. I always save to my camera roll, even if it will later go on Instagram or FB or wherever.

Below, find the same two photos with different filters. It gives you an idea of the kinds of changes produced by the app.

Directly below the double exposure, there’s a white dot flanked by plus and minus signs. An intensity slider. Hold lightly and slide left or right to dim or heighten the double exposure. I wish this feature was more interesting. A lost opportunity, IMHO.

Above left shows a fully dimmed filter while the right shows the button slid all the way to the right.

Another design tool is the swap. The selected pictures at bottom can be switched left/right by swiping left or right. This may produce radically different filter results (note, sometimes it makes little to no difference).

Dianaphotoapp has two ways of letting you make random selections. You can tap the dice at upper left and if no photo had been locked, it will select two photos from your camera roll. If you’ve locked an image, then it’ll only select one. I’ve read you can shake your phone too, something I’ve yet to try.

I love the dice function. Absolutely love it.

By using photos of collage or quilts, these pix gain a little artistry (IMHO). Also, when one or both picture is ALREADY a double exposure, some really quirky mysterious effects can be achieved.

That’s one reason why I use the hashtag #lostcountoftheexposures over on Instagram. I also always use #dianaphoto and #dianaphotoapp so that others having fun with this app can see.

Also, once in a while, the official Diana app account will feature one of my pix (last photo, below).

Have fun! Trust me, it’s a super easy app to use.

Mask post #3

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If you’re keeping up with the news, you’ll see new reporting about the utility of wearing masks. Most people I know are keeping exposure to an absolute minimum but still need masks to decontaminate food deliveries or go to the grocery store.

(I kept asking K, “How can 2 billion people be wrong?”) (well, okay, 1.4 billion, but you get my point. They now surmise that Hong Kong’s outbreak was contained somewhat by the prevalent use of masks).

While I wouldn’t recommend using masks that can otherwise serve the medical professionals, homemade cloth ones might help the rest of us, especially if they have a pocket for inserting additional protection.

When I saw the video of the European tailor (below) whip up a mask out of three pieces of cloth in about three minutes, I was beyond impressed. This morning I finally gave his version a try. I want to share the extra steps that I devised to compensate for the fact that I don’t share his mad skills.

First the dimensions:

RECTANGLE: 7.5″ x 14″

TIES: 27.5″ x 1.25″

1) Press short lengths of rectangle under 1/4″. Fold in half. Top stitch from one edge in 2″ then top stitch other end 2″ from edge to the edge. I marked the two inch distances with pins.

(The tailor did not press first or make marks).

2) Press and pin pleats and stitch down. Finished length 3.5″

(The tailor folded as he went while attaching ties).

3) Fold tie in half to determine halfway point and pin, right sides together on pleats. Stitch down.

4) Press tie toward mask’s back then press each side of the long tie towards its center with 1/4″ fold. That makes it easier to stitch.

4) Fold tie and stitch from mid-pleating to one tie end before reversing and stitching from mid-pleat to the tie’s other end. (If you are a precise and practiced seamstress, begin at one end of the 27″ tie and sew to the other end).

5) If desired add an X of top stitching for additional strength at corners of masks.

Voila! A cloth mask with a pocket made from three pieces of cloth.

Here are some ideas for inserts, roughly ranked from most to least effective:

  • Piece of furnace filter cut to size
  • Piece of vacuum bag cut to size
  • A maxi pad
  • A piece of batting
  • A piece of cloth, esp batik or silk
  • A used piece of dryer lint
  • A folded paper towel.

Even if these masks do nothing more than remind one not to touch one’s face between hand washings, they have value.

This morning I read some speculation that the virus might in fact transmit through the air (and not just by droplets) for very short periods of time. That might make cloth masks more important than initially believed.

Some hospitals will accept these to wear over N95 masks. Some hospice/nursing home caregivers have no masks at all and would appreciate these. One friend is making cloth masks for her local firefighters at their request. Every area is different.

Obviously, wash between uses.

felt house – toot/toot

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Yesterday, I spent the better part of the morning having a love affair with my new tripod (now, now, don’t even picture those dirty things!).  Truly, I am having so much fun.  To prepare for tomorrow’s class, I made a new felt hut and documented as I went.  A total first stab at a still-life tutorial — here.  It runs just shy of a minute, so I hope you can take a peek.  Criticism welcome.

Meanwhile, the moon has been peeking in my window.  This is roughly the view from my bed.  Aspidistra and beech limbs talking in lines while the moon makes an illuminated beauty spot, a little like Peppy Miller, and her “little something extra”, in the movie ‘The Artist’.

Digging up and documenting and noodling.  Part of my gift to C. for his quickly approaching 18th birthday, is a collection of journal entries about him (I am already way behind schedule!)  The picture below goes back much further, however, to a batch of illustrations created for book of poems written as a freshman in college (1975).  I’ll spare you the poetry.

Meanwhile, my plaster friends probably have at least another season in them.  They certainly will keep themselves entertained.  I suspect they are talking about me, here.

Although perhaps they, too, are taken with the moon, rouging them up to a feminine pink here.

Collage to quilt

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playing with paper

You can click on pictures for larger versions.

("doesn't SMELL like fish!")

stitching paper to paper

letting images direct where piece is going

making marks on back with oil pastels while wondering, what is left of an experience years later and how do we mark it in consciousness?

More marks.

 

Color copy of new version - with B&W figure in lower left. Abandoned brick/grape leaf background.

Using inkjet printer and prepared, commercially available fabrics - I print one copy on cotton; one on polyester organza.

love this

Placed sheer version on top of partially quilted opaque version

This corner is too dark - so paint and ink to the rescue

Made 'suckers' from erasers out of the junk drawer

Scary to mess about with this much time in, but stamped with copper ink and white paint

Finished piece is edged with striped linen and stapled to wooden frame - you can't really see the quilting or the layering effect in this light

Octopus on the wall.

saved backing sheet to use under fabric as stitching guide

Backer sheet is below the green wool. I stitched from back, following lines. Very messy because toner is not set on page. To be continued.

P.S.  Hope to fix picture resolution issues ASAP.  I have been wondering why my pictures are defaulting to a 72 pixel resolution and looked and looked at my Photoshop settings, but it now dawns on me that perhaps it is a setting on my CAMERA that I changed (the file size while noodling with something else – will check and hopefully fix.

Quilting a Full Moon in Taurus

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I THOUGHT I was going to bind and be done with this.  But a few influences (later on those, perhaps) got me to wanting to add a moon and moon shadows.

To make the moon, I looked in some unlikely places, underlining my rule about COLLECTING UGLY FABRIC.

who knew I'd want this fabric?!!

Disk and batting to start —

I won't use a backing -- but there will be two top layers

I love sheers for layering to create depth and a one-of-a-kind surface —

sheer shirts and scarves layer well

This shirt has shown up in other places lately — a self portrait, for one… Its scenes of New York resonate to a child of parents who haled from Brooklyn.  THIS particular full moon was in Taurus, and so, while my initial impulse was to make a quilt about money, the difficult transitions to fall/daylight savings, and the painful nature of attachment… now it had also to do with my father (b. May 19, 1929).

I like to use dissimiliar threads top and bottom for more texture

After stippling the craters, I flipped one of the lighter edges over the top (making a third top layer) because I thought the moon was too dark, and the fabric was there.

Then, because I wanted to make progress and because I knew I didn’t want to attach the moon to the quilt with a loose satin stitch, I machine-stitched the lunar edges under.  (BTW, do you see those two men in the foreground of the grey landscape?!!  This reference to the “man (or men) in the moon” not only affirms my love of visual puns, it does direct homage to my father, who was a true Master of the Pun.

On a different day, I might have decided to tuck these edges under by hand.

Now, I wanted to make moon shadows.

rejected this treatment of moonlight

More on that tomorrow!  (This treatment was soundly rejected!)