Uses for Junk

I think it is important to throw out most of the pictures I take.  The secret of good editing is to just get rid of any plain, common, ordinary, snapshots.  Also of course anything that has errors like out-of-focus, wrong exposure or unwanted objects in the frame. Delete, delete, delete. 

But … recently, with digital photos and modern editing software, I have decided to keep some pictures that in the past I would have destroyed. I have two programs I particularly like on my Mac, SketchMee and Image Tricks Pro. I know everything these programs can do can also be done with Photoshop. But Photoshop is expensive and overly complicated.   There are good programs for iPhones and Android Phones also.  I use Pixlr Express, PicSay, Picasa and Snapspeed on my phone.

The best way to use this stuff is to play around.  Try the different filters and effects. Some modifications you just apply and others can be applied in degrees, often controlled with a slider. There are filters, frames, distortions, layers, all sorts of things.  Below are some examples.  I started with a picture taken from a golf cart with my cell phone camera. The picture is blurry and not composed very well.  I think there is too much contrast for the camera to handle. 

Be sure to click or double click to enlarge these thumbnails to see the full size images. The true effects cannot be seen in the small version.

Here is a modified version, black and white.

Here modified with crystalizing from Image Tricks Pro.

Here posterized.

Here dot screened filter.

Here pinched.

Finally a thermal image.

As you can see there is a wide variety of things to do with a not-so-good picture.  

Give it a try.