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Lesson Info
How to Use Priime and VSCO
So the next apps that I wanna talk about are actually two apps that I really like for their filters. I think that in this day and age we are really loving this sort of one-click finished product editing style. So that's one of the reasons why Instagram has been so successful or why the start of Instagram was so successful because suddenly there was just with the press of a button, this wonderful image that you would take and it was like a one-click way of making your image look a lot better. So we're really kind of tied to this idea of filters being a good editing solution. And I'm not gonna tell you otherwise, I'm not gonna say that filters are not a good thing. What I am gonna say is that by and large, when you choose the filters that you wanna apply to your photos, you may not want to apply them at 100%. I think a lot of the apps that make filters kind of know that 100% only works well on certain images. But for most images, it's actually gonna be a little too heavy-handed. So you'l...
l find that in most instances, when you can apply a filter these days, you can also adjust the intensity of it. This applies in Instagram itself and it the two apps that I'm gonna tell you about. So those two apps are Priime and VSCO. So Priime is spelled with too i's, P-R-I-I-M-E. And I'm gonna go ahead and open that up so you can see what that looks like. When you launch it, it'll bring you to this screen and actually the last thing that I edited in this app were my CreativeLive photos from my shoot. So I'm gonna go ahead and actually open up one of those images just for demo purposes. So let's open this one of the two dancers. And along the bottom you'll see your tools. You'll see that the first one sort of opens up all of these powerful editing tools, which are great. They don't really distinguish the app from other editing apps however. But what does is actually the filters that it provides. So in Priime they're actually called author styles, but they're basically filters. And those are accessible through the center button. So when I press on that center button, you'll see that the different artist styles or filters will pop up. Full disclosure, I've actually worked with Priime and helped them to develop some of these author styles. So if you find yourself downloading this and going through it, you will see my face in there. So when you scroll through these styles, they were not all made by me. There are a bunch of different photographers who've contributed their work. But you can basically click on the different filters and see how they affect your image. And then there are actually a ton in here. There's some really nice black and white ones that you can try. But with anything, it's just there's so many choices. There are almost too many choices. So you'll find that there will be some that you like more than others and tend to come to, come back to more often than not. So you can always, in this app and in other apps, you can mark them as a favorite, for example, like I just did. So a little star will show up on the top of the filter so that you can come back to it later more easily without having to scroll through dozens of filters. Once you've applied this filter, say that I like this filter on this photo, but it's a little too intense. What I can do is hit the adjust button on the bottom right. And that allows me to drag the intensity slider and make it just a little bit less intense. I find that I like a lot of my images with filters at about 30%. And the way that I decided that is that I press and hold on the screen and let go and that toggles between the before and the after. So you can see that even though I'm only at around 30% intensity on that slider, it has actually affected the image very significantly. Actually too significantly to my liking. So I'm gonna drag it down even further and make it even less intense. So that's the before, that's the after. To me that looks good, right? It's affecting the image but not too much. With all of these edits, no matter what app you're using, no matter what filter you're choosing, what I recommend, it's really important to make sure that your image speaks first. You want your image to speak for itself. You don't want the image editing to speak first. So you don't want somebody to look at your photo and think oh, that was edited in VSCO and kind of make that association right away before taking in your image. So as a photographer, I want my image to speak first before the edit. So that's one of the reasons why I select a filter, lower the intensity, 'cause I just want it to give my image a little bump. I don't want it to change the image entirely or speak louder than the image itself. So I apply a filter, lower the intensity, and then make tweaks in the edit based on what I feel like the image needs to be a strong final image. So it might be something like this that looks really nice with a very slight filter applied. But say maybe the highlights are too bright and I wanna lower the highlights. Or maybe the color balance is a little off so it's a little bit too cool and I wanna warm it up a bit. I can make all those decisions using the other editing tools that I have available to me in these apps. So back to this image, I like how I've applied this filter at 15-ish percent. So I'm gonna apply that change. And then if I want to make more edits, I can go back to those editing tools that are available on the left side. But I think what I'm gonna do here is actually just save out this image and consider opening it in another editing app to make those minute adjustments. So I'm gonna commit that change and save it by hitting the check mark. And I can choose to either save the image and what it will do is sort of save it as an iteration of your original file. There's something about that that I don't personally like so I don't want to save over my original image even though technically I can go back to that original. So what I always do is save it as a copy, just 'cause it feels better and safer to me. So save as a copy, and that should show up in your camera roll right along the bottom. Before we go further, I wanna show you how VSCO essentially does the same thing. So when you open VSCO, you are taken into the photos that you last worked on in VSCO. And at the top you can hit the plus button and you can scroll through your camera roll to decide what you want to do an edit on. So for ease, I'm gonna select that same image. This is actually my camera roll so you can see that the last image that's in my camera roll is the one that I just saved out of Priime. So I wouldn't normally do a filter in Priime and then another filter in VSCO. I'm just pulling that up 'cause it's kind of an easy demo. So I'm gonna import that into VSCO. Make sure it's selected and then hit the editing tools along the bottom. And the first thing that you see when you hit those editing sliders, that icon, is the filters that are available to me. So with both Priime and VSCO, when you download them you get a couple free filters so that you can try out the app and see what it does, see what the filters are like, and then make a determination about whether or not you wanna buy more filters. But you can use the app for free but you will hit a paywall at a certain point and then have to pay to access more filters. So I'm just gonna scrolling through some of the different VSCO filters that you see as potential options when you open the app. And again, you know, I think this is really a great example of when certain people find certain apps that really resonate better with them. Do you like the filters better in VSCO? Or do you like the filters better in Priime? I find that sometimes I like Priime, sometimes I like VSCO. I usually just make a determination because I know the apps so well which one I wanna open it in and then not open it in the other. So if I find I filter that I like, for example, I can apply it and then tap onto the filter itself again. And what you'll see is that you get your intensity slider there again. So the same sort of thing I was showing you in Priime applies here where you can adjust the intensity of the filter. So say I like it about there, I'm gonna hit the check mark. I've applied a filter and if I want to go ahead and do anymore edits, then the little icon at the bottom with the sliders is where I would find those editing tools. So much like Priime, there's a whole robust set of editing tools that you can use. And they are great. There's no reason not to use any of them. But for these purposes today, I wanna go ahead and just save out the image the way that we've done it with just the filter on it. And then I'm gonna go ahead and hit Save and then you'll see it kind of pops back into my thumbnail view with the edit applied. And along the bottom there are three dots at the bottom right. If I hit that, it says Save to Camera Roll. So that's what I'm gonna go ahead and do. And I always save at actual size. I want the highest resolution possible. I don't ever save a smaller version. 'Cause there's not generally any need to, we have plenty of space on our phones these days to save the full-res versions.
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Great except the sound volume is lower than average Creative Live show
PETE
It's not her. She clearly knows photography. At least I think she does. But what happened to knowing that you can't really see a photo online that well, especially in something like instagram. And moving sliders is so different than getting the good light in camera, as, you know, photographers do. This is a great way for the lay person to produce better looking photos. Not better photos. It's like taking a profession and learning to fake it, but forgetting to mention that's what you are doing. In this age of short cuts and faking it, shouldn't we just have that clause stated some place: Warning! This is a great shortcut but not great photography. A quick copy of a great work of art produces a quick copy, not art. Are there now people who don't know the difference?
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