Let’s face it, the visuals that I put out there on social media could be a little more consistent. It’s what every workshop will tell you.  Build a consistent look and the followers will come.  But really, I just love playing around.  With everything.  There is never a moment where I’m not post processing a photo on my phone before it gets uploaded onto the web.  I usually direct and compose photos with the intent of processing it with a particular app after.  And I get asked, a bunch, about what apps I use to do this.  So I thought I’d share my little trove of tools that I’ve got neatly packaged in a folder on my iPhone (also because I’ve re-learned that I’m a hyper ENFJ).

 

Hands down, my new favourite app this year. From the ladies behind A Beautiful Mess comes A Color Story, the best thing since dumplings.  In addition to the minimalist and colour worthy filters they’ve got you can also play with effects like this colour fog I’ve got descending on this Phnom Penh market scene.  And if you follow our Instagram, you’ll probably notice that I’ve been playing with light flare.  A LOT.  And I still need to jump on the bokeh bandwagon.

And it’s not just for the photos you take on your phone!  I’ve been transferring the photos I take on my Canon 6D directly to my phone so I can share them with you, stat.  This allows me to throw them quickly through A Color Story, make some rock star adjustments and light play like I did with my buddy Adam, last night.  And up onto social media they go within as little as 5 minutes. 

I heart a good collage.  And while Instagram’s got Layout, I dig how FrameMagic allows me to border photos in a frame of whatever margin size I like, play with adjustments and filters, and in general make life so easy.  I took these photos when I was front row at Dengue Fever’s last concert in Phnom Penh.  Those colours are the product of their epic show! No editing needed on my phone!

Boomerang vs. DSCO! from Tiffany Tsang on Vimeo.

You know I like a good GIF.  And now I can make them effortlessly on my phone!  Over the past month, I’ve been experimenting with Instagram’s Boomerang and VSCO’s DSCO. My library is filled with Crossfit videos so far (just because gymnastics as GIFs are so fun).  These apps were just released in the past year and have their own unique capabilities.  While both allow you to upload to Instagram which will play the GIFs as videos in a never ending loop, Boomerang exports the videos as 8 second videos while DSCO does it for 5 seconds.  Processing times are also a bit different.  DSCO requires you to upload to your VSCO library first, while Boomerang operates at the speed of light.  Save that GIF video (GIdeo?) file, and upload it later.  Filtering and editing options are also a bit different.  DSCO comes with a package of VSCO’s super minimal hipster chic filters, while Boomerang only allows for editing later on using Instagram’s embedded features.  I still use both (much to the chagrin of my iPhone battery), but you can definitely change it up according to whatever you need.