Noir Photo

I've actually been wanting to do a week of black and white for sometime. I am a HUGE fan of black and white film. Love it, I've been creating images in that medium for quite some time. There's just something about it, a look a feel, a mood, just something. So for this week, I'm focusing on black and white images, in some cases with a twist, or monochromatic images, as you might see.I've also been focused on two apps this week, again. This post is going to be centered around Noir Photo. And I have plans to wrap the week on Hipstamatic.Noir, is an app where you kind of want to do more, but it is effective in it's simplicity. It can create some nice, contrasty black and whites, or monochromatic images, if that is your thing.Here's my breakdown of the app.In the bottom right corner of the app are two little round icons, the one on the left is what you click to bring an image into the app, the one on the right is the option to save what you've created. The save button will save what you've created, and take you back to the photo library to work on another image. If you don't want to work on another image, just tap Cancel to close the photo library. This takes you back to the app so that you can close it.When you've brought a photo into the app, it applies the first pre-set of the 6 pre-sets along the top of the controls. These presets include two for black and white, two cyanotypes, a sepia and a green monochrome. Each starts with a varying degree of contrast, often more of a high contrast than low. As well, there is an elliptical added to the image via the pre-set which you can resize and move around to change the point/location of the highlights.Once you've selected a pre-set you can use the sliders to adjust exposure.The dial on the left controls the outer exposure, the edges. 0-100 goes dark to light.The dial in the middle controls the inner exposure, inside the elliptical. 0-100 goes dark to light.The dial on the right controls the overall contrast. 0-100 goes light to dark.You can use the colour controls on the right to update the colour of your monochrome image, if you so choose.You can also move the elliptical around, making it bigger or smaller by pinching or spreading your fingers apart. Making this bit smaller or larger essentially controls the amount of vignette, as well as your brightness point.If you have created an image that you really like, you can tap and hold on one of the existing pre-sets to add this new configuration as a pre-set to be used for future edits. If you want to go back to the default presets double tap on the ones you've updated, this will restore the defaults.So that's it, in a nutshell.Here's the starting point, created with Hipstamatic.Here's the final, from Noir Photo