Turning Paintings into High-Resolution Prints with ProCamera

With your smartphone camera, pigments can become pixels — and artist and designer Lance Hewison reveals how.

Lance Hewison is an American-German artist and designer. Known for his atmospheric paintings in Prussian blue, he recently launched a new online shop offering high-resolution giclée prints of his works.

Since he didn’t have access to a fully equipped professional photo studio, Lance turned to ProCamera to photograph his works at home using just an iPhone, a gray card, and two LED lights.

INTERVIEW

ProCamera: It’s always a pleasure for us to see ProCamera in action — especially where professional photography and art meet. Lance, tell us about your new series Into the Blue and how ProCamera became an essential tool in the process.

Lance: Into the Blue is a collection of paintings in Prussian blue. It is inspired by classic analog photography and the sea. Each work is meant to feel timeless and at the same time dreamlike. Using ProCamera and the iPhone, I then ‘digitized’ my paintings and now offer them as high-quality prints in my online shop.

ProCamera: What were the challenges you faced when photographing your artworks?

Lance: Definitely light and color accuracy. I wanted my shades of blue to appear neither dull nor too warm. My goal was to reproduce the colors and character of my paintings as faithfully as possible. Without a photo studio of my own, I worked with what I had: an iPhone, a tripod, two LED panels, and of course, ProCamera.

ProCamera: How did ProCamera help you when photographing your artworks?

Lance: I didn’t want to leave anything to chance and needed full control over white balance and exposure. Other advantages of ProCamera were the ability to shoot in ProRAW format, which allowed me to work with extra precision in post-processing, as well as the option to calibrate colors using a gray card.

ProCamera: What advice would you give to fellow artists looking to capture their artworks on their own?

Lance: This is the setup I found most helpful:

• Use bright but diffused light (LED lamps with a soft box attached, or alternatively window light on an overcast day)

• Align the camera as parallel as possible to the artwork to avoid perspective distortion

• Avoid flash to prevent unwanted reflections

• Set white balance manually for accurate color reproduction (ideally via gray card calibration)

• Shoot in ProRAW or classic RAW format for maximum control in post-processing

• Use a stable tripod to avoid camera shake

• Use a remote shutter release (e.g. EarPods or Bluetooth headset) or the self-timer with a short delay to avoid shake from tapping the screen

• Edit photos carefully until they come as close as possible to the painting. I mainly adjust temperature, contrast, blacks, and sharpness.

Another practical tip is to place the already mentioned gray card visibly right next to the canvas when photographing. This provides a reliable reference during post-processing. In programs like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, a single click with the white balance tool (eyedropper) on the gray card is enough to automatically correct color temperature and color cast. This way, the previously manually set white balance can be checked and fine-tuned, ensuring consistent and highly accurate color reproduction.

ProCamera: Does the photo have to be an exact reproduction of the artwork?

Lance: An exciting question! For high-quality prints, accuracy and proper preparation are crucial, yet I also see the photographs as independent representations of my works. They need to appear realistic and inviting. Sometimes that means slightly brightening the image or increasing the contrast to capture the effect of gallery lighting.

Lance, thank you for giving us an insight into your current series and working process. For everyone who also feels inspired by the motifs, it is now possible to order your favorite piece in the preferred edition at www.lancehewison.com.

The Colorful Art Déco District of Miami Beach Shot on iPhone

Photographer Nicolai Boenig explores the pretty pastels and iconic architecture of the ever-popular Florida vacation destination

While Miami may still have a reputation as the seaside resort for retired people and excessive party location for spring breakers and celebrities, intensive efforts are made to transform the metro area into a multifaceted cultural hub. The historic Art Déco architecture around South Beach is one of the elements that make this region so unique and definitely worth a visit.

Q: Nicolai, how did you develop this set of images and what kind of photo equipment did you use?

» This photo series was not an assignment – as a matter of fact, it wasn’t even planned. On a brief stay at the coastal city, I headed to the beach and simply got lost in the playful facades and lovely color palette.
The equipment? An iPhone 11 loaded with ProCamera, flip-flops and a beach towel

Q: Do you have a personal favorite from this series?

» Hmm, maybe the following image because of the serendipity. The light tones in the whole scene match beautifully, and it looks like the woman on the giant poster is checking out the car.

From a compositional standpoint, it’s interesting that the buildings consist of all these straight lines whereas the car is all curves – and the big arrow on the street is a nice visual lead-in.

Q: How did ProCamera help you in capturing these architectural travel impressions?

» By using ProCamera’s Auto Perspective Correct (APC) feature, I was able to emphasize the geometrical character of the ornate facade designs. Let me show you a side-by-side comparison to illustrate the difference perspective correction makes:

Perspective Correction

Every time you angle your camera and photograph a subject from below, you will get converging lines. Especially in architecture photography, you will probably want to avoid such leaning-in lines as buildings otherwise seem to fall over. This is where ProCamera’s Auto Perspective Correct comes in very handy. The feature automatically corrects perspective distortion in real time by using the iPhone’s built-in gyroscope.

The innovative Auto Perspective Correct is part of the “ProCamera Up” feature bundle. You can find more information about this optional add-on via ProCamera app > Shop > ProCamera Up.

In the in-app shop, you can easily start a free 14-day trial to see how these special features work for you. In case you are interested in temporary access for a specific vacation or photo project, there also is a very affordable 1-month plan. Recently, we also started offering ProCamera Up as a one-time purchase.

Thank you for this tropical photo series, Nicolai. It definitely fueled our desire to travel!

>> If you want to see more of his photography, check out @nicolaiboenig on Instagram.

Packing Light and Working On the Road

Times change, and sometimes that’s actually a good thing

For this travel-themed guest post we didn’t need to look far. We asked Lindy and Roy – who are part of our ProCamera support staff – to tell us more about their lives as digital nomads. Internally, we like to call the Dutch couple our “mobile support unit” since they are working from somewhere on the road most of the time. Let’s hear how to bridge the gap between mobile photography and a mobile workplace. 

Let me take you back in time: Eight years ago, we decided to travel to Peru. We went on a 4-day hike to Machu Picchu, only able to bring one daypack each.

One of our packs was filled to the brim with camera gear: camera bodies, lenses, flashes and batteries were dragged up and down the mountains. The other pack contained our clothes, toiletries and some snacks. I don’t think we’ll have to tell you carrying this amount of camera gear is no fun. It’s somewhat okay the first day, but your back and shoulders are getting more and more sensitive. After 21 kilometers (~13 miles) on day three my forearms were cramped from holding the heavy camera in my hands all day. Time to downgrade!

Luckily, you can find yourself a decent system camera these days weighing only a fraction of what we lugged around back then. Making better quality images, too. But aside from that, technology has now brought us an even more compact camera that never leaves our sides. And the quality of the images never ceases to amaze us. Our iPhones!

We’ll be the first to admit we like to be lazy every once in a while, which means we don’t always take our big camera with us. And while traveling, we often leave it at our hotel because bringing a dedicated camera is too big a risk. And of course when we don’t have our camera’s we run into the most amazing landscapes, sunsets and situations. Luckily, our iPhones are always with us and with ProCamera we get this great selection of pro camera features.

Picture this: the two daypacks we carried with us back then are the only bags we now bring on a round-the-world trip! Yes, we travel hand luggage only, for months on end. And yes, aside from our clothes, toiletries and other travel necessities we also bring a camera, lenses, a GoPro and a drone. Not bad huh?

During our travels, we never stay at a single location for an extended amount of time (unless we’re enjoying ourselves a bit too much). So we need to be able to quickly pack and unpack, but also easily grab what we need for a long hike or mountain bike ride. We had to downgrade a fair amount over the past years to enable ourselves to travel like this, and we kind of made bringing just what we need a goal of itself (though the contents seem to magically grow every time we need to repack).

Another thing we embrace nowadays is cloud services. Where we’d have to find a dubious internet cafe back in the days, have the contents of our memory card burned on a CD, send it home and wait for a confirmation that everything was received in good order we now use cloud services for backups. This workflow sure can be a bit of a hassle, too. Many places around the world still don’t provide fast WiFi or mobile network, and we really don’t want too lose our memories of that beautiful (way too early) sunrise, that endless walk to the world’s tallest palm trees or that bizarre bike ride to the refuge on top of the mountain.

We always try to sort out our favourite images as soon as possible, and immediately upload them to a could service (aside from iCloud backups on our iPhones). You’ll likely find us locked in our hotel room at the end of the day, editing images to prepare them for our dutch travel blog and social media, and uploading our favourites to make sure we always have a copy. As we were once taught: if you don’t have at least two versions of an image, you might as well have none at all. 

Now that global travel has been off the table for a while, we started working on another project we had our minds set on for quite a while: our very own self-built camper van. Since we’ve been home a lot we now have the time to build it completely to our taste.

We’ve been traveling around in camper vans in the past, and for us there’s nothing like waking up in the most beautiful places you wouldn’t normally go to, have breakfast and a great cup of coffee together and slowly start our day. What beats designing and building the tiny home that brings us this joy all ourselves?

We’re both sportive and adventurous so our van has to comply with quite some demands: It has to be comfortable, fit our clothes and personal belongings, photo equipment and two mountain bikes. All inside the van, as we hate to come back from a long hike hoping everything we hung on the van’s back it still there.

Current events also turned out to create the perfect time to browse through our old photos. Let us tell you: this brings great travel inspiration for the future!

For this guest article, we invited visual artist and art educator Lance Hewison to talk about his approach to mobile photography and how he finds inspiration in everyday life:

As a photographer it’s not easy to get a unique, visually striking shot. It’s usually only 1 in a 100 photos that have that special something, and that’s a rather generous estimate for me personally.

I recently took a trip to the city of Heidelberg in southern Germany. It was a mild and sunny January afternoon, so I wandered around, coffee in hand, and admired the beautiful architecture and charm the city possesses.
As I always have my iPhone handy, I decided to use ProCamera to take some shots. I snapped lots of photos of the city’s most impressive sights. Although the details of the churches and town squares looked great in the photos, the images were nonetheless a bit predictable and didn’t really say anything interesting. I felt that anyone could have easily snapped the same photo.

We are very happy to welcome Nicki Fitz-Gerald as a guest author on our blog. Being the founder of iPhoneographyCentral.com she is an avid mobile photographer – and today she shares her personal view and outlines the importance of independent focusing.

 
ProCamera app has been my choice of camera app pretty much from the beginning of my iPhone photography passion which started back in 2009. Back then the Apple Camera only had point and shoot and if you’re coming from a DLSR background, like I am, you probably want to have a lot more control over creating your shot. ProCamera not only has great advanced features but they are very easy to use.

Lock focus and exposure

Without doubt – and probably the main reason why I started using ProCamera – was the ability to independently select focus and exposure. Being able to control focus and exposure independently allows you to really control the look of your photo. Controlling the focus gives you ultimate control over which part of the image you’d like to be sharp and controlling the exposure greatly expands the creative possibilites over your photos. For example locking your exposure on the light background with a figure in the foreground can result in great silhouette shots.

In this article I have concentrated on the independent focus feature which ProCamera have recently expanded to include the brilliant Manual Focus option. This feature, which I use 99 per cent of the time to take my photographs, gives you fantastic control over which parts of an image you want sharp and in focus (usually your main subject) and the part you’d like out of focus (or slightly blurred). This is typically known as creating a shallow depth of field in traditional photography – with a smartphone you can best achieve this by getting really close to your subject.

Above shows the blue focus reticle. Tap and drag the reticle around the part of the image you would like to be the sharpest part of your image.

So how does the independent focus and exposure feature work in ProCamera?

When you first open ProCamera, by default the autofocus and exposure are activated. This means that the lens will automatically focus and expose for whatever is in the central area of the screen making the subject in this area sharper.

The focus tool is a great feature for creating a “shallow depth of field look” where the main subject is sharp and the background is blurred. The focus and exposure reticles automatically appear together (pictured above, right) but they can be separated to give you even more control over the look of your image.

You’ll notice when you first open the app; a linear blue square and a yellow circle appears. (above, right)

The blue square is the focus reticle, so wherever the blue square is on the screen will be the sharpest area of your image. The yellow circle represents the exposure reticle and wherever the yellow circle is on the screen, this will be the point where the exposure reading is taken from. So, you can just point your camera in autofocus mode at something like this flower below and you’re going to get the flower beautifully sharp and nicely exposed. Also, notice that the background is blurred creating that nice shallow depth of field look which draws attention to your main subject, the flower.

Selective focus.

Now this is great if your subject is in the centre but what if your subject is slightly off centre like the yellow flowers in this image below? You’ll need to tell the camera where to focus and this is where ProCamera’s advanced features – the independent focus and exposure really come into play. As clever as the iPhone camera is, it doesn’t always know what part of the image you want to focus on.

In this scene above I want the flowers in the foreground on the left to be the sharpest part of the image but the autofocus isn’t sure what I want to focus on and it automatically focuses on the middle of the frame –  the scene behind – making my main subject, the flowers in the foreground, blurred.

Control which part the image you want in focus using the focus reticle.

To force the focus on the flowers, we need to separate the focus and exposure reticles. By tapping, holding and gently sliding on the reticles on the screen you will see that the blue focus square and the yellow exposure circle separate.

Set your focus

I have positioned and locked the focus reticle on the yellow flowers so that they become the sharpest part of the image. Notice how the background is now out of focus.

You can now slide the focus reticle on to the main subject, in this case the foreground flowers on the left and they will instantly become sharp. Moving the reticle over a high contrast edge with a lot of contrast will help the reticle to focus. Once you’re happy that you’ve got your image nice and sharp, long press the reticle for to lock the focus. You’ll notice a little padlock symbol appear in the top-right hand corner indicating the focus is now locked. This will ensure your image stays in focus.

Manual Focus

If you’re having trouble focusing on a subject, perhaps the subject is moving or your subject doesn’t have enough contrast or is very small like water drops the manual focus feature is especially useful.

The manual focus feature is excellent for photographing tiny water droplets. Watch the very short video below demonstrating the manual focus reticle.

By default Manual focus is switched off. To turn on simply go to Settings>Focus and Exposure> Turn on “Manual Focus”.

Manual focus is also great for creating images like the one below where you want to get the raindrops on the window in focus and the background blurred. To manually focus, simply lock focus and slide up an down to adjust the focusing distance (+ optionally slide left/right afterwards for finer adjustments). Don’t be limited by drops on the window. In the images below, I photographed the drops from the inside of a shower.

Some of my favourite photographs

I live just a few minutes walk away from Weymouth’s beautiful beach and this area has become a constant source of inspiration to me. You don’t have to wait long before a photo opportunity arises. Here are some of my favourite photos taken around the Weymouth beach area.

Attracted to the large lettering and symmetry of the boats, I lay down flat with my iPhone resting on the pebbles to keep my the shot steady. The important thing here is that I used ProCamera’s independent “focus” reticle and locked it onto the far distance. You’ll see that this gave soft focus to the foregraound drawing the viewer’s eye to the sharper subject, the jogger, in the background.

The Punch and Judy hut against the beachscape in the background set the scene for this shot. I just had to wait for the characters to enter the stage – my lucky day!

With the image above, I locked my focus and exposure on the area where this woman and her dog walked by. If I hadn’t have locked the exposure, when she walked by, my iPhone would have tried to compensate for the lack of light and this picture would have been much lighter and overexposed in the background altogether losing the mood and atmosphere of the image

As well as using the focus feature in ProCamera, I love to play with the more advanced controls including the exposure and white balance. In the image above I used the manual exposure dial to overexpose the image, later increasing the saturation using ProCamera’s excellent Filters to make the bright colours pop!

My teenage son, Lewis, is very energetic and loves to do somersaults on the beach using a half-buried gym/fitness ball to give him some extra bounce. In action photography, it’s hard to focus on the subject if it is moving very quickly – so lock your focus on the area where you anticipate the action will happen, in this case on the beach ball. Alternatively you could ask your subject to stand in the area where the action will take place and set your focus at that point.

In 2012 Weymouth & Portland hosted the 2012 Olympics. This sculpture is carved from the famous Portland stone and is located at a great vantage point overlooking the incredible Chesil beach stretching from Portland to Weymouth.

I happened to be in the area on the Isle of Portland when the sun was setting.  You can see the different effects of setting both under and over-exposing your photos in ProCamera. Also, I used the advanced WhiteBalance feature to change the colour temperature and add warmth to the image as I shot it.

I placed the exposure reticle on a brighter part of the image to avoid overexposing parts of the photo.

Advanced exposure controls on ProCamera give you a lot of creative control over your image. This image is the result of increasing the exposure using the really easy-to-use dial to the right of the screen (or bottom of screen when shooting in portrait mode).

Tip: Manual focus gives you full creative control over your pictures, allowing you to produce more professional results. If you would like to pursue your passion, consider exploring remote job opportunities in photography to find flexible roles that let you practice and enhance your skills.

When the ProCamera team asked if I would create a guest post for their blog, I happily agreed. I was introduced to ProCamera in the summer of 2012, and it’s been my go-to photo app ever since.

I’ve created this post from the perspective of a visual artist who uses mobile photography as a component in my practice. You might ask — how exactly does mobile photography feed into my work as a visual artist? I’m still exploring this, as mobile photography is a relatively new medium for me. I hadn’t before considered mobile photography as an art in its own right, but ProCamera began to change this notion for me when I noticed the high quality photos it has helped me achieve. Sometimes, the photos are starting points for drawings and paintings. And at other times, the photo itself becomes the work of art.

As I walked along the Landwehrkanal, I was struck by the autumnal colours and this lone figure sitting beside a tree. Without the figure, the photo wouldn’t be as interesting. If someone or something catches your eye, don’t wait around as things can change quite suddenly. Find a good vantage point and take the picture before the moment passes you by.

I’m here in Kreuzberg, Berlin at the moment. This wonderfully diverse Stadtteil forms the backdrop of the photos contained throughout this entry. Below, you will find the photos I took along with a description of my artistic process. Here are my 5 favourite photos I took over the past few days. There has been very little post-processing to the images, aside from rotating some of them 180 degrees and tweaking the colours, contrast/brightness, and sharpness in ProCamera’s robust editing tools. This photo was taken through the window of an abandoned art gallery. I set ProCamera to night mode. Then, I went into the options and selected 1/4s on the shutter speed. I used the flat surface of the window like a tripod to keep the iPhone steady, then used my finger to slide the focus reticle so that the reflections became more clearly visible.

I was riding my bike along Dieffenbachstraße in search of something interesting to shoot. An abandoned art gallery had this red light emanating from inside. It intrigued me, so I stopped and took roughly a dozen photos from various angles.

This one was taken after a rainy day. I knelt down and used two hands to hold the iPhone steady. There was a strong glare coming off the puddle as the sun began to come out. With the iPhone held in landscape orientation, I lowered the ISO value by using the manual Exposure Compensation slider in order to lessen the intensity of light . Then, I slid the square-shaped blue focus reticle over the reflection in the puddle so that the tree and buildings were in focus before snapping the shot.

Sometimes, something mundane can appear quite extraordinary. I liked how the reddish cobblestones seem to merge with the sky to create the effect of a double exposure.

All photos were shot at various times of the day over the course of a week. Each time I went out with my camera I found I was drawn instinctively towards Berlin’s Landwehrkanal.  The dreamy, impressionistic quality of the photographs perhaps has to do with my being a foreigner. I was happily lost, yet also searching to connect with the place. The familiar world can suddenly seem less solid when one explores a new place.

Symmetry and a splash of colour are the focus in this photo.

As a child, I would perform headstands in order to see the world around me in a less familiar way. It brought me a strange exhilaration. Some things never change.

I’ve begun to use the shots I’ve taken with ProCamera as reference material for a new series of drawings I’m working on. Here is one of the sketches based on the photo seen just above. I’m not sure how it will develop, but I hope to create a new blog post in the future to share the updated work as it comes.

I created this 30 minute rough sketch when I returned home from my photo-taking session. It depicts Lohmühlenbrücke.

There is never anything but the present, and if one cannot live there, one cannot live anywhere.
-Alan Watts

By flipping the photo 180 degrees, I was able to create more of that painterly, dreamy effect I was after.

Some photo-taking tips to live by:

• Take a photo-taking tour on purpose. This means going to shoot with nothing else on your agenda. I find that my best photos happen during these sessions because there are no distractions.
• Take lots and lots of photos of the same subject. I took around 200 photos in order to arrive at this small selection. Sometimes, we think we have the perfect shot only until we return home, upload the image onto a larger screen, and find that the image might contain flaws we didn’t notice on a smaller scale. This is why I take approximately 5-10 images of the same subject. Each time I shoot, I alter the composition slightly.
• There are many different reasons why we take photographs, but try not to limit too much what it is you think you should or shouldn’t shoot. In short — be fully present in the moment and open to possibilities.

If you wish to take a look at more of Lance’s work, check out his website at: www.lancehewison.com