Today I’m going to show you how to make your photos look like Image Comics. I’m a huge fan and used to be a collector of comic books, action figures, manga, anime and anything geeky. I’m also a big fan of Naruto. Now if you a comic book nerd such as myself, you will know about Image Comics Books from Spawn, Savage Dragon, Darkness and so on…what I love about their comic books are the deep saturated colors, detailed drawings, awesome writing/stories and how ever issue looked like a work of art. Image set a new standard on how the future of comic book design. They took what Marvel and DC did and made it better. I wanted to be a comic book illustrator. I would spend hours drawing and coping the way comic superheros were drawn but I couldn’t get it just right. Maybe that’s why I went with photography instead, I took those drawing skills and applied them to my photo editing.

I was at my friend’s kid soccer game yesterday at Grossmont High School. I went shooting around the track and field area of the high school. Now it’s really important you have clouds and/or things in the sky to make the photo really dramatic and detailed.

Then I load the next photo onto Rays to give that zoomed in effect to my photos. These are the settings I used in Rays to give that dramatic effect. Now up above is the guide to start with after you load your photos on Rays. Lower photo is the saved edited photo. I really with you could have custom setting with Rays, because I know most people are not good with remembering numbers. I’m very good at working with numbers, so I remember what the number will look with certain edit effects. I wanted to also mention it’s really important to you do not blow out your highlights and maintain details because of the because of the blending that is involved. When messing with the Brightness watch your whites when using the slider.

DXP time, if you noticed this is how I load in my photos to be layered with this app. Top is the edited shot with Orasis. Bottom is the Rays/Dynamic Light edited photo on top. I always do the layers like this, it’s really up to you on what you like to layer on top of each other.

The layer I like to choose to mix is Difference. You want to use this blending effect so you get that re-solarized, inverted and deep saturated look to your photo. Sometimes I will use Exclusion, but it depends on the what type of style I’m looking for in editing my photos. The bottom photo is what Difference will look after you blend your photos together.

Now this is how I get that crimson red detailed look to my photo, I load it onto Lumiere and use Orange Crush. It will load horizontal photos vertically every time when you edit with Lumiere.

This is my fished edited photo.

Here’s a photo of some stairs I took at Grossomont High School, taken with Pro Camera 3.0 and edited with Orasis. I’m going to show you another way of blending photos with Photo Forge 2. Yes I’m finally going to blog about this app and found a great use for it…!!!

Let’s load up Photo Forge 2 and hit the plus button to add in the stairs photo I took. Yes I’ve put off on blogging about Photo Forge 2 because it took me time to learn how this app operates. It’s not the most intuitive app on the market and the UI is not that great. The wheel you have to spin are difficult to operate on your iPhone. I’m not sure what the iPad version of this app has to offer, but the spin wheel would be easier to operate on a larger screen. But the app has grown on me and I’ve started to use it more often for editing photos with layers. The app still need work and has great potential to be one of the most powerful editing apps.

Tap on the stairs photo and it will enlarge to be edited.

I’ll tap on the button that looks like 3 layers of papers. Then I will start doing my layers. Tap on new layers to add more photos you would like to payer on top of each other.

I like to use Multiply for bottom photo that I start with.

The I load in the photo I layered together from DXP. The two photos I layered from DXP was the Rays and Dynamic Light photo. The I use Exclusion, but you will see I’m going to use Exclusion again with Photo Forge 2.

This is the Rays/Dynamic Light edited photo I will be using next. Then I’ll use Difference for the blending layer.

This what the layered photo will look like and on the left side is the photos you used for laying the photos on top of each other.

After your done picking your different layers make sure you flatten the photo, so it will save properly and go to the next step in editing with Photo Forge 2.

Next I will use Pop Cam !

The film I like to use is Technicolors

Texture is Paper 09, sometimes you have to play with the paper texture to get it to you liking. It’s doesn’t always work right on, so just tap on the other paper and then tap on Paper 09 again until you get the texture to how you like it. What I like about Paper 09 is how it gives the stairs that corrosion look to your photo.

Lens I picked Yesterday because of the slight glow on the left side of the stairs.

Tap on the cloud with the arrow to save your photo to the camera roll, load them up to photo sharing sites or e-mail them to whoever.

Here is the finished photo !!!

Now here’s something cool, Pro Camera 3.0 has offered me 5 Promo Codes for their app. Pro Camera 3.0 is my most use camera shooting app and my go to app when shooting anything that’s not a square. It has by far the best manual controls. I’ll be even more excited with it will be added to Photo App Link !!!

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If you have any questions about this blog or any other blogs please leave a comment or e-mail me ashcroft54@gmail.com. You can also check out the Combo Apps: iPhoneography Extreme Editing Group on Flickr or hit the “like” button on the sidebar for the Facebook Page. You can post your photo creations on either sites or check out other group members and their creations. Last check out my about.me splash page @ashcroft54, it has everything I’m linked to.