A note on the apps I use and the realisation that fewer, but at depth, is better than more.

I could probably collect apps for my phone and my PC indiscriminately and there have been times I’ve downloaded the same one twice, having never used it in the interim. Like a shiny thing to a magpie, these little nuggets are gold dust to my maker’s wish-fulfilment dream.

But the truth is I’ve used many of them once or not at all so I have no idea what they do. And the rest? I’ve learned a few tricks and been satisfied with that.

Paintshop Pro by Corel was probably the first. It’s a photo-editing suite like Photoshop only much cheaper and I’ve used it to discover layers, edit images by cleaning them up and cropping out edges that show how hard it is to get an absolutely straight-on photo. I discovered cloning there and use it to fill in framing gaps when I’ve cropped out a background but found there are still bits of it I can’t remove without also removing a part of the image I want to keep. The cloning tool lets me fill in those gaps from the adjacent parts of the image. I can also save the image in native format, preserving the layers so if I want to come back to make changes, I don’t have to start from scratch. This suite has a depth I’ve nowhere near fully investigated and I would use it more were it not so clunky. Ask me how many clicks it takes to shut it down. I’ll tell you – 20+ sometimes.

Filmora was the first video app I’d ever used and I made an excruciating ‘reflective account’ video with it. I’ve used this since to put together less cringe-worthy pieces, showing work and learning how to add titles as commentary. Later I learned how to record a more fluent and fluid commentary on my phone then edit it in Magix MusicMaker so that it fit the specifications for video length. I think this is where I discovered the fade facility and how to cut and slice, fade up and down, blend, and overlap audio tracks before adding them to the video.

Latterly I’ve been using PowerDirector by Cyberlink which is more of a beast and seems to have more depth to it. I use this primarily but sometimes dodge back to Filmora when an update scrambles the layout and I don’t have time to get the hang of the new functions. Filmora does the same but luckily not at the same time. Between them, I’ve learned about tracks and their priorities, which ones take precedence, for instance; how to use transitions (between clips or sections) and how to make my own; and where and when to position greenscreen elements. Critically, and I flag this up for any beginners, I discovered the necessity of locking tracks when taking out or adding chunks to any of the others. Fail to do that and you find your tracks have all been moved or sliced because you tried to add one tiny clip to the audio or a visual. This doesn’t sound like much but when you’ve been doing it all day without noticing, you may as well start again it’s such a dog’s breakfast.

A note about greenscreen. This isn’t an app but I need an app to replace the area of the image that’s going to become the ‘window’ through which another track will be seen. Sometimes I use Paintshop Pro, other times Rebelle does the job. More of Rebelle later. The trick is to paint the green on a layer above the imported image, reducing its opacity so you can see the original underneath. Then zoom into the green layer and erase any unwanted green paint so the edges are clean. Once you have it right, bump up the opacity, save as a native file in case you want to go back and tweak the layers, then save also as a jpg or png for use in the video.

AudioDirector. Part of Cyberlink’s Director suite, I’ve found this easily handles changes in qualities such as the speed, pitch, and tone of an audio track. The tracks also expand to a size that makes precision clipping much easier than it is on the video dashboard. Finished tracks can be imported directly into Powerdirector. It’s possible to reverse tracks too and I’ve made some freaky soundscapes in this app using tap drips, crunchy footsteps, and the washing machine for instance.

An alternative to Paintshop Pro, and a superior one in my view, is PhotoDirector (Cyberlink). This is where layers really came to life for me with much more intuitive positioning and manipulation. It has two interfaces – Guided and Expert. Expert does the layers and many other things, Guided has a whole suite of adjustments including animations. But try to go to Expert after setting up your dispersions and curly clouds and they will be lost. Expert first, then back to Guided for the twiddly bits.

Rebelle by Escapemotions was first released in 2012 on a ticket that included realistic paint behaviour. It was hypnotic; nothing else gave you drips and runs, leakage and spread into variously absorbant papers, blending as nothing else could manage at the time. For me, this was an opportunity to paint without having paints, and to begin making visual images again. I use it much less now, having discovered that, however large the virtual canvas, the marks are all made with my hand rather than the more vigorous gestural arm movements I find I prefer. It’s good, though, for importing images and trying out washes and edits that would be irreversible in the real world. A sandpit, in fact.

Artivive is an Austrian app that came out in 2017 and permitted the embedding of visual and audio layers into real-world target images via a smart device. The process uses a bridge to connect the target, which might be an original painting or an external feature, to the augmented reality (AR) layer in the same way an actual bridge connects one part of a physical area to another. When the app recognises the target, it immediately calls up the AR on the other side of the bridge and displays it on the smart device. Critically, and unlike most other AR apps I’ve tried, there are no intervening screen taps to get from, usually, a QR to a web address to the active layer. There are limits to file size that are lower than some other apps but the immediacy of Artivive wins every time for initiating user engagement. And as with the others, it can accommodate 3D elements and also position layers away from the target so that, spookily, people can walk ‘between’ them and momentarily disappear. The app is free but there are costs for makers related to the hosting and maintaining of the bridge based on the number of views your work attracts each month. There is also a custom option which would work for people expecting a burst of increased activity, an exhibition for instance, followed by a subsequent drop back to normal levels. Personally, I’ve noticed that people attracted by the AR feature and buy the work in which it’s embedded, quickly reduce their view rate which is why my policy is to ensure the target painting stands as an object worth having in its own right.

MotionLeap by Lightricks is an app for smart devices that allows for animation, overlays, changes to sky and water, and the introduction of elements that range from trees to waggly, mobile eyeballs. It’s fun but I’m only just beginning to use it with finesse – which has a downside as I like subtlety which doesn’t really perform well in a small-screen small attention-span environment!

PhotoMirage by Corel does some of the same slicing and animating as MotionLeap but is limited to that. Its advantage is being a desktop app so there’s less squinting involved during the making process.

Since realising the superficiality of my deployment of these apps and my frequently stated wish not to become a one-trick pony, I have been pushing them by exploring the subtleties of their capacities. This is revealing and rather like discovering that red is more than just one colour and dilution has grades.

SCH 2024