I’ve seen plenty of reviews that claim the camera in this LG phone is ordinary and maybe it is but the IPS screen is really amazing, strong colours and contrast (while you’re inside!) which LG describe as beautiful colour reproduction and viewing clarity. Outside the screen suffers lot from glare and you have to manually increase the screen brightness (which can be a challenge when you can’t make out the screen). I can’t figure out why they haven’t made screen brightness automatically adjustable according to ambient light. (Other than the fully bright screen setting does eat battery life!). I soon learned you can adjust the brightness (even blinded by the light) by a swipe down gesture at the top of the screen (which brings down to notification draw and then taping again bit lower, on the screen brightness slider, and swiping all the way to the right). K in morse code (dash dot dash).
Oh back to the real issue here, how have I setup my digital photography work space. Its actually still a work in progress but here are the basics. I have set up a whole app panel to hold camera and photo related apps. My current setup is shown below.
I have a few old favourites which came over from my HTC wildfire, the first serious photo editor I used routinely was Photoshop Express, ok it relatively basic but it does the basics well enough and recent version allows connection to a creative cloud account, if you have one. This was largely overshadows but Autodesk’s Pixlr, which quickly became my preferred on phone photo editor. It is on of those free apps that has in app purchase options (I normally don’t like them) but they are tolerable and for other autodesk modules/tools. HDR Camera+ app is the one paid app from the wildfire and was really my favourite camera there, its had limited editing functionality (specifically tone mapping options). Finally Dropbox is a wonderfully reliable facility, I just have it working behind the scenes and synching up my photos whenever my phone connected to WiFi (ie doesn't waste my data limit on my phone) I have sister apps on all my desktop computers so recent phone photos can be accessed there (no wires or able or separate steps required.
With the new phone and upgrade to android version, I’ve reload the official flickr app. Where the old app was clunky the new version is really much nicer and does allow a seamless upload to flickr (but I have turned off the automatic upload). Flickr is quiet enough for me I’m not interested in instagram.
The real gem I discovered was Snapseed (which was incompatible with the Wildfire) and I just managed to download it the day version 2 was released. It really is a very elegant app and a great photo editor for a touchphone. I was familiar with snapseed as the photo editor for google+ photos but the phone app is in many ways nicer to use. However now for the downside. I did originally have google+ app on the wildfire but it was a resource hog so I removed it and I don’t use google+ itself as a social network place much anyway. The LG approach has been to integrate many of the google tools as standalone apps (such as GMail, Photos, Hangouts) and this initially struck me as a great approach. Whilst the LG (google) Photos app lets you access the albums on the net, but it started acting like google auto backup vacuuming up and uploading any images on your phone (so I turned that off). A real downside of this integration has been the overwhelming of the default LG gallery app with photos (not just albums) from the every increasing google+ photo mess. Haven’t figured out how to turn this off. Lightroom mobile is only on trial and I must admit I am not excited by it.
So now my phone’s photo collection is in close connection with google+ photo, flickr and I am still trying out Carousel (the original download on the wildfire was not reliable) as a connection to the rest of the world. It is basically a gallery app for dropbox, I’m even starting to favour it over the LG gallery app, particular for sharing with other services like twitter and SMS. I also like the everpix like Flashbacks.
I have previously posted about my alternate camera apps.
My SmartPhone workspace is humble compared with the computer power available elsewhere but it is remarkably capable of getting decent photos and images out onto the wider net, into my albums on computers and into reports. When I started this blog over a decade ago If you’d have hinted at this power in my pocket I would have been sceptical.
I haven’t used much). So whenever I’m on WiFi I get the apps downloaded (a couple at a time). 
flickr are probably sailing close to the wind on sharing their vast photo collection, yet again! This time it is being handled more sensitively. I received an invite to join a new project they have called the weather project. The basic idea is pretty sound, via a free smartphone app called Yahoo7 Weather, you will be able to see flickr photos of your location showing current conditions, supposedly backed by "the most accurate forecasts" (aka the weather channel with temperatures in Fahrenheit), Now this is an opt-in situation whereby joining the group you can expect to have your images shared, provided that are selected as suitable, by “a team of trained Yahoo Weather photo editors". This is clearly a better way to handle the public sharing of photos. So I say cautiously, congratulations flickr. 
The condition include that the photo is yours, your original work. Again fair enough. The clause "You also hereby waive the benefits of any provision of law known as Moral Rights or Droit Moral" does concern me but I'll have to research what it means in Australia, since we do have a similar rights in law, COPYRIGHT AMENDMENT (MORAL RIGHTS) ACT 2000
My plan was to use a close up yet dark HDR image, which was ok but some stains on the blank screen were distracting so I decided to have the screen lit, which had the advantage the keyboard also lights up. It didn’t take me long to figure that a google search page would be perfect (nokia had such apps way before their phone could even do the internet!). I then experimented with light and a simple eveready torch and longish exposure gave the perfect vignette to create a retro grunge effect (no fancy instagram filters downloaded or required).
My nokia is well loved and very well travelled and has been to the back of the Himalayas, deep into the Amzon, the Andes and all over Africa, even Europe. In a lot of places the GSM signal just wasn’t there or not strong enough but the tiny camera still worked. I actually did succumb and upgraded to an Android phone long ago, but I still pack the nokia as the cheapest and most reliable phone on foreign soil is to buy a prepaid SIM card (at the airport when you arrive).
Looking into a crystal ball used to be a common past time at the new year. Rapid Technological change was always a key aspect of these predictions, yet this year the changes in photography might not be gleaming new toys you can pick up.
that increased contrast and colour saturation. Some are based on science, particularly from the field of medical imaging and some have come down from fancy photoshop plug-ins. Corels inclusion of Perfectly Clear and Niks Software’s Snap Seed (now Google’s Auto Awesome) are good examples of what can be achieved. However if you are a creative you might need to fight this trend, at least recognise it.
new cameras back to the three traditional exposure controls, which relate back to the sensitivity of the film, or a diaphragm style aperture control. Even the time taken for the exposure. A simpler set of sliders on a touch screen that corrected over exposure, maybe focus (by just touching the screen where you want it in focus), a slider for depth of field and maybe a drop down set of buttons for specific modes like fast action close up all on the phones touch screen (or on the back of the camera) and the changes can been seen on the screen straight away, This doesn’t sound like much but I bet that would become a popular camera app or even an actual camera.
recognised write, Now the photobook can easily be self published. There are some quiet amazing limited edition photobooks being created today by semi-professionals and gifted amateurs These books have reached a price, mainly due to the technology of the production aspects and old fashion competition where it is can be cheaper to prepare a photobook full of say a hundred or so 5 by 8cm sized snaps of a recent overseas trip compared with getting those snaps printed out individually. The difference is it will probably take some time and energy to create the book and possibly your family will slink away when they see you get the book out, In between there is a place where you can be creative and publish what is important to you. The movement to photobooks is also present in the ebook area where photobooks are starting to gain traction mainly due to the larger screen on IPads and Android tablets. 2014 is a good year to consider creating your first photobook, just start small (in $20-$25 range)
