Tutorial: How to create this dreamy image on an iPhone with an Olloclip lens

Creative iPhone photographer, Kayan Ensan shows us how he created his beautiful image in this detailed step-by-step tutorial which covers many useful iPhoneography skills and techniques. Thank you Kasan.

White Christmas by Kayan Ensan

I discovered Kayan Ensan’s close-up work while browsing through Flickr pages a few days ago and stumbled on his rather beautifully executed dreamy Christmas image. This image was shot with the latest iPhone 6+ with an Olloclip 15x lens and then edited using several apps including Facetune (marketed as an app for smoothing out selfies) and Snapseed.

I asked Kayan if he would like to create a tutorial for iPhoneographyCentral, and I was delighted that he responded very quickly with this excellent, very detailed, step-by-step tutorial. This image looks deceptively simple- Kayan is one of those artists who pays close attention to detail in order to make the simplest of images grab your attention. Please read on to discover exactly how he achieves this.

Apps you will need:

Facetune
Litely
Tadaa
Bokehful
Over
Afterlight
Snapseed

This is the original image of a leaf I photographed in our garden, with the olloclip 15x lens and my iPhone 6+.

I begun with reducing the chromatic aberration from the edges using the Facetune app. The “Smooth tool” is excellent for this job. I chose the stronger “smooth” option.

I then used the same tool (smooth) for the background… really great for selectively removing the noise in this area only.

Add some sharpening here and there with the “Details” tool.

Import the image into the “Litely” app and choose the Triassic option.

After changing the colour in the “Litely” app I used the native editing tools available in iOS 8 to make some adjustments. You can see the settings I used above.

I then used the Tadaa app to increase clarity using the “Clarity” option.

Then I used the Bokehful App to add some magical Christmas Bokeh effects.

The Bokeh effect doesn’t look quite right in the app Facetune. The Bokeh looks to strong so to soften it, I smooth it with the “Smoother tool” option,

Still in Facetune, I then choose the Patch tool. Place the circle on one of the Bokéh light dots and the more you increase the size of the circle, the more it will blend. The final result will be a more realistic lens Bokeh effect (as shown below).

The result so far with the softened Bokeh effect using Facetune app.

Now, add your name and type anything you wish. I used the font and artwork app “Over”. Choose “Add TEXT. I used Helvetica Light

Then press Edit. I edited the size and the character to separate the letters.

Then press Edit. I edited the size and the character to separate the letters.

Next, I added ART WORK by pressing “ADD” then “ARTWORK”.

After adding the artwork and placing it…save it and we are done with this app…and we have the Black and white style.

Now, with the colored on, open Tadaa app again and choose the “Grading” tool and press “edit mask” and highlight the leaf.

The aim here, is to make the edges have sharper points to make it look like we focused on these edge points. You can disable “Edges” to get full manual control.

So, we’ve added the mask and now we need to change the colour.

I save the work so far then I open the app “Afterlight”, press the film icon then the Light Leak and choose number 25, position it in the corner and then choose number 5 for the pink colour.

I save the work again and then I go back to the Facetune app to blur the edges of the name using the tools shown above.

To make it more realistic, add blur to this area too.

Then we move on to the details and apply to the same area.

You can also freeze the whiteness of the edges by using the Tone tool. Choose the whitest color by pressing on to it and holding; you will see the colour on the palette. Make sure to be very close and move it quickly and this will make the edges give the appearance of more detail.