Creating Wall Art with iPhone’s Hidden Comic Book Filters

Happy Halloween!  Okay honestly, who else is ready for Halloween to be over?  My kids are acting like drug addicts with their candy withdrawals just from the events leading up to Halloween, and we haven’t even gone “real” trick-or-treating yet.  Still it’s cute this year because Chase kind of knows what is going on and chose his own costume and keeps saying “I batman when I grow-up.  Daddy Joker when grow-up.”  So I guess we are all going to be grown-ups tonight.

Today I want to share with you a cool feature I accidentally discovered with my iPhone.  I was at the beach with the kids and Sean was away on business travel, so I was texting him some photos of the kids.  Instead of taking a photo and then texting, I hit the camera button within the message screen:

I kept the camera setting as “Photo” and clicked on the star icon in the lower left-hand corner (I’m recreating the steps with these flowers in a cute vase.  I’m actually at home feeding Chase breakfast, not at the beach anymore, obvi.  And if you’re curious, there are three sippy cups, a plate with breadcrumbs on it, and yogurt splatter conveniently out of frame):

Back to the tutorial.  From there I clicked on the red, green and blue icon for filters:

And that’s when these amazing filters I’d never seen before popped up.

Super cool, right?  Also once you choose your filter, take the picture, and press “Done” your photo is auto saved to your phone, regardless of whether or not you actually send the photo over text.  The downside is that for some reason Apple decided to make these filters hard to find and only available for photos taken within “Messages.”  Also kind of annoying is the fact that once you apply one of these filters to a photo, you can’t edit the filter to another comic book style, so if you want to switch from “Watercolor” to “Ink” for example, you have to actually retake the photo.  If you can get past those inconveniences, these filters can really turn your photos into art.

I played around with these filters a bit today and the photos turned out so fun and beautiful.  I can’t wait to get some pictures of our comic book Halloween costumes with these comic book filters later today!  Here are some pictures to show you how these photos turn out:

“Comic Book” Filter

“Ink” Filter

The photos using the “Ink” filter really look like beautiful hand drawn pieces of art, especially when used on natural landscape photos. The ones I took at the beach I intend to print, mat, and frame.  Here’s an idea of how they will look when they are done:

So we’re talking beautiful, custom and expensive looking art for the price of two frames and two prints.  Prices will obviously depend on the size and quality of frame, but I expect to spend a total of roughly $50 compared to what could cost upwards of $400 for two framed fine art prints.  Oh, and the art is 100% unique and something I created that captures a special family memory.  Now that’s priceless.

I hope you give these filters a whirl!  Post your pictures in the comments or post to IG or Pinterest and tag me so I can see what you’ve created @notesofcharm