Bridging the Creative Gap Between Mobile + Desktop
We wanted to dive into the end user journey with the Creative SDK on the blog today. One of our fantastic partners, infltr, launched the newest version of their app last month which we featured here. They also wrote a great article on bridging the creative gap between mobile and desktop – something we’re passionate about here at Adobe. infltr featured an interview with Luna Margherita Cardilli, co-founder of creative agency Black Fish Tank, and explored how infltr’s integration of the Creative SDK enabled her to have a more seamless creative workflow between her mobile and desktop tools.
Read the interview below or infltr’s article here!
Originally posted on Medium
T. Hi Luna! Before we talk about infltr and how you’ve been using it, can you talk me through what it used to be like working between your mobile and your desktop as a creative?
L. Firstly, I love my iPhone 6S Plus — the camera is amazing so I hardly ever carry my DSLR with me anymore. I find inspiration can strike at any time so I use my phone to capture images on the fly to use in my work. Obviously, as a professional designer, I need to keep the images I capture in the highest possible resolution.
I don’t mind admitting that I haven’t had the greatest experience of moving files with Apple’s Airdrop — occasionally it works, but normally it doesn’t for me. So I use what’s probably a common hack where I send images from my phone to my desktop via email. I then download the images from email to my desktop and save them to Adobe’s Creative Cloud so I can use them in Photoshop or Illustrator later. It’s annoying — it takes time to upload / download files, my email is clogged with high res images, sometimes I have to sacrifice resolution to email the file and I end up with duplicate images across my mobile, desktop and the Cloud. It’s less than ideal but I definitely don’t think I am the only creative to work like this!
T. How did you use filters in your work before?
L. Before finding infltr, I didn’t really use filters for my images at all. I wasn’t happy with the limited choice of filters most camera apps offer so I would use Apple’s native camera to shoot and email the image to myself, edit it on my desktop, then share online or incorporate it into my work. Filtering images using infltr has changed that completely because when you swipe, you never know what’s going to be the next filter you discover. It’s possible to see hundreds — potentially even thousands of filters with just a few swipes. It’s always a surprise and I find myself choosing filters I know I would never find with another app or create on a desktop environment. Serendipity has a big part to play in creativity — some of my favourite images have been created using completely unexpected filters that infltr lets you discover.
T. So now you have the latest version of infltr installed on your phone, how has that changed the way you work?
L. infltr lets me share my images between my phone and desktop in a completely seamless way without losing any resolution at all. I connected the app to my Adobe account and with a single tap can save images from my phone directly to Creative Cloud and open them immediately on my desktop. No more emails to myself! Honestly I can say this is an experience I’ve never had with any other camera app — it’s really, really cool.
T. You’ve sent me an image that you created using this new infltr to Adobe workflow. Can you talk me though it?
L. I’m working on a project at the moment called ‘The Unbranding Manifesto’. At the heart of it is the idea that we need to challenge the old. To remain creative, we need to be less consistent with our past choices and start seeing in a new way. Embracing serendipity is the key to this creative freedom. If you speak to a photographer, most will probably tell you there are rules for photographing the sky. If shooting in colour, you work to enhance its blue tones, perhaps the whites of the clouds. But what if we “unbrand” the sky? What I mean by that is remove the rules and embrace the idea that the sky can be for example neon yellow? This unbranding of the everyday brings new meanings and connections to creative work.
I was thinking about what images to use to accompany this Unbranding Manifesto while scrolling through pictures I shot and filtered with infltrwhile in the Canary Islands. Unsurprisingly given the location, I took lots and lots of pictures of the sea and the sky. Some of the filters I discovered with infltr and used were unusual — they changed the “branded” qualities of the elements. One filter gave a picture of the sky the colour and texture of sand. Another image I shot of water had a metallic, blue grey filter that reminded me of the movement and energy that Van Gogh imbued his skies with. That’s how the idea of using composition techniques for the Unbranding Manifesto came to me.
I used infltr to save these filtered pictures in high res directly from my iPhone to my Adobe Creative Cloud, and then at my desktop, opened the pictures seamlessly in Photoshop with no change to the original resolution — and no need to upload and email myself individual shots! I used the image of the sand-coloured sky as the ground in the composition and the metallic image of the sea as the sky. I grabbed a photo I shot in Barcelona of the explorer Christopher Columbus — he actually set off from the Canary Islands on his voyage to the Americas in 1492. Before Columbus’s journey, some people still clung to the idea that the world was flat and that below the earth was more sky. Still in Photoshop, I cropped and layered the image of Columbus’ statue over the composite.
